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)