Bhubaneswar, June 10: Memories of the Nabakalebar festival in the past five decades have been refreshed at a photo exhibition hosted at Jayadev Bhavan.

Yesterday, Puri-based amateur photographer Debasish Sinha showcased over 150 photographs of various processions and rituals of the event from 1969 to present.

In black and white images, one could see a group of servitors marching and searching for the daru or divine log. The servitors, most of whom would avoid paparazzi then, could be seen standing alongside the wooden carts that carried the daru that were wrapped in special canvas meant only for the purpose.

The only things that were missing in the photographs were the colours and the dense crowd that gathered at every site where the sacred logs were found.

However, things looked different in 1996, as the pictures had both the splash of colours and a bigger gathering of devotees around the servitors.

"Pictures from the previous Nabakalebars refreshed the nostalgia of my childhood. In 1978, Jagannath's daru was found at my grandfather's village. I remember people thronging the site, though the number was much less," said Satya Mishra, a visitor.

The photographs of the previous occasions were a part of the collections of Ashutosh Sinha, Debashis' father. "Though my father was an auditor, he was passionate about photography and used to take a lot of pictures." said Debasish. My grandfather was a police officer and even he had great collection of pictures. I started taking pictures in 1996," said Debasish.

Despite having a bachelor's degree in applied economics and a software certification from a prominent institute in Bangalore, Sinha took up photography for the passion that runs in his family.

On the basis of his personal experience and from those he heard from his ancestors, Debashis claimed that the mega event looked the same in every way as far as rituals are concerned. "The servitors have conserved and carried out the tradition beautifully. All the rituals look exactly the same even today," he said.