Bone connection

Animals inhabited the earth long before we did, and yet we have usurped their space. This series explores our relationship with the non-human beings.

Hunter from the Mirshikar community, Bihar The Mirshikars are traditionally hunters and trappers of birds and small animals. Spread across parts of north India and Bihar, they are known to have taught the art of hunting to Mughal rulers. The hunters paint their faces and wear feather headdresses and bones to resemble animals and birds—a visual likeness to the hunted counts as an advantage in hunting. They also mimic the calls and scents of birds and animals to trap them. The hunting skills of the Mirshikars point to the centrality of meat consumption in human evolution. After all, the earliest humans were hunter-gatherers. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

The boundary between human and animal lives is porous, sometimes unstable. This series of photographs, titled Interbeing, is dedicated to the bond—both loving and exploitative—that we share with animals. It examines our dependence on, exploitation of, and encroachment into the animal kingdom in the course of evolution.

Kambala festival, Puttur, Karnataka This is a slush-track buffalo racing event in which animals anatomically unsuited to running at high speed are made to race. One can see how the festival replaces the practical need to hunt for food with the psychological desire for sport. The instinct to chase and subdue animals remains. It is speculated that the urgency to escape predators lies at the core of all sports and gambling. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Camel fair, Pushkar, Rajasthan Pastoralism transformed the way humans viewed animals as it marked a clear distinction between the wild and the tame. Animals became the interface between nature and civilisation. The Pushkar mela, one of India’s largest camel, horse and cattle fairs, points to the time when animals were currency, directing the economic system. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Sand-tapping in Yamuna at Agra,Uttar Pradesh Beasts of burden such as mules and donkeys are used to help humans in their labour. Domestication, which involves caring for the animals, creates a symbiotic relationship, which is different from hunting. It is linked to the next stage of evolution: the discovery of agriculture. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Makara Sankranti festival in Mandya, Karnataka Man’s ability to overcome the inherent fear of fire and tame it gave him an evolutionary edge over animals. At Makara Sankranti festival, oxen are made to reenact our victory over fire by being forced to jump through a burning wall of haystacks. The folk belief is that the ritual rids the village and its cattle of evil spirits. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Ancient civilisations like India are deeply invested in animal life. It is a bone-deep connection going back several millennia. While the bond might sometimes be lost to our contemporary gaze, it is always present, making and remaking itself down the centuries. The equation goes beyond everyday definitions of good and bad as it expresses itself through an array of possibilities, ranging from the spiritual to the functional, from work to worship, from exploitation to exaltation.

Mahout in Madurai, Tamil Nadu The need to tame animals for human benefit soon turned it into a profession. However, the bond between the elephant tamer, the mahout, and his animal goes beyond the merely functional. The mahout’s job is an inherited profession and elephants are assigned their trainers early in life. Sharing each other’s living spaces, they develop a lifelong friendship. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Feeding birds in Jaipur, Rajasthan Birds represent freedom and are thought to be the link between heaven and earth. Pigeons are the souls of our departed ancestors in certain belief systems. Birds are regularly fed in India—it is one of the few ritual practices involving animals/ birds that is not cruel. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Shaman, Arunachal Pradesh In animistic belief, humans are a part of nature. For shamans or priests of animistic cultures, animals are the mediators between the reality and the unknown. They try to communicate with the spirit of animals by mirroring their behaviour—in the same way that hunters stalk their prey. In the journey to the otherworld, the shaman is either transformed into an animal or gets an animal as a guiding spirit. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Puli kali, Thrissur, Kerala This folk art involves imitating the moves of the hunting tiger. The human embodies the animal through music and dance to underline the belief that animals contain the spark of the divine. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

Beedhi Bhikshaka, Bengaluru The idea of bhiksha (begging for alms) is ingrained in Hinduism and Buddhism. It is a way of life for people who have chosen the life of a sadhu or bhikshu (mendicant). Street beggars in India often dress up as deities while asking for alms, the idea being that believers would not refuse a god lookalike. | Photo Credit: ASHA THADANI

In analysing this relationship, these photographs from across India ask what it means to be human, what distinguishes us from our planet’s non-human inhabitants, and what aspect of animal nature we carry within us. We might kill them for food, domesticate them to ease the burden of labour, or love them like our own: what comes out of these images is the undeniable fact that our existence without animals would have been incomplete, both physically and spiritually.

Asha Thadani is a photographic artist based in Bengaluru. Largely self-taught, Thadani was nominated for the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award in 2015. She likes to capture remote cultures, antiquated traditions, and contemporary life.