Honorable Mention / 2023 / Portraiture / Culture

• Photographer
  Shobha Gopinath, Singapore

At the festival of Thaipusam, devotees fulfill vows and make sacrifices and do penance in the form of either carrying a jar of milk on their heads or in the form of body piercings with hooks, skewers, and small lances. Many of these devotees even pull chariots with hooks attached to their bodies. Others pierce their tongues and cheeks. What is truly remarkable though is their calmness as this is being done. Even more astounding is that not a drop of blood is spilled. There are many inexplicable things in the world, this is one of them. Faith, perhaps?