Inside the Akhara

I have always been drawn to places where people gather around something that is deeply rooted in their lives.

The akhara is one of those places.

There is very little separation between the body, the earth and the activity here. The wrestlers train in the mud, fight, rest, watch one another and repeat the same movements over and over again. From close by, it can feel almost chaotic — bodies, limbs, dust, sweat and movement everywhere.

I spent some time photographing that physicality rather than trying to document the sport itself.

What interested me was everything happening around the wrestling: the men waiting, stretching, watching, struggling and occupying the same patch of earth. At times the bodies became almost abstract shapes.

These are not photographs about who won or lost.

They are simply fragments from an akhara.

The training begins before the wrestling does.

Waiting, watching, and then suddenly moving.

In the akhara, the ground is part of the fight.

For a moment, two bodies become one shape.