Janwaar Castle

The cheers, laughter and giggles you hear coming out from the deep insides of Panna’s forest reflect the winds of change that have reached this area. Paving your way through the thick and hot summer air, getting off from the main street you will see more and more smiling faces the closer you come to Janwaar Castle. Their smile and laugh is virulent. Little boys and girls soaring high on their skateboards and dreaming dreams, believing in themselves and jumping quickly back on their feet every time they fall. 

The skate park, probably the first skate park in India, at Janwaar in rural Madhya Pradesh is a spark of hope for the many trapped in the rural patriarchal Indian society. It gives them reason to attend school, to respect girls and above all to thrive. Three Indian and a German people took an initiative to build up a skate park in Janwaar to give a new horizon to the lives of underprivileged children, lived in the village. In a country like India where cricket rules the roost, it’s hard to digest these kids do magic on skateboards. And it’s even harder to believe that only few years ago, they didn’t know what a skateboard was. However, gradually, skateboarding has given these kids the motivation to fall and rise over and over again. Given the fact that there were few opportunities for them until now, they’ve embraced skateboarding wholeheartedly. It means the world to them!

One interesting rules of the skate park is their slogan ‘No School No Skateboarding’. In certain way, they started a campaign for education by making schooling compulsory for those children to be a part of the skate park. The enthusiasm for skateboarding has made those underprivileged and tribal children to run for school and the unique approach towards spreading education has become successful.

At first, I was associated with the skate park to document the authority’s initiative and to project their process. However, spending more and more time with the children I fell in love with their enthusiasm and with the rough and innocent environment of Panna’s jungle. Hence, instead of only documenting the project, my attempt was to narrate the story of Janwaar and its unbreakable spirit: “Against all odds!” through my lens. Each portrait and their expressions have a narration to tell; a narration of ups and downs, sorrows and happiness, unspoken and spoken tales of lives and the rules of survival. Specifically, these photographs depict a journey from darkness towards light.