Hope Floats

An image shows a row of village kids perched on the broken wall of a temple posing for, itching to play cricket, while in another, a scantily clad boy with scruffy hair carries a cement trough on his head. In a third, a group of villagers are huddled on a makeshift boat crossing a flooded stretch of land. These images seen from Israeli freelance photographer Benny Doutsh8217;s lens of the recent Bihar floods are a mix of despair and human reslience. For Doutsh, 27, whose exhibition on the Bihar floods, 8216;Undercurrents of Hope,8217; currently on display at IIC Annexe Gallery, has looked hard for the positives. 8220;The newspapers were already carrying images of devastation. I wanted to find inspirational stories without the tragic element,8221; says Doutsh, who spent two months in Bihar after the floods, as part of his residency project with the Sanskriti Foundation. A chance encounter by an NGO working towards rehabilitating flood victims transported him to the middle of the flooded fields of Bihar. 8220;Thousands lost their homes and even temples were washed away. What I find amazing is that they preferred to re-build the temples first,8221; says Doutsh.

The exhibition is on till January 2.