DUST TO DHOOP (2011)
Incense is one the hundreds of products labelled "Made in India" that have become part of everyday life across the world. In a global economy, the products we buy are often produced in some far away country, by mysterious processes and unknown anonymous workers, and somehow they end up in our shops and our homes by the magic of globalisation.
When I was invited to visit Hari Darshan incense factory in Delhi, I encountered first hand the people and the machines behind the commodity. Men and women, hands and machines in perfect synchrony, every step of the process produced a small change, from the dusty raw material to the sticky dhoop that is turned into cones and sticks, to be perfumed, packaged and shipped far away. And yet the story I discovered did not have a beginning or and end. It was not about a product, a process, an outcome. It was an endless cacophony of individual voices repeating the same mantra day after day. The same quick movement, the same touch, the hand that restores the human to the the heart of the machine.
When I was invited to visit Hari Darshan incense factory in Delhi, I encountered first hand the people and the machines behind the commodity. Men and women, hands and machines in perfect synchrony, every step of the process produced a small change, from the dusty raw material to the sticky dhoop that is turned into cones and sticks, to be perfumed, packaged and shipped far away. And yet the story I discovered did not have a beginning or and end. It was not about a product, a process, an outcome. It was an endless cacophony of individual voices repeating the same mantra day after day. The same quick movement, the same touch, the hand that restores the human to the the heart of the machine.
