ARUNIKA by Simon Wheatley

In 2008 Simon Wheatley, seeking his Bengali ancestry and with an interest in yogic philosophies, met a girl at a Calcutta ashram who had come from Nagaland with her family for an annual festival. Eighteen months later they married in a simple ceremony conducted by a monk who had initiated him into the tantric tradition his wife was born into. ! ! When their daughter was born in 2011, he found himself in the northeastern town of Dimapur and began photographing with real enthusiasm for the first time in India. A year later he returned to Dimapur from some time in Hong Kong and China to feel principles encountered through a study of Tai Chi affecting his approach to photography. Previously he had relied on hard-won access to difficult subject matter, but in Dimapur he wandered randomly with the Taoist ideal of flowing like water, avoiding any resistances, chasing the light to wherever it seemed he was meant to be.! !This approach has resulted in pictures of myriad situations, some indicating that he is still drawn to society’s edges. ’Arunika’ is a combination of tenderness at home and a reflection of concern at the world he has brought a daughter into.