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kushti wrestlers
FAHTHAI
71
BEHIND THE PHOTO
“On the actual fight day,
thousands of people turn
up to see these guys in
action. It’s the highlight of
the year and only happens
once or twice. In these
small towns these guys are
like superheroes, they’re
worshipped and revered,”
Mohan says.
The colours in the akhadas are mostly
limited to shades of brown and red; how
did this affect your shoot?
The colours are one of the things that most
interested me about this. They’re red mud
wrestlers, they wrestle in mud pits and the mud
is not just any old mud, it comes from certain
spots, in riverbeds located in certain parts of that
state. It’s not even red, it’s maroon. The red is a
very important link between wrestling and the
wrestlers. They regard the colour as one of good
luck. There’s red everywhere, the walls are red,
the fighting ring is red, they wear red shorts and
they’re covered in red mud.
What kindof equipmentwas used for
the shoot?
I used a Canon camera and one lens. Really
that’s all I needed. It was all done with available
light. Sometimes you get amazing light in there;
sometimes it’s very dark. It’s just a combination
of keeping your tools as basic as possible and
coming up with interesting images. It’s hard
there because pretty much all of the akhadas are
doing the same thing. The wrestlers get in there,
they train and they fight – I had to somehow
tell a story of their lives and make every picture
different. That was the challenge. Keeping things
simple is what I would recommend people do.
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on page 137
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