First-of-its-kind exhibition of photographs from S-E Asia reaches Daudpur

Divya Goyal: Ludhiana, Sun Jul 21 2013

South-Asian Solidarity and Diversity: Lived Stories, Everyday', an exhibition displaying a collection of photographs of everyday life from all over Southeast Asia in a village, ended on Saturday. The exhibition was organised for the very first time.

Oraganisers said the exhibition received an overwhelming response from the villagers of Daudpur who, for the first time in their lives, were exposed to international photography.

"We organised such exhibitions in the city and a very selected class of people used to visit but we have been pleasantly surprised to see that villagers gave an amazing response and for three days we even had to extend our timings," said Daljit Ami, talking to Newsline.

The exhibition, which was organised by the Hri Institute for South-Asian Research and Exchange, Kathmandu and Panjab Digital Library, Chandigarh, was inaugurated by renowned artist Malkit Singh on July 18. "In our meeting last year with representatives from Kathmandu it was especially decided that instead of cities, such exhibitions should be organised in villages," added Ami.

The exhibition, which started from Chandigarh, will also move to other places in South-Asian countries. The images in the exhibition have been collected from individual collections of common people, amateur and professional photographers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet. Some of the most prized photographs in the exhibition include a calendar published from Calcutta in the 1950s, an advertisement of footwear company Bata which appeared in 1963 in Pakistan, and a photo of six sisters from Agra born during 1935 to 1946 who got triple degrees.

The photograph of a Nepalese woman, Vidya Pradhan, who graduated in 1966 from Thakur Ram Campus, Birgunj, makes for an interesting story. Pradhan refused to have her class's group photograph framed and hung on the wall of her house as she did not want to be reminded of her struggle to become a college graduate. Now, that image is being displayed in the exhibition.

(With thanks from Ludhiana Newsline. Spelling and factual corrections have been done while publishing it on this blog. )

Vignettes of life

Sanjam Preet Singh

Our everyday life subsumes many experiences that go unnoticed. The expression of joy on your parents’ face when you return home after a long time or sadness at the time of departure; going out with your friends to a restaurant; posing for the camera at the time of your graduation; or resting in the lap of your caretaker as a toddler. These are ordinary events in one’s life, but with no-less-ordinary importance.

Bringing together such images of life that offer a glimpse of yesteryears is photo exhibition Lived Stories, Everyday Lives: Images from Private Collection across Southasia that opened at Punjab Kala Bhawan in Chandigarh on Friday. The Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange, Kathmandu (Nepal), and Panjab Digital Library (PDL), Chandigarh, have put together 30 images collected from the individual collections of common people and amateur and professional photographers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet.

“The images are specific to one’s life, but has a resonance with everyday lives of people today,” says Sarita Ramamoorthy, programme manager at the Hri Institute. One such image titled Degree of Liberation is of nine members of the graduating class of 1966 from a Nepal college. Among them is Vijay Pradhan, the only female graduate in her batch. Everyone from her batch was happy to get clicked and talked of framing the photograph, but not Pradhan, reads the text beside the image. The photograph reminded her of the struggle to attain education. “We had to struggle a lot to break through those walls. The last thing I wanted to do was to hang my graduation photo on the same very walls,” she is quoted as saying in the text. Her fight reverberates in India of 2013. In May, six panchayats of Haryana’s Mahendergarh district stopped girls from going to school, following an incident in which two girls were allegedly teased on their way to school.

“The stories of struggle documented in these images strike a chord with one’s life,” says Davinder Pal Singh, executive director, PDL.

The story of struggle is one aspect of the exhibition. There are images that celebrate ordinary people’s extraordinary achievements. Like that of Veeran Bai, women wrestler whose photograph had appeared in the July 1937 edition of Punjabi literary magazine Phulwari with the caption reading, “Famous women wrestler from the south who has even defeated males”; of Birender Singh, who went to the US to pursue higher studies at a time when higher education was confined to the elite, and Manmohan Singh, first Indian pilot to fly solo from Britain to India. The photographs of Birender and Manmohan appeared in the February 1930 edition of Phulwari.

“These heroes would have been erased from people’s memory had not someone preserved these photographs,” says Sarita. She is on the button. “The importance of preserving the archives that hold a mirror to the life that once was is part of knowledge production,” says Davinder Pal. “Now that we have preserved the manuscripts, there is a chance that people will undertake research in the conservation of heritage,” he says.

With this message, the exhibition travels to Daudpur village in Ludhiana district. It will be held from July 18 to 20. Who knows an elder might connect with the Sikh soldiers of the British Indian army or a village boy from Hoshiarpur district waiting for a ‘tonga’ as his family has come to see him off to join the British army during World War I. 

(With Thanks from Hindustan Times; 13 July 2013)

Time frame

A photography exhibition, Lived stories, Everyday Lives, brings out a few triumphant and few traumatic moments of the yore 
Amarjot Kaur


Every picture has a story that is aching to be told and as the Chinese proverb goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, the ones at the Punjab Kala Bhawan explore rather vividly, the socio-economic and political scenario while challenging the complacent historical platitudes.
"The exhibition, Lived Stories, Everyday Lives are the images from private collection across South Asia, including personal contributors, Punjab Digital Library, Liberation War Museum (Dhaka), Tasveer Ghar (Delhi), Three Blindmen Photography (Colombo) and Nepal Picture Library. The project has been launched by the HRI Institute for South-Asian Research and Exchange and is aimed at creating a better understanding of regional history and the state of archives that sustain it," says Daljit Ami.

While you walk your intellect across the gallery, with your aesthetics leashed to your senses, your head oscillates from one corner to another attempting to catch a glimpse of historic moments, which gaze enticingly at you. The collection weaves a colourful mosaic of memories with the ink of rich cultural and political history that is significant to the region and its people. The exhibition features a photograph, Eating out, from the calendar art of the 1950s, drawing much attention to the 'eating out culture' that emerged from the post-colonial idea of women emancipation. The exhibition also showcases images of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's letters, which he wrote to his wife, Alyas, while he was serving his imprisonment period at the Hydrabad jail and some of the most exquisite and rare pictures from Phulwari, a Punjabi magazine, which is considered as the region's liturgical genius. While Bata's first print ad that appeared in the newspapers in the early 60s dons the walls of the gallery, giving much insight into the economic upsurge during that era, photographs like The Departing Solider (1911), Home Is Where The Train Is (1947), Postcard: The Europian War and The Younghusband's Mission (The British attack on Tibet in 1903) describe the pain of separation and warfare.

Pictures like Kamra-e-Faroee and Cameraman to Cleaner showcase the box camera, while the War of Liberation photographs detail on the loss of humanity and manpower, especially the picture of a four-month-old girl's shirt's photo that was clicked by her father, while she lost her life because of the Pakistani army crushed her.

(With Thanks from The Tribune, Sunday, July 14, 2013, Chandigarh, India)

Moving Images

Parul

The past offers a glimpse into the present and the world appears to be a lot closer as the images reel out life in front of our eyes, without mysticism and mythology. A real world with real people is what best describes an ongoing exhibition titled "South-Asian Solidarity and Diversity: Lived Stories, Everyday Lives". Organised by Hri Institute for South Asian Research and Exchange, Kathmandu, and Panjab Digital Library, Chandigarh, it celebrates the valuable work of preserving, conserving, digitising and archiving a part of our history through books, manuscripts and photographs.

Around 35 images on display here have been collected from individual collections, and from those of amateur and professional photographers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet. These represent a shared past across borders and diversity of the entire South-Asian region. "This exhibition starts from Chandigarh and will travel to other cities across South Asia," says Daljit Ami, who is coordinating the showcase, which also includes a section called Punjab Special. Ami is upbeat about taking the exhibition to Ludhiana's Daudpur village. "It will be probably for the first time in the history of Punjab that an exhibition will be showcased in a village. Common people will view moments from the past from the life of others and may connect across time and space,'' says Ami.

The first image on display is from the post-'50s Indian calendar art that represents the changing ethos of a newly independent nation. Towards the end of the colonial period, the contours of middle-class women's work had changed, as households shrank in size, there were fewer children and more domestic servants, and eating out became more common.

The experience of being used as cannon fodder by imperialist powers is not new to the region. A village boy from Hoshiarpur is waiting for a tonga as his parents have come to see him off while he is going to join British army during World War I. The images of Sikhs fighting during WWI and the British attack on Tibet may differ in finer details but seem to be an extension of each other. The bloody battle for Independence in Bangladesh, photographs from Afghanistan and Tibet — all are represented here. A moving image comes from the time of Partition, as coaches of trains became homes for refugees. These images do not represent iconic events but the extraordinariness of everyday lives.

(With Thanks from Indian Express: Chandigarh, Sat Jul 13, 2013)

Tale of untiring ‘seva'

Sanjam Preet Singh

Documentary filmmaker Daljit Ami’s latest creation, Seva, brings to light the unexplored field of conservation and digitization of heritage

Bhangra, giddha and phulkari and that’s all. This forms the popular narrative of Punjabi culture. But there is more to the heritage of Punjab that has been lying in oblivion. The crude reality is that manuscripts, paintings and religious texts — the tangible heritage — never become the points of reference to the rich Punjabi culture. What to talk of their conservation and digitization.

Well, documentary filmmaker Daljit Ami’s latest creation Seva, which was screened in Chandigarh on Sunday, brings into focus this very aspect. “The film is an introduction to the unexplored field of conservation and digitisation of heritage and I act as a medium to initiate a dialogue on the issue,” says Daljit. Indeed, he does so by threading together different narratives.

The film documents the untiring work of heritage conservationist Namita Jaspal, who has been working to preserve old texts and manuscripts in its original form. These days, she is working on an old text of Guru Granth Sahib. Making an equivalent contribution is the Panjab Digital Library (PDL), Chandigarh, working to preserve the information in texts. Since its inception in 2001, the PDL has digitised and uploaded on the Net nearly 8 million pages of manuscripts, paintings, rare books, photographs, archives of magazines and newspapers, and other rare books that were earlier in the private collection of individuals.

Then there is a narrative of those in Angitha (crematorium) Sahib gurdawars, where old texts of any religion are ‘cremated’. Those managing the Angitha Sahib gurdawars believe that religious texts are living beings and so they have a lifetime. Once they are old, texts need to be consigned to flames. Be it Guru Granth Sahib or Gita or Puranas, religious texts from states such as Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are sent to such gurdwaras near Paonta Sahib (Himachal Pradesh), Patiala (Punjab) and Goindwal Sahib in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district, to name a few, for their ‘last journey’.

Through the movie, Daljit crosses the regional barrier and sheds light on global scenario of heritage conservation, which is no different from Punjab. The filmmaker says, “At the screening of Seva in Bengaluru, a scholar from Myanmar said it was a film about his country.” And why not? Daljit crosses the regional barrier to talk about the global scenario.

The film refers that the loss during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is not only in terms of human lives but also in terms of heritage. The destruction of Lord Buddha’s sculptures in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s regime and further damage to heritage during the ‘war on terror’ is vivid in the memory of those keeping track of global events.

And those who have forgotten such events, Seva invokes such memories and forces us to think that our present is governed by the past and it is important to preserve the sources of our identity (read historical evolution of humankind).

(With Thanks from Hindustan Times, HT City, Chandigarh, July 1, 2013)