Tripal Singh was 11 years old when his father was killed in Nandnagri. He used to run a small dhaba and Tripal would help him after school. Tripal was in a bus with his cousin and going to his father on 1st Nov. He had a turban then and he remembers being slapped by strangers on the way. But someone also warned him not to travel any further. He was given shelter by a Hindu family. He hid for three days and after the riots found his father's dhaba burnt. They never found his fathers body.
(Interview with Rediff.com on my photo-essay on the Second Generation 1984 anti-Sikh riot victims, Delhi)
They lost their childhood to the 1984 riots.
In a moving photo documentary, the children of the horrific October 31-November 1-2, 1984 riots narrate personal tales bound together by the common themes of violence, loss and the death of their childhood, reports Sanchari Bhattacharya.
When photographer Sanjay Austa knocked on the doors of the ominously named Widow’s Colony in Delhi, the residents — all survivors of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots — assumed that he had come to do a routine story. But when he asked the women if he could talk to their children instead, they were taken aback. For residents of this colony in Trilokpuri, west Delhi, are used to talking to inquisitive journalists, who often ask them to recount details of the communal carnage that had taken away their beloved husbands.
They are also used to the sudden media attention every year around the time of the anniversary of the riots, or when a senior leader is rapped on charges of inciting them 26 years ago. But their children had so far remained beyond the spotlight of journalistic curiosity.
“Whenever one thinks of the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, we think of the widows of the victims,” says Austa. “But no one pays any attention to the children of these widows. Perhaps because the children don’t appear to be as interesting as victims, or maybe because they were too young at that time to give any gory account of the riots,” he adds.
Rajinder Singh was 10 years old when his father was killed in the 1984 anti-sikh riots in New Delhi. Rajinder was hiding in his neighbour's house with his six siblings. His father was advised to cut of his hair but he refused. He hid in his house in Nandnagri but the mob found and killed him on 1Nov. He was also a ricksha-puller.
The vivid images of From Lost Childhood to Uncertain Future, his photo documentary, starkly outline the stories of children “who grew up in the shadow of the riots. These children were newborns or only a few years old or in their mother’s womb when they lost their fathers, brothers and uncles,” says Austa. Now in their mid to late twenties, these youngsters narrate personal tales bound together by the common themes of violence, loss and the death of their childhood.
While working on the photo documentary, Austa discovered that the riots had not only left an indelible scar on the minds of the survivors, it had also altered social and financial equations forever for the bereaved families. “The male members were the only breadwinners and the women were housewives. Suddenly the women had to take up clerical posts to make a living and there was no one to look after the children at home,” says Austa. “Some of the widows remarried and their children from the first marriage were often neglected or alienated,” he adds. “All these children had a difficult childhood and it showed. As children, they either dropped out of schools or had to help their mother supplement the family income,” reveals Austa. “Today, more than 60 percent children born in the wake of the 1984 riots are either drug addicts, or unemployed or involved in petty crimes.”
Austa, who visited the colony for an earlier assignment, was struck by the sight of several young men milling around on the streets, apparently ‘doing nothing’. “I made enquiries and found out that these were people who were born during the riots. Most of them were school dropouts and were unemployed. Some of them were clearly on drugs,” he says, explaining how he chanced upon the unusual subject.
Manjeet Singh was three years old when his father was killed by a mob in Bhanjanpura on 1Nov. They descended on their house and dragged his father out. His mother went with him pleading with the mob. They even threw her 10 year old son in a burning pyre. But someone from the mob rescued him. His father was taken away and his body was never found.
On why he chose to take up photography full time, Austa says, “I think a photograph can convey a story in a stronger way than words. In words, we can exhibit our prejudices, our biases, but a photograph is just what is there. I am not really comfortable with the idea of shooting someone on the street and not having anything to do with him or her later. I like to engage myself in the subjects I shoot. The subjects I choose must have an interesting story to tell which I try and tell through pictures,” he says.
Austa realised that the process of sharing the tragic stories of his subjects would require extremely sensitive handling and a lot of patience in this case. “During the first few visits, I did not take a single picture,” he says. Instead, he spent that time meeting the families, talking to the youth and forging an understanding with them. “It was much later, after I had won their confidence, that I began shooting,” he says.
Watching the world go by. Many youth as well as the middle-aged people in the widows colony are unemployed with no permanent job.
The members of the second generation of the riot victims are painfully aware that life has dealt them a raw deal, that they lost their shot at a better life when their fathers lost their lives in the riots. The trauma of either witnessing or hearing stories about the brutal murders of their family members continues to haunt these youngsters. “Some of them, who were four years or older, remember the events vividly. Very few second generation victims could make something of their lives,” says Austa.
His photographs, which capture the moods and moments of the second generation survivors, have garnered a considerable amount of attention after they were posted online. They also received a fair amount of interest from an unexpected quarter. “Hardline sympathisers of the Khalistani movement, who are settled abroad, wanted to appropriate these pictures for their anti-India propaganda. But my intention is only to tell the story as best as I can,” says Austa.
On how the young residents of the Widow’s Colony have reacted to being photographed thus, Austa says, “Some of them were happy (with the photographs), but others wanted to know why I shot them from such crazy angles. They wanted to know why I didn’t take straight shots like they do in studios.”
I missed the spectacle of the Northern Lights but even in the bleak, cloudy weather there were eerie hues towards the evening.
(Click on photos to go to gallery)
( In March 2010 I had an opportunity to fly to Lapland and photograph the life in the Arctic. While the rest of the world was preparing for a fine summer the Arctic had not fully woken from its long winter slumber. Following is one of the travelogues i wrote for newspapers . )
Arctic circle is not an imaginary line. At least not in the Santa Clause village in Lapland where elaborate lamp-posts tell you exactly what side of the latitude you shiver. This is just as well. Crossing the 66 degree latitude is indeed a big deal not just for equatorial inhabitants like us but even for the Northerners who come here to make this big ritual crossing. And as if to emphasize its significance, once you cross over they give you a certificate (all for a few Euros of course).
But did I fly across the globe for this hot-selling touristy kitsch? The psychological value of the high latitude apart, the thrill value of the Arctic circle is not even an Indian equivalent of crossing an Himalayan pass. I had come here for some serious Arctic adventure. And Lapland the Northern Province of Finland offered it in truckloads.
So it was quite a relief when Jari our guide and trip organizer backed out his Wagon from the Santa Clause village and drove us on the long straight highway further north. Lapland has four seasons and from canoeing in summers to snowmobiling in winters it has enough activities to have your adrenalin pumping all year around. But this was already April. It was almost the advent of spring. But this year the winter showed no signs of retreat. It was longer, colder and more unpredictable than normal. Usually by April the snow begins to melt off the grounds. Finland’s over one thousand frozen lakes thaw and crack. The birch and pine forests sprout new leaves and the ground awash with freshly melted snow begins to breath life into fauna lying dormant for over six months under several feet of snow.
Marek perhaps made the mistake of tying a female Alaskan Malamite along with two males of the species to the sledge. He tied her behind them but it was not long before they caught her scent. This distracted them and they would sniff the air , the path, and turn around intermittently bringing the ride to a halt.
But this extended winter was perfect for the winter activities Jari had in mind for us. We had already experienced one in Rovaniemi, Lapland capital , within one hour of our flights landing!. A reindeer sledge ride was a perfect way to throw us headlong into what Lapland represented.. I had barely checked into the hotel called (What else?) Clarion Santa Clause when I was helped into thick overalls that made me look 30 kilo heavier. I would have to wear them for all outdoor activities in Lapland and I realized the sooner I learnt to lumber in it the better. But this gear was perfect protection from the biting cold. And by the time we reached the Reindeer farm it was already six in the evening and several degrees below zero.
It can be pretty cheesy doing the usual exotic activities a country is famous for. Riding a reindeer sledge in the Arctic a la Santa is certainly one such. Its almost like jumping onto a bullock cart or a rickshaw ride in India. But Reindeer Sledging is something much more. No matter how old you are you cannot help but think of partaking in a Christmas legend you grew up reading through school. The Reindeers are strong reliable and mild arctic animals who wait for a tug from you on the reign before they move anywhere. But my reindeer seemed to have a mind of his own or perhaps he could sniff out nervous tourists. He choose to ignore any tugging on the reign and dragged my sledge of his own volition and speed. From the sledge all you can see is the narrow hump of the Reindeer and his flat hoofs as they spring back and forth. I wondered how anyone riding the sledge could possibly see where they were going. But my reindeer had gone down this path a lot many times before and after cutting a large swathe in the pine woods we were soon back at the reindeer farm.
Reindeer Ride is mostly a tourist activity now in Lapland but long time ago along with the Husky sledging it was the only means of transport in these parts. It is not only high on adventure but also seeped in the culture and history of the place. The original inhabitants of Finland the Sami have lived lives inseparable from the Reindeers and the Huskies. The Sami are to this day reindeer farmers. From the once hard life dependent mainly on hunting they have come a long way and some of them are so rich that during the herding -season – late September- they employ helicopters to herd in their large Reindeer flocks.
This man grows potatoes in the summers and with his suspenders and a comely paunch looked every bit the archetypical Arctic farmer i had imagined. Here he rests against the bunkers that the lumberjacks of yore slept on during their night halt.
But it’s the Husky ride I was looking forward to the most and as Jari drove I hoped we reach before the sunset so I am able to take some good pictures in the evening light. You don’t have to be a dog lover to love the Huskies. In fact these Arctic dogs are not really dogs in the true sense. They have a wolf ancestry and similar domination fights, some of which are so vicious that they end in a bloody death. However they are surprisingly benign to humans. For that reason they make very poor guard dogs for they will fawn and wag their bushy tails at any stranger.
It was over two hours drive up to Suomu – the small tourist village- our stop for a Husky safari and I couldn’t wait to photograph the Huskies on the sledge. But Marek the Husky keeper would not take us anywhere near the dogs unless we had heard the last detail about the dogs including their names. A Husky Keeper is called a Musher in Finland. It’s a French word meaning `go’. “When we set off on a Husky safari we say `go’ to the dogs when we start. That’s how we got the name,’’ explained Marek.
Marek kept two breeds of Huskies. The Alaskan Malamites and the Greenland Dogs. The former is a much larger and stronger dog but the latter is more Wolfish in style and demeanor. This was put to good display the moment we entered their kennel when half a dozen one year old Greeland puppies began fighting apropos of nothing. Marek explained they were having domination fights and will continue fighting from time to time until status is established. I suspected the dogs were fighting to compete for our attention. Marek however did not attempt to separate them even when one of the pups bled in the battle. Nature was supreme and was respected.
From the once hard life dependent mainly on hunting the Sami people have come a long way and some of them are so rich that during the herding -season - late September- they employ helicopters to herd in their large Reindeer flocks.
But our sledge dogs today were thankfully the less bad-tempered Alaskan Malamites. They were overfriendly and clearly raring to take us on a ride. Marek said the dogs loved long excursions but were put off if they knew the ride was short. That made me feel less guilty having these lovely dogs put on a leash for me and have them drag me across the Arctic forest. They looked huge but weighed only 35 kilos. When I attempted to pet one of them my hand sank in the furry coat. The dogs were all hair and fur and that’s what kept them going in the sub zero Arctic winter.
Marek perhaps made the mistake of tying a female Alaskan Malamite along with two males of the species to the sledge. He tied her behind them but it was not long before they caught her scent. This distracted them and they would sniff the air , the path, and turn around intermittently breaking the ride from time to time. Marek had to shout `go’ more than once. But the scent of the female was clearly too overpowering. In the pine and birch forest Mareks `go’ echoed back along with the excited yelps of the dogs. But despite the frequent interruptions in which the dogs performed their mating rituals in front of me , I was at least happy that unlike on a Reindeer sledge, I could at least see where the dogs were dragging me.
Early next morning it was snowing. It was bleak and it was cloudy. But was that a problem? Snow is never a problem in Lapland. It just adds to the fun. So the snowmobile safari scheduled for today would go on as planned. And as I sat astride a sleek snowmobile it occurred to me that I was raring to go even though I had never ridden a bike in my life. That’s the level of comfort and confidence you get from helpful snowmobile instructors. But the snowmobile is also an incredibly easy machine to operate. After you turn the ignition all you need to know is when to accelerate and when to press the brake button.
The Reindeers are strong reliable and mild arctic animals who wait for a tug from you on the reign before they move anywhere. But my reindeer seemed to have a mind of his own.
It’s was snowing but in the minus eight and below temperatures the snow just collects as crystals on your overalls until you decide to give them a shake. The snow reduced visibility but its good enough to see the snowmobile of the leader in the front. We follow him through the winding roads in forests to over frozen lakes and rivers. We maintain a steady speed but others wiz past us at almost 70 kilometers an hour. In the winters snowmobiling makes for a great outdoor activity and if one is adventurous enough one can do the entire length of Lapland in a snowmobile.
Skiing is another popular activity but Finland does not have the great Alpine slopes of central Europe. It is a relatively flat land but the few slopes it has are great for skiing. The flat pieces of land particularly those bereft of any trees are usually one of Finland’s frozen lakes that number in thousands. They are perfect for testing your patience at ice fishing. But I gave up after standing over a drilled hole with a small fishing rod in less than a minute. After riding with the reindeers and huskies, fishing was an activity that was last in my mind.
How to get there.
There are a plethora of flights to choose from everyday from both Mumbai and New Delhi. Finnair has daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai and cuts the shortest route to Helsinki from India.
Rovenami Lapland’s capital, is the gateway to Lapland. You can either fly here from Helsinki or take the train or railroad car at night.
‘Candid’ Wedding Photography- It happens only in India.
If you were getting married in India five years ago, chances are you would be resigned to the wedding photographer bullying you into awkward poses with your spouse on the wedding day.
Today you just hire a ‘candid’ wedding photographer. He does his job discreetly and you are left to enjoy your wedding. In less than five years there has been a sea change in how Indians want to get photographed in their wedding.
Indian Wedding in Chicago, USA
But what is ‘Candid’ Wedding Photography ?
The fact is, there is no such thing . In the west where wedding photography is a well entrenched genre - it will sound silly to call yourself a ‘candid’ wedding photographer or an ‘art’ or ‘contemporary’ wedding photographer – as some photographers have begun to call themselves in India. There if you shoot weddings you are simply a wedding photographer or a wedding photojournalist. In India wedding photographers give themselves fancy honorifics to differentiate themselves from the conventional wedding photographers.
Candid versus conventional Wedding Photographers.
To be able to make this distinction very clear is all-important for this new breed of ’candid’ wedding photographers. The reason is understandable. For generations wedding photography in India has been a very unique field indeed. A wedding photographer was not just the guy who shot your photos. Together with the priest he literary commanded the proceedings of your wedding. When to smile. When not to smile. When to stand up . How to sit down. Not to forget the photo-sessions where the couple was goaded to pantomime bollywood film-stars of the sixties.
Indian Wedding in Dubai, UAE
For many photographers the distinction that they don’t do posed photos is good enough reason to call themselves ‘candid’ or ‘art’ wedding photographers. The truth is there is a lot of ambiguity about what a candid photograph is in the first place. If it is simply a photograph that is not studied or posed then it is like giving a camera to a child and telling him to press the shutter randomly at people. The photos you will get will be candid enough.
Those who look for ‘candid’ wedding photographers have seen the overly intrusive traditional wedding photographers harass their friends and relatives on their wedding day. They are simply relieved to have a guy who does not breath down their necks on their own wedding. They are not art-directors, photo-editors or professional aesthetes who can really make a informed judgement on the quality of the photographer’s photos. They are private individuals running a business or with jobs in the share market, banks, hospitals, universities or corporations and their brush with photography hardly goes beyond them commenting on their friends holiday photos on Facebook.
Muslim Wedding in Tanzania, Africa
Dominated by Amateurs and Fly- by- night Wedding Photographers
It is no coincidence therefore that Indian wedding photography is dominated by amateurs. (In fact today it’s hard to think of any genre of photography that isn’t) I refer not only to photographers who just entered the profession. I am also referring to an overwhelming number of software-professionals, call-center executives, bank managers, copy-writers, disk-jockeys, etc who moonlight as ’candid’ wedding photographers.
There is no denying that almost anyone with a DSLR is shooting weddings in India. Of course most of them have no formal training in photography. The overwhelming opinion is – you don’t need it. The most one is willing to invest in is a weekend photography workshop. Why would you waste your time doing a photography course when the digital camera’s LCD tells you exactly what you have shot? If its not a good picture you simply delete it and shoot the next. Right? I, however disagree. I think at least a basic course in photography is a must even for wedding photographers. But then I can be a bit old-school.
Indian Wedding- India
With the Indian wedding photography awash with amateurs, no one can really say which way wedding photography in India is headed. The market however has acknowledged their presence. Magazines and event companies hold annual wedding photography prizes. The Wedding Photographer of the Year organized by Better Photography- a premier Indian photography magazine is angled at this army of amateurs. Hundreds of amateur wedding photographers apply and take a shot at winning the contest.
Can any Johnny with a DSLR do Wedding Photography?
This leads to the question. Is wedding photography in India that easy and something any Johnny with a DSLR can do? The answer is both yes and no.
The fact that people with full time jobs are doing weddings as a side-profession shows that indeed wedding photography is any Johnny and his second cousin’s cup of tea. What is easy is getting assignments and the reasons are mentioned above. You deal with regular people with little or no knowledge of photography. More often than not they are hiring you as the next best option to the traditional studio photographers.
Gujrati Wedding in USA.
Getting assignments may be the easy bit but shooting a wedding in India is not such a walk in the park either. The conditions a wedding photographer shoots in India are vastly different from his western counterpart. Indian weddings, unless they are Christian Weddings, usually begin after 7 pm. The photographer has to shoot in extremely low-light conditions. This is now not so much of a problem as there are cameras with highly sensitive sensors that work fine in dark-conditions. The videographers however pose the biggest problem. They switch their lights on and off randomly leaving you to toggle with camera’s settings each time.
Though amateurs have a big presence in every genre of photography now, I think the easiest genre for them to break into is perhaps wedding photography.
An Engagement at Long Beach, Los Angeles. US
How do you find a good Wedding Photographer in India?
So who are the top ten wedding photographers in India? Unlike the West, wedding photography in India is only a few years old. It will require at least a decade for it to evolve and mature and for it to throw up top-notch professional wedding photographers. The fact is, very few professional photographers in India do wedding photography. And if they do, weddings are seldom more than 10 or 20 percent of their total work per annum. Therefore the best way to get a good wedding photographer for your wedding is to look at his or her other work and not just wedding photography. I think therefore its important to see what else the photographer can bring to the table and whether he or she excels in it.
Indian Wedding.
Because not many professionals have entered this growing wedding photography market there is plethora of foreign wedding photographers filling the vacuum. Many of them park themselves in India especially during the wedding season (mid September to late January) . Some of them are great but they seldom get hired for their professional expertise. In an India obsessed with ostentation, there is nothing as impressive as a `gora‘ bobbing around the Puja Pandals shooting gloriously accoutered wedding guests.
On the boat on the Brahamaputra, Assam.
What is then a ’Candid’ Wedding photograph?
This brings us back to the moot question. What is a ‘candid’ wedding photograph? It is certainly not the opposite of a ‘posed’ photograph. If that was the case, any photograph you shot randomly would classify as a `candid’ photograph. According to me a good photograph, ‘candid’ or otherwise, should communicate to you on many levels. It must have some story to tell you. It must be a moment that evokes some emotion, some response, some thought from the viewer. To give a few examples-a mother seeing her daughter in bridal dress for the first time is a moment that happens in all weddings. The mother’s expression on seeing her daughter is something to cherish forever. Similarly the glint of pride in a father’s eyes as he watches his daughter take wedding wows is an evocative moment as is a brother bidding farewell to his sister.
Couple Shoot- Golden Gate, San Francisco
However not all wedding photographs should necessarily be loaded and poignant. There are more humorous moments in a wedding than an average wedding photographer would care to record. For example the bridegroom getting rubbed the wrong way during the haldi ceremony. Or a bride yawning during the course of her wedding. This is not so rare since Indian brides are so overburdened with the long marriage rituals that sleep deprivation inevitably shows up on their big day.
Much as I realise it is an important ritual , the Jaimala I think is the most boring event of any Hindu Wedding for a photographer. You are bound to get the most standard staid photographs. Unless of course you improvise and look for new angles and compositions. And then of course you can get a refreshing Jaimala garlanding shot.
Apart from the main rituals there are lots of side stories playing out all the time. For example the bride’s friend looking suspiciously at the make-up artist at the parlour with one eye. Or two bored wedding guests sitting as if waiting for it all to end so they can go home. Indian Weddings are full of such brilliant moments and the growing tribe of ‘candid’ wedding photographers are at the ready with their DSLR’s . Some miss them but many others are busy capturing them for eternity.
I was at the Dead Sea shooting the usual drab stuff you shoot at a beach when these gorgeous Jordanian girls approached me and asked if I could shoot them as well. They said they were of Palestinian origin and wanted to get shot with their homeland in the background. From the Jordanian coast you can see the Palestinian cities clearly and for the Palestinian Jordanian seeing the Palestinian city- lights is always an emotional moment.
(click on photos to go to gallery)
Why would Prince William and Kate Middleton want to spend their honeymoon in Jordan of all the places in the world? Like everyone else I had wondered about it when I read the news. But on a recent trip to this middle-east country I realised why. Jordan is an oasis of peace in an area where suicide-bombings, repressions, reprisal shellings and political uprisings are a daily norm. Driven primarily by tourism this desert country has managed to keep away from the daily bloodshed that embroils all its neighbors. It is the only middle-eastern country that has successfully brokered peace with Israel even though more than 40 percent of its population are Palestinian refugees. We traveled from the Roman city of Jerash in the north through the Biblical sites at Madaba, Mt Nebo and Bethany -the place where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
Horsemen in Petra. The horses were on hire to ride around Petra.
For a non-believer the Biblical sites can be the most boring part of the trip. No ancient structures grace these ancient spots. The churches are no older than 50 years. Even Moses’s memorial at Mt Nebo was just a slab of not very old stone. He was said to have been buried somewhere on this mountain. However Moses has a big Indian connection if some Christian scholars/ archeologists are to be believed. They claim after his work was done Moses lived and died in Kashmir. (Just like Jesus after his crucification) In fact there is a grave of Moses and Jesus in Kashmir to show for it too. A jewish family has been overlooking these graves since generations. The Vatican of-course does not validate these revelations. But I like this story.
Dead sea was a night’s halt. If you don’t know how to swim, Dead Sea is very good for your confidence. You float effortlessly. However if you know how to swim the extreme salinity of the water (31 percent) will ensure that you cannot do move much. After which we travelled south to the landscaped mountains of Petra and deserts of Wadi Rum and finally ended the journey at the shores of the Red Sea in Aqaba.
A bedouin with his camels in Wadi Rum desert.
Petra by night is an otherworldly experience indeed. Its a long walk down the narrow siq or gorge. It was indeed a surreal experience walking in near dark with looming mountains above you in this ancient city . And then suddenly you chance upon this site- thousands of candles illuminating a three-story gateway into the mountain. You are made to sit here and listen to the beduins play some music. This was the treasury of the ancient city of Petra. The Egyptian Pharaoh is said to have hid his treasures here on his pursuit of the Israelites.
Wadi Rum is the archetypical middle-eastern desert with an Arabian Night aura. You have jeep safaris here but of course you can also hire a camel but the distances are so huge that jeeps fair better.
We terminated our journey at the Red Sea at Aqaba- Jordan’s commercial hub and only sea port.
Everyone wants to be photographed floating in the Dead Sea
The boys loved to jump into the oceans from the shore. There was a competition on who would jump the highest and the furtherest. It seemed it was an impromptu game as all of them jumped with their clothes on.
(click on photos to go to gallery)
( You usually round off your African Safari with a relaxing beach destination. But I did quite the opposite. Tired from a hectic six-day shoot in Dar es Salem, I headed for this beautiful island first and then booked myself on the wild-life safaris. Travelogue published in July 2011)
As soon as I land on Zanzibar Island I am assailed by a battery of taxi drivers. `Jambo’ shouts one in their midst and I quickly signal him out. Jambo is hello in Swahili but I assumed he is from hotel Jambo- the hotel I had called for reservations. But before I can get into his taxi another taxi driver tries to wean me away saying. “Don’t go with him. I will take you to a better place ‘’. It took some jostling before I am allowed to get into the car and drive off . In India the taxi-drivers are competitive but thankfully not so cut-throat I thought.
There are more pleasant ways of arriving on Zanzibar island- a semi autonomous part of Tanzania. The best one and favored by most tourists is flying in direct and not sail in like me from across the African mainland.
If you fly into Zanzibar you will be rewarded with fantastic aerial views of turquoise and blue waters and views of the emerald eden-like islands of the Zanzibar archipelago. Zanzibar is indeed quite an African oasis. Who would imagine white sand beaches on the African continent? But every year this beautiful island attracts thousands of tourists from around the world- chiefly from the Middle-East , Europe and Asia. Most tourists visiting the mainland for its wildlife round off their trip by cooling their heels in the cool , calm waters of Zanzibar.
Almost all beaches in Zanzibar are beautiful but there are more secluded beaches to the North of the island. However if you want a cultural experience you must stay in the historical Stone Town which is right on the harbour. Stone Town is a quaint little town which lives upto its name. Everything seems to be built with stones here. The houses are built with it and the narrow lanes that run through it are paved beautifully with it. The town with its maze of lanes and alleyways has a feel of Chandni Chowk about it without of course the clutter , open drains and the cluster of electricity wires overhead. Its great to walk in these lanes hemmed in by tidy buildings on both sides. The doors of Zanzibar are famous for their elaborate and symbolic carvings. They have both Indian and Arabic influences .
This man was trying hard not to looking into the early morning sun. I thought it made for a good photograph. (sanjay austa austa)
Zanzibar was directly on the trading route to the African mainland from both the Indian sub-continent and the Arabian peninsula. No wonder you can see the influence of both the cultures in Zanzibar. There are not many old buildings here. Old Fort is a ruin of a huge fort built around the eightieth century by the Omani Arabs. Beit El- Ajaib or House of Wonders is a significant building on the island. It’s a high ceiling 3- story building near the port built as a ceremonial house for the Sultan in the 20th century. This building has the biggest and the most ornate doors in Zanzibar. It has a museum with a rich exhibit of tools of various trades, dresses, dhows, and other memorabilia depicting the history of settlers on the island.
Beit El- Ajaib looks over the Forodhani Gardens which has a great spread of sea-food cooked fresh by vendors. It’s a great hangout place for locals and tourists alike.
If you get up early you will find the long queues of people filling water from a community tap. The island has its water shortage issues. But electricity is the main problem. There has been no power on the island for over a fortnight. The underground cable coming in from the mainland snapped underseas and it would be many weeks before it is restored again. All the hotels on the island run on generators. There are no streetlights and it can get very spooky getting to your hotel in pitch dark through the narrow lanes. The locals light candles or sit outside their houses on benches in the dark drinking soup or chatting.
Zanzibar archipelago has beautiful islands among which Pempa island and Prison islands are the most famous. I visit Prison island which is a convenient one hour boat’s journey from Zanzibar. It was used to house convicts but later used as a quarantine for traders coming with illnesses from Asia and Arabia.
Today Prison islands main attraction besides the soft white sandy beaches is the population of giant turtles . They are painfully slow and lazy and prefer to eat out of your hands than make pickings on their own.
Prison island is called so as it was originally ment to house convicts. Much like the famed `Alctraz Prison' this was going to be the perfect island for hardened criminals. The jail was constructed but it was never used as one. Rather it came to be used by the British as a quarintine station for those who came from Asia or other parts of the world to Zanziba and were infected with diseases. The visitors would be housed here until they were treated for their diseases. (sanjay austa austa)
If you visit Zanzibar you cannot miss the `Spice Tours’. Spices have been growing on Zanzibar ever since the traders from Asia introduced it here. The tour is done on a `dhala – dhala’ or minibus that leave in the morning for a daylong excursion into the orchards deeper into the island.
It’s a 30USD tour ( including a lunch in a village ) and the guide takes you to the spice orchard where you are shown various spices on the island from the common ones like ginger, clove , turmeric etc to the exotic nutmeg which is a mild intoxicant and consumed mostly by women. The tour also includes a bit of history as you are taken to the Sultans Royal bath.
Most of beaches promise dolphin watching. Its mostly dolphin chasing what with the hapless dolphins being spotted and chased on boats for the tourists by tour operators. But thankfully for most people Zanzibar is an idyllic beach destination where one just sits back and relaxes.
How to get there:
There are no direct flights to Zanzibar island from India. To get there one has to get to Tanzania or Kenya first. There are no direct flights to Tanzania either. But Kenya airways has regular flights from Mumbai via Nairobi to Dar es Salam.
From Dar es Salam you could either take a two hour ferry to Zanzibar or fly in.
‘’Its good you gave your camera away’’, I am usually told when I recount my mugging in Africa .
Most of us have a filmy notion of street-muggings. Its more Hollywood than Bollywood. You are walking down a dark-alley when hooded hoodlums waylay you. They brandish a knife or a gun and say stuff like ‘’Your money or your life’’.
But when I was mugged in Tanzania , two years ago, it took me a couple of minutes to get my bearings and realize I had been mugged. It happened so fast.
I was walking down the busiest street of Arusha – (the Tanzanian town bordering the famous Serengeti and Ngorongoro National Parks.) Having gone on a Safari to these two splendid Parks , I was now wrapping up my African trip with some memorabilia shopping at the local crafts bazaar.
The Maasai whom I had shot extensively in the morning. Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
My Nikon D700, with my newly acquired 24-70mm Nikkor lens, slung over my shoulder. In my camera my 32gb memory card had the exploits of the day- photographs of the exotic Maasai in their Boma’s or villages. In one distant village the Maasai even danced for the benefit of my camera in their rhythmic war-formations jumping high in the air while their women rotated giant necklaces around their necks. It was my last day here. I had had my share adventures in Africa for one trip. Tomorrow I would take the long road journey back to Dar es Salaam to catch my flight back to India .
I had just reached an intersection when I felt the tug. Suddenly a stout young man materialized in front of me pulling the camera strap off my shoulder. I resisted and he pulled out a knife. It was an unusually longish knife with an unusually shiny shaft which even in that moment of danger made me think it was artificial. He said something in Swahili. Maybe it was ‘’ Your camera or your life’’. But my brain shut down completely and I could only hear a buzz in my head. He brought the knife to my hand holding the camera strap and in a reflex I let go of it. In a split second he grabbed the camera and ran. I was still in a daze when I felt a hand go over my trouser pockets. There was an accomplice who was making a dash for my wallet. Fortunately his hand could not slip through and he raced empty handed after the camera grabber. They sprinted across the street, swerved in an alley and disappeared.
When i first shot this painting i thought it was a man in an erotic embrace with a woman. But I realised it was actually a warning about pick-pockets. It couldn't be more ironic.
I looked on confused. Did I just get mugged in broad daylight? It was perhaps the most bustling part of town. I just could not believe it. The two dozen or so people who saw the mugging walked on without batting an eye. At the shop opposite, unemployed young boys stood looking at me with bored expressions. A lady on the payment two feet from me continued to sell corn without throwing as much as a sidelong glance at me and the cars whizzed by on the street as if nothing had happened.
After what seemed an eternity a woman approached me and said there was a cop down the street. I went to the policeman but he said I better report the matter at the police station. I hailed a cab. The driver knew little English and as he raced down a lonely stretch, I thought he was part of the gang. But thankfully he was just trying to get me to the station fast.
At the police station a pot-bellied inspector took down my complaint. He regretted that theirs was still a third world country so there were no CCTV camera’s at street corners. He said he had to get the evidence the traditional way. He called three more cops and took me in his police jeep to the spot where I was mugged. Once there, in a style reminiscent of Indian police , he randomly picked up people loitering on the street and brought them to the station.
I asked the inspector why had he caught innocent bystanders. He said they were not innocent. Some of them must know the culprits he concluded. My report was lodged so the inspector had to show he had done his duty by me. He would not listen. He threatened the young boys in the station for over an hour with dire consequences. These young boys must have hated me. A foreigner who could not take care of his camera and getting them into trouble like this. I could not look them in the eyes. I was lucky to be leaving the town by an early morning bus the next day.
With the Wankaner residents on the village cot, Gujrat.
‘’ Sir, Chetan is changing the schedule constantly. So we have no idea where he will go next’’, say the organizers.
I am readying myself on a five day road trip with the novelist Chetan Bhagat who is the subject of ‘MyEndeavour alterrain’ a 5 part adventure series for the National Geographic.
He is to drive the SUV Ford Endeavour Alterrain in Gujrat’s hinterland meeting interesting people earmarked for him along the way. Already in the cans are the drive bys of filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor, pugilist Vijender Singh, actors Gul Panag and Rajeev Khandelwal.
When I arrive in Ahmedabad, I am told Chetan and the crew haven’t arrived and would now reach only the next day and I am free do what I want with my time.
The next morning, I try to get to the shoot location but no one is certain about the crew’s whereabouts. They were at radio station before then at a university campus but no one could say where they are headed next.
‘’We might tell you something right now but what if Chetan changes the program tomorrow’’, the organizers tell me ominously.
This is mostly how Bhagat saw the 'Real' India.
But when I finally meet Chetan, I meet a malleable, agreeable fellow. Easy of manners, casual in spirit, breaking into the colloquial to become one with the crew; he is as affable a celebrity you can find. The blame for all the last minute changes had all quite unfairly been put on him.
He is the star of the show but is just as uncertain about what’s next , where we are heading and how we are going about this whistle stop tour of rural Gujrat. This is his first major shoot of this nature and he is just beginning to understand what goes on to making a documentary. ‘’ I have usually been behind the camera but this is an eye opener. Now I can appreciate the kind of hard work involved in putting a shoot together’’, he says.
Like the rest of us he is dragged half- asleep out of his bed at about six every morning no matter how deep into the night the shoot lasts the previous day.
Running the show that involves more than a dozen crew members (including a line producer, makeup girl, two camera men, their assistants, sound engineer, assistant directors ) is of course the director.
Dressed up fashionably in a frilly summer attire and a wide brimmed hat and dark glasses firmly in place, Bindiya Murgai, the Director exudes absolute authority and cracks the whip on everyone including Bhagat.
As a director she has to make quick decisions and is hardly found wanting. For example at the kite flying grounds in Ahmedabad where after few rehearsals with Bhagat she abruptly orders a ‘pack up’ when the breeze fails to lift any of the gorgeous kites.
She also has to battle the cumbersome Gujrati officialdom. Permissions long granted for the shoot have to be endorsed, some are summarily rejected others delayed, belying the baritone message of hospitality relayed by its mascot Amitabh Bachchan exhorting us to visit the ‘vibrant’ state in those adverts.
Middle of the shoot but can't resist tweeting can we?
Chetan Bhagat chose to drive in Gujrat. ‘’My book ‘Three Mistakes of My Life’ is based in Ahmedabad so Gujrat was an obvious choice’’, he says. But who he should meet and the story line is decided by Bindiya and her Blue Mango Films production house in consultations with Nat Geo.
‘’I want to see the real India. Its important to see these people living at the grassroot level’’, Chetan tells me. But accustomed to dishing out homilies though his columns and tweets, Chetan is clearly out of his depth when it comes to asking questions about other people’s lives.
‘’ Yes I face the same criticism when I try to do something good’’, says Chetan to an elderly Siddi woman in a Siddi village in Junagarh when she begins to speak of her travails.
The director has to intervene and remind Chetan that the lady’s story is not coming through. She then supplies Chetan the right questions and the cameras rolls again.
Chetan has come to see the ‘real’ India but he clearly cannot get enough of the India he has left behind. Between shots, in the jeep, even between conversations with the locals, he twiddles briskly on his blackberry.
This surprises me, for I had known writers to be like sponges. They observe, they take note, they pay attention. But then there are story-teller and there are writers. Bhagat is a story teller but certainly not a writer. A storyteller can spin a good yarn and find an eager audience to lap it up. And indeed, from pubescent collegians to bored housewives Bhagat has built a huge constituency for himself . But writers ask questions. They probe the status quo, upset the applecart and sometimes hurt sentiments. Bhagat meanwhile has flourished on political correctness and mushy banalities. In the age of mediocrity the formula works.
Mr Bhagat looked up from his phone only when he was made to pose for the camera.
Chetan’s first port of call in rural Gujrat is Wankaner where Prajapati Mansukhlal has made a name for himself making refrigerators out of clay. Mitti Cool, his company, makes not only fridges but also water dispensers and pressure cookers, and all sorts of pots and pans. They not only are affordable but also provide employment to vast number of Wankaner inhabitants.
Bindiya has an esoteric reason in naming her production house Blue Mango Films. ‘’Blue is the throat chakra and Mango is sweet’’, she explains. But this unusual name results only in hilarious consequences in rural Gujrat.
At Mansukhalal’s workshop a clay water dispenser for the crew is marked ‘mango Blue Films’. Even in Rajot the skittish hotel receptionist looking for my name in the list beams ‘’ Sir you from Blue Films no?’’.
It is a long drive to Junagarh from Wankaner where in Sasan Gir’s buffer area, Chetan is taken through the rigmarole of the Maldhari’s tribal way of life. He is made to walk among the wood- gathers in the forests, climb an old village tree , talk to children and the pretty Maldhari women – all in an effort to make his rural investigations look authentic.
‘’I liked the Siddhi dance the best’’, says Chetan reminiscing on the trip later. ‘’It was amazing to see the ethnic African tribe here in Gujrat’’, he says.
Shooting a sunset moment in Junagarh, Gujrat.
In fact a local mela of sorts is organized at Sasan Gir village for the sake of the shoot ,where in a choreographed sequence, the author is made to stumble on the Siddi village and is welcomed by the dancers.
The racially African Siddi’s whose ancestors were brought to India fromAfrica almost 500 years ago put up quite an act for the cameras with their wild African dance and fire breathing. They eventually haul the reluctant Bhagat on their bare backs and prance with him around the village square.
But it is Ankit Ahuja the associate director, who with his thick mop of wild, shaggy hair, makes an impression on the rural folk everywhere. He perhaps has more strands on one lock of hair than I on my entire scalp. Everyone wants a photograph with him even as Bhagat wanders by busy as usual on his blackberry.
It is only in the main towns and in the airport lounges where Chetan Bhagat reclaims his celebrity; where his readers finally seek him out and urge him for an autograph.
Following is an Interview with Raghu Rai on his latest book Bangladesh : The Price of Freedom, I did for a newspaper.
‘’I never seem to find something when I need it’’, confesses ace photographer Raghu Rai settling behind a capacious desk at his studio in Mehrauli New Delhi. For many decades Rai had been searching for his 1971 Bangladesh war photographs and had given them up for good. But when old boxes were dug up in his studio in the process of digitizing his work , his assistance handed him a dusty old packet marked ‘Bangladesh’.
‘’The packet was so tightly sealed that everything inside was in perfect condition’’, says Rai.
The packet contained Rai’s first and only conflict photographs. He was barely five years old in his profession then and though some of his war photos were published in significant papers around the world, he lacked the confidence to turn them into a book.
But these photographs passed the test of time. Over the decades, the human suffering they depict is as fresh and compelling. ‘’ When I looked at the pictures today I thought they were potent enough and they deserved to be put in a book’’, says Raghu Rai.
The book, Bangladesh:The Price of Freedom (Niyogi Books), published this year, has over 100 photographs that focus on human stories, making an interesting contrast with Bangladesh- A Brutal Birth,Kishore Parek’s seminal book on the war, which focuses on the gore. Parekh, much senior to Rai, also covered the conflict and along with war photographer Don McCullin depicted the war in all its horror. Their photographs dripped with violence and blood at its graphic best.
Raghu Rai photographing the Anna Hazare Movement, 2011
While Kishore and Don seemed to be at the war front documenting the violence, Rai seemed to be interested in those that were left behind in its wake. Rai’s pictures are of hapless refugees ; most of them weak from walking and hunger, the girls pregnant from rape, the children wild and confused and the old dazed and traumatized. The book is a unique war testimonial as it has only two photographs of corpses and only a few others of injured soldiers.
‘’When Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated there were pictures of him blown into pieces. If I was there I would not take the photos that way. I am not condemning anyone else’s work -but at the same time that is not the way I would do things. I would like it to be more symbolic and take photos that bring out the suffering in a subtle way not the brutal way’’ , he says.
Raghu Rai also has a clear position on the perennial debate on whether the photographer should intervene or be a witness to an unfolding tragedy. He criticizes Kevin Carter, a member of the mythical Bang Bang Club, who shot the Pulitzer wining ; starving- child –and- vulture photograph in Sudan. ‘’ I believe he left the child there . He did not do anything about it. Alright you take few quick pictures but you can’t leave the child. Aisa thodi hota hai.If somebody is shooting somebody and if you intervene you might get shot is another matter. But here in this case – oh my god. That is sinful. And that is unpardonable’’, he says.
Most photojournalists make a name for themselves covering conflicts across the world. Not Rai, for whom the Bangladesh war remained the only conflict he ever photographed. He admits to being squeamish about blood
‘’ Once I was with a doctor friend and there was someone with a bleeding arm. The doctor said Raghu can you hold it, I will put some stiches. I held his arm and almost fainted. I said I cant take it’’, he says.
Bangladesh: The Price of Freedom: Raghu Rai
Raghu Rai is also one of the rare Magnum Photographers who hasn’t ventured beyond one country (except perhaps for this book on Bangladesh war) He has remained steadfastly committed to photographing India and India alone producing over 30 books on it.
‘’ India is a large enough world for me to carry on. India has everything here. You have people dying of hunger here. We have had wars also. We have almost everything. And also I don’t believe in flirting around everywhere.’’, he says.
India indeed has been a big draw for photographers around the world many of whom built their reputation solely by photographing India. What perhaps puts Rai apart from the lot is his Rushdiesque depiction of India. Rai is to photography what Rushdie is to literature. There are no neat, studied frames. His photos radiate the boisterousness of an Indian street with its multitude of elements, all of them falling perfectly in place. Though just starting out in the profession then, one can see Rai’s experimentation with his trademark panoramic wide shots in Bangladesh- The Price of Freedom.
‘’I am asked is there any Indian vision? I say no. There can’t be an Indian vision. I was born and brought up here and I can smell and feel so many nuances and little little details that a foreigner may not respond to. So my understanding of a situation will be more comprehensive. But I will not call it Indian vision because photography is a universal language’’, he says.
Refugees taking shelter in the hume pipes. Pic: Raghu Rai
His books and exhibitions have always brought him fulsome praise from critics but does he think he made a mistake by having the exhibition ‘Just by the Way’? For this exhibition Rai had pulled out (besides clouds and rocks) nudes he had shot in the 70’s and 80’s. The photos passed muster only due to Rai’s name. The exhibition was in fact held under the aegis of Tasveer, a premier photographer’s gallery, but as one reviewer pointed out, ‘’His images (of nudes) look voyeuristic and unaesthetic, harking back to photographs in disreputable men’s magazines 30 years ago’’
Raghu Rai explains, ‘’Not that the work I showed was great work. I won’t claim that. It’s not necessary that every photograph should touch everybody. But certainly I am an explorer and some of my images are strong and very successful some images may not be that strong. It doesn’t matter’, he says.
Rai is now busy putting together a book on Kolkata. He however says he can’t find his photographs of Mother Teresa. Maybe a little more rummaging in his studio may find him this treasure as well.
A pregnant girl at a refugee camp. Pic: Rahgu Rai
Old Man takes shelter from the rain. Pic: Raghu Rai
Fleeing Refugees. Pic: Raghu Rai
A mother mourns her dead child. Pic: Raghu Rai
Young and old walk for miles to cross the border. Pic: Raghu Rai
The colors of Rajasthan have drawn me to this desert state several times but this was the first time I was shooting a wedding there. The wedding was in Samode Jaipur. When I saw the palace I was surprised that I did not come here on any of my trips to Rajasthan. Samode’s magnificent palace is barely known to tourists.
It is almost an hour’s drive from Jaipur and I think it’s the seclusion from the touristy circuit that gives Samode its appeal. Films have been shot here and during the wedding season it is the haunt of destination weddings.
Nirali the bride and her groom Alfonzo live in the United States . It was a cross cultural wedding and the couple had already had their Church wedding in the US . They were now coming to India to do the nuptials the Indian way. The wedding was as grand as the setting. It was done in typical Rajasthani Maharaja style. There was the liveried wedding band. There was the Rajasthani song and dance. There were elephants and the camels. There were pool side cocktails. And there were all manner of cuisines on offer.
Rajasthan’s grand palaces offer breathtaking venues for weddings. The palace weddings have a regal charm which make even simple wedding ceremonies look grand. Old magnificent palaces are all over this desert state and are regularly hired as wedding venues. The most popular destination weddings in Rajasthan happen in Udaipur, followed by Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.
Nirali’s and Alfonzo’s Samode wedding had all the majesty of an imperial wedding. The American guests who formed the barat got as exotic a glimpse of India as they could have ever imagined.
Life and death are so finely interwoven into the matrix of Indian life that sometimes it is just a matter of course. Like in this quaint restaurant in Ahmedabad, Gujrat where the living come out to dine with the dead. Built over a graveyard, the New Lucky Restaurant has more graves than tables. The graves are painted bright green and the waiters and clients have learnt to negotiate their way around them to the tables.
Far from spooking customers, who sit here till late in the night discussing Chief Minister Narender Modi’s next move, over tea ; the graves lend an aura of Sufi spirituality to the eatery , increasing footfalls.
‘’ Some of the new customers ask if this is some sort of a dargah’’, says the manager of the restaurant.
The owner Krishan Kutti Nair has no clue, neither how old nor whose graves they are but says its important to respect the dead. ‘’We make sure no customer put their feet on these graves. We make sure the graves remain clean’’, he says.
Every morning a swarm of restaurant attendants dust the graves and ceremonially place a rose at the foot of each grave. The graves also have a small protective railing around them.
Supping with the dead.
The graves are said to be of the relatives of a local 19th century Nawab but there is no written record and everyone has a different version. The restaurant itself came up in 1950’s when vacant plots began to be annexed in Ahmedabad’s steady urban expansion. Sitting along the way was this ancient graveyard. Rather than being bulldozed or circumvented it was adopted and assimilated in a way that is characteristically Indian. The founder of the New Lucky restaurant K. H . Muhammad originally had the tea-stall outside this Muslim graveyard. The tea and buns here became so famous that he had to build a structure around the graveyard to accommodate the rush.
Tombs have traditionally had a spiritual connection in India. Some of them like the Nizamuddin’s Tomb in Delhi, or the Dargah in Ajmer are places of great spiritual importance for pilgrims across faiths . Some others like the tomb of Taj Mahal or Humanun’s Tomb are invaluable world heritage sites.
’’Its peculiar. But in India we honor our dead and remember them. So its makes sense to sup with the dead’’, says Vijay Naik a banker whose office is not far and who is a regular customer here.
Hussain's painting adorns the restaurant wall.
Besides the grave, the restaurant also accommodates an old bent neem tree which is in the middle of the eatery with its slanting trunk going right up through the roof.
The restaurant is also known for its Hussain. The maverick Indian painter M. F. Hussain was a regular here in his youth. He like everyone was drawn here by the famous tea and buns. As an act of appreciation he gifted one of his paintings to the eatery which finds its pride of place on a wall in another section of the restaurant. ‘’ A lot of people ask me about the price of this painting. But it’s a gift and how can one put a cost to any gift. We will never part with it’’, says Nair.
And as for the graves. They are not going anywhere in a hurry. Not over anyone’s dead body for sure.
The Bang Bang Club- By Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva.
Your reading of a book is bound to be coloured by where you read it. I read The Bang Bang Club in my orchards from whose idyllic quietude even the daily grind of city life (the traffic, the noise, heat, crowds and the monumental preoccupations) seem like a kind of violence .
It was spring then and the air was redolent with promise of fresh life. The apple buds were at the cusp of bloom. There were sprouting leaves and grass. The birds were chirpier than ever and the bees buzzed everywhere.
But war? And the war-photography? They were clear misfits. But this was the book I brought along and in the salubrious environs it only gave fillip to immense misanthropy ; that brutality is the common thread that ties humanity across all races , climes and ages.
Ethnic bloodletting has been par for the course whenever a country negotiates its freedom. From the bloodshed in India in 1947 and in Bangladesh in 1971 we don’t have to look very far for history’s gory examples. All identities till then equally suppressed begin to reassert themselves in the vacuum left by a totalitarian regime.
A Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Greg Marinovich. An ANC supporter hacks a burning man.
In South Africa there was a bitter bloodletting in the years following Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and the subsequent transition of South Africa into a functioning democracy. The apartheid regime determined to show the blacks as incompetent and unruly, propped up the Inkatha supporting Zulus warriors against Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC). And in the bloody civil war that ensued between 1990 and 1994, thousands of people on both sides were killed in grusome mob violence.
But it was not for the political history of South Africa that I picked up this book though I must say anyone looking for a lucid political account of those bloody years would find The Bang Bang Club immensely informative.
I bought the book to get a handle on war photography- the holy grail of most photojournalists. Co-authored by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva – the surviving members of the so-called Bang Bang Club, the book gives an intimate account of conflict photographers and their dilemmas, their psyche, and their ethics.
Kevin Carter's famous Pulitzer photograph of a starving child and vulture.
The perennial question of whether the photographer should intervene or should he be an objective observer is perhaps answered by each photographer for himself based on his or her sensibilities. There is no one rule and its just as well that the four war photographers in this book deal with the question their own different ways.
For me the book dispells a grand legend revolving around Kevin Carter’s suicide. The story in the popular imagination is that Carter was so overwrought by the human suffering he documented –most notably the starving child and vulture scene in Sudan-that he could not take it anymore.
But it turns out that Carter had a long history of psychological issues. He had attempted suicide once before, much before he even became a photojournalist. His psychological issues were compounded by his drug abuse and in his suicide note he writes about his personal suffering in which financial worries seem an overriding factor.
This book was published way back in 2000 but its surprising that even this bestseller could not set the record straight. There seems to be only one explanation. Photographers drum rolled the romanticized version of Carter’s suicide to demonstrate by extension their own sensitivity.
A Zulu hacked in public. By Joao Silva
But this is not to say that ravages of war or human misery don’t affect photojournalists. Even Greg , in whose voice the book is written, flirted with thoughts of suicide.
Greg was the saner of the quartet – that formed the Bang Bang Club. (Joan Silva was given to bouts of uncontrollable anger. Ken Oosterbroek was a reformed racist. Kevin Carter just could not get enough of drugs). The book is astonishingly honest and a brave attempt at not only answering but also asking fresh questions about the ethics of journalism at large and photojournalism in particular.
A singular feature that stands out in this book is of journalists and their unhealthy streak of excitement whenever they hear of a great tragedy. You just have to see the beaming faces of the television reporters as they wax eloquent tiptoeing around puddles of blood and shattered glass.
Inkatha supporters kill a man suspected of being a Xhosa. By Greg Marinovich
Sample this description from the book where Carter narrates how he tool his Pulitzer wining photograph.
‘ I was shooting this kid on her knees, and then changed my angle, and suddenly there was this vulture right behind her!’ Kevin was excited now, and talking fast. ‘And I just kept shooting- shot lots of film!’ His arms were all over the place, as they usually were when he was recounting something exciting.
It has been said that photojournalists go to warfronts as the danger makes them feel alive. This certainly seemed to be the case with the four photographers of the Bang Bang Club. They thrived on violence and it became an addiction. And there were consequences. Ken Oosterbroek paid with his life when he was shot dead in 1994. Kevin committed suicide (and in Greg’s account resented Ken his bullet). Greg has been shot three times covering conflict across the world but won’t stop going to war. Joao Silva lost both his legs to a land mine in Afganistan but wants to go the front lines again.
The book demonstrates that in the world of photojournalism your skillsets don’t matter as much as your nerve and enterprise; both often bordering on the reckless. No wonder why conflict photography attracts many young photojournalists who see it as a sure shot deliverance from anonymity.
Greg Marinovich being led away by ventral war photographer James Nachtwey. By Juda Ngwenya
Greg Marinovich with Joao Silva who lost both his legs to a land mine in Afganistan. By David Furst
Smut-cards with contacts of escorts and call-girls lie all over The Strip, Las Vegas
After the brutal rape of a 5 year old girl in New Delhi some weeks ago, I was about to join the chorus and pen a piece about the hopeless law and order in our cities, police reforms, political apathy and some familiar drivel about the security of women.
But a few days after the minor’s rape, a 2004 new clip went viral on the web. Two men had raped a cow in the Tughlaqabad area of the Indian Capital in 2004. They tied up the poor bovine, raped her and after finishing, stabbed her multiple times. This was clearly something else and it led me to reflect on why do humans have sex at all.
Humans are the only species on the planet who rape though ironically we often call the rapists animals.
No animal rapes. No animal has sexual perversions or depravities. It is, as with most things, a peculiar human trait. ( Scientists however contend that some animals including dolphins, chimpanzees, elephant seals, spider monkeys, bonobos, scorpionflies exhibit a rape like behavior. However they concede that unlike Humans, the sexual assault in animals occur only when the female is sexually receptive or in estrous)
Sex has become a problem for man primarily because humans have transcended their biological need for sex and have sex for psychological reasons. All animals except humans, have sex when they are in ‘heat’. A tiger or jackal , the cow or even the donkey for example will only mate when the female of their species is in estrous or ‘heat’ and indicates her condition by emitting pheromones or by leaving scent markings. Sex for animals is purely instinct driven and meant for one reason- procreation.
Depiction of erotic love on the walls of Kandaria Mahadeva temple, Khajuraho.
Humans are the only species that have sex for pleasure (some biologists say dolphins and some species of monkeys also have sex for fun but I highly doubt it). Though we refer to our sexual desire in terms such as ‘pleasures of the flesh’ or ‘physical needs’ we usually have sex to pleasure our minds. Sex is a physical activity but sexual gratification is always mental.
Thats why even our doctors advocate sexual fantasies to pep up defunct sex lives. We have a multi-billion dollar porn industry to cater to and whet our every sexual whim and fancy.
When golf champ Tiger Wood’s sexual escapades tumbled out of the cupboard, it was interesting to note that there was not a single black woman in that long list. The women were of different nationalities but were all white. It was somehow a black man’s psychological conquest of the whites.
Prostitution is illegal but happens rather openly in Vegas, USA.
It all boils down to one thing. Humans, unlike animals, live in the mind. Because we live too much in the mind we have tremendous psychological needs. Its these psychological needs that drive us to do almost everything we do. Be it getting that bigger car, bigger house , better salary, or bedding different people. The arch of human ‘progress’ is chartered around this great psychological need.
So too for rape. We know for a fact that sex crimes are nothing but power play , a display of domination and a result of patriarchal mindsets; having little to do with physical gratification.
That’s why the spiritual tradition in the East is hinged on ‘dropping’ the mind. Techniques such as meditation were developed to still the mind. Once the mind was calm -thoughts of avarice, lust, ambition, were said to disappear.
But the East also developed Tantric sex. Here sex was not avoided but used for a higher purpose.. The idea was to prolong the sexual orgasm to a point where you got a glimpse of Nirvana itself. To prolong this glimpse –all sorts of tantric tricks were employed. Psychologist Abraham Maslow acknowledged such eastern mystic experiences, calling them the ‘Peak experience’.
Gupt Rogh Doctor. Sexual disorders plague no other animal.
Tantric sex however failed because it usually attracted the repressed and began to be associated with all sorts of sexual indulgences.
Because humans live so much in the mind there is an instinctive need to get out of it. We want to forget and escape. Sex is the easiest, most effortless means of doing so. It is indeed a stress buster.
But the pleasure humans experience during sex is not of the act itself. We experience pleasure because of the images of sex, our memory of sex and our fantasies. Thats why most people report better orgasm during masturbation -when thought is untrammeled and uninterrupted by the mechanization of sex. And its not uncommon for couples in long term or conjugal relations to fantasize of other people during sex to get it off with their partners.
Lastly humans are also the only species who try to suppress their biological impulse for sex. The celibates have tried it since millennia. But it only ends in failure because while the biological act can be avoided there is no escaping the sexual imagery that plays out in the mind mind ( the suppression in fact only ends up a build up of lascivious thoughts) .
We can hang our rapists and we can go on long marches against the government of the day but as long as sex remains a mental and not a physical impulse, sexual perversions and crimes such as rapes, incest, pedophilia will not go away in a hurry.
Millions of Wildebeests live in close proximity in Serengeti, Africa. But they mate only when the females gives the signal.
Base Camp at Night 5700 meters. Nights like days in the camp were misty but one evening after dinner at i saw the tents glow in the moonlight. It took quite a while to adjust my tripod on the slope and take this slow shutter shot.
(click on photos to go to gallery)
(In 2004 I went on a two month Kanchenjunga expedition with the Indian army to document their climb in my journal and my camera. The following is one of the travelogues I wrote for magazines. The galleries have photographs from the expedition.)
Testing Adrenaline on Kanchenjunga
“Are you sure you will be able to climb?’’, asked Lt Colonel Satish Sharma, leader of the Indian Army’s Kanchenjunga Expedition. I was not a city slicker, who had never seen a mountain before. I was born and brought up on a hill station and had trekked up small hillocks for picnics and walked in over two feet of snow in my Wellingtons on many a Shimla’s winter. But going up the world’s third highest mountain was a different ball game altogether. I looked at the satellite pictures of Kanchenjunga on the wall behind the Colonel and realized clearly where I was pushing myself. The picture taken from the mountain’s southwest side showed a broad white massif of the mountain, with leviathan glaciers running down its many ridges. I saw the progression of camps marked on the mountain and traced the Advanced Base Camp to a spot frighteningly close to the very summit! This was the point till where I had volunteered to accompany the Indian Army to record its expedition on camera and in my journal.
Would I be able to make it? Those who have climbed both Mount Everest and Kanchenjunga, say latter is a much more difficult mountain. It demands great technical expertise from the mountaineer and unlike Everest which has now become every back-packers destination, Kanchenjunga is not on the itinerary of even the most seasoned of mountaineers. The route to the summit is virtually unknown. The dangers and pitfalls on the way undiscovered. In Everest there are avalanche experts called `ice-doctors’ who go ahead to the Khumbu Ice fall region and warn climbers if there is danger of an avalanche there. No such luxury in Kanchenjunga. Avalanches, blizzards, falling rocks, and crevasses have to be risked with the climb. There are no fixed ropes here and every expedition has to do its hard work. One in every four climbers has died climbing this 8586-meter high mountain, making it arguably the most dangerous mountain in the world.
(Click on photos to go to gallery)
Sherpas apply sunscreen before setting out on the climb. The Sherpas are the unglorified climbers in the Himalayas. Every successful expedition that returns home to applause conveniently forgets to mention that these Sherpas led their way including fixing ropes for them to the very top. Without them the climb is impossible. Only few great climbers like Reinhold Messner fixed his own ropes on his climbs.
I was accompanying a team of hardened mountaineers of the Indian Army, mind you. Almost all the 22 members had been on more than half a dozen mountain expeditions before. Four of them had climbed Everest, besides other 8000 meter peaks of the world. Among them, Naib Subedar Neel Chand and Naib Subedar C N Bodh, were regarded as the best mountaineers in India. Even Gary Lamare the young zealous cameraman hired to make a film on the expedition was something of a precocious climber. A few years ago, he had climbed up to Camp 1-in Everest-and this time, he was determined to climb to the very top of Kanchenjunga. Even the thought of walking in such company was intimidating. I thought of avalanches, frostbite, deep crevasses and death. Nonetheless, I nodded to the Colonel.
Within a week , my rucksack was ready and I was raring to go. I got my first 15-second view of Kanchenjunga from Darjeeling (where we went for a day before crossing over into Nepal) before a cloud enveloped it up again. It was the most tantalizing peek-a-boo one could ever have had. The Kanchenjunga massif loomed 40 kilometers into the distance. Yes, it looked so beautiful in the orange glow of the setting sun and all that. But it was a picture –postcard image to be savored by the Darjeeling tourist who, after a day or two of lolling in the hills, would head back to whatever city they had come up from. For us, Kanchenjunga was not a study in aesthetics. It was a question of adrenaline and how far it could take us. To me, it looked remote and inaccessible. It was a very surreal experience even though it was being experienced in the comfort of a tourist sun-spot in Darjeeling.
Kanchenjunga lies on the watershed between Sikkim in India and Eastern Nepal. It can be climbed from both the countries. But the Sikkimese regard Kanchenjunga as a holy mountain and deferring to the local sentiment the Sikkim government banned expeditions from the Indian side. Therefore all expeditions to Kanchenjunga are organized from the Nepal side.
Moonrise on Mount Kabru seen from our Base Camp. Mt Kabru is a 7318mts mountain which was right across from our Base Camp. But we saw is rarely as the weather was never clear. I took this shot on a rare cloudless night just when the moon rose from behind the mountain.
We crossed over into Nepal and headed on an excruciating 16 hour bus-journey to Tapleyjung a remote town in the Eastern Nepal. Tapleyjung at 1800meters was the last road head in our expedition. The army used helicopters to land in Ramche at 4500 meters. Ramche with its emerald blue-lakes, its dwarf rhododendron and juniper speckled hillsides, its gurgling streams set amidst the snow-caped mountains is an idyllic hideout. Yaks graze and grunt in this vast sylvan valley and if one is lucky blue sheep can be seen hugging steep craggy hill-sides. It was to be our Administrative Base Camp and the first milestone on our mission to the Kanchenjunga summit.
However I got the taste of what I had set myself against when I decided to walk up a steep hill-side alongside our campsite. To my astonishment I found myself out of breath after just a few steps. I felt my heart pound hard in my rib-cage. Oxygen depletes rapidly after 3000 meters and at 4500 meters there was just half the Oxygen there is at sea level. `How will I reach the Advanced Base Camp( ABC) at 5600 meters?’, I wondered. The route to ABC was through an undulating moraine full of small and big boulders that could topple on you or under you any time. And if one slipped and fell into pools of snot-green glacial water, one would be in an advanced stage of hypothermia before anyone could drag you out. The army climbers were already making bets on when the `bloody civilians’ would crash out of the Kanchenjunga race.
Climbing a mountain takes a combination of mental and physical strength. How much I had of the latter, I did not know but I certainly steeled myself mentally to carry on. “ It is when you think you are too exhausted to go on that one has to make all the more effort to go on’’, Gary, the other `bloody civilian’ besides me reeled out the ultimate mountain conundrum, when I asked him if there were any tricks to climbing.
Yajung glacier and the Base Camp. The Yalung glacier was right below the big mound where we had our Base Camp. The sunlight reached our camp first in the mornings and in the shadow the Yalung Glacier looked deep blue
I kept that in mind when after a week at Ramche the climb began to the ABC. I not only exhausted quickly but was soon alone in the moraine. The seasoned Army climbers had gone on ahead, leaving me to bring up the rear. It was a two day trek and was to be the toughest one of my life. My legs ached and my head felt heavy. I just wanted to lie somewhere and never get up. After hours of determined climbing I caught up with the army members. It was a relief to discover that they were as exhausted as me. But they would rather die than admit this to a `civilian’. They said they were waiting for me. But when I finally reached the ABC, (5600 meters) they shrugged off some of the contempt and warmed up to me .
The oxygen here was almost one-third of what it is at sea level and my head felt dizzy. The mountains, all of them above 7000 meters, hemmed in our campsite. Glaciers, the size of huge building blocks, hung on the mountain sides or lay in the valleys below with deep crevasses wide open on their surfaces. The avalanches took a lot of time getting used to. They crashed down the mountains every half-an hour. In the initial few days, I woke at night, shuddering in my sleeping bag to every big crash of an avalanche. With time one gets acclimatized to the lack of oxygen but it still takes a great deal of effort to do the smallest of tasks. Crawling out from my tent and walking down to the dinning-tent, a few yards below left me as breathless as a marathon runner. Climbing beyond the ABC began. Till now we had been walking on solid ground and on the moraine but now there were ice-falls, snowfields and glaciers. That’s where the Sherpas came in. The Sherpas are truly indispensable in the big mountains of Nepal. Most climbers, except a few hardened ones, have to employ their services if they want to reach the summit.
The Indian army also relied heavily on them. The Sherpas not only established four higher camps but also fixed the ropes all the way to the summit. I was eager to capture the climbers on camera on these snow-bound reaches of the mountain but I could not tell a crampon from a piton or a jumar from a snow stake. In one grueling session, I learnt the basics from two climbers and the next day, with my heart in my mouth, I was crawling up the first steep ice-wall beyond ABC. For the next one month, I climbed a bit higher each day and had a series of adventures—from losing my way in a crevasse filled snowfield to falling down a small snow-ledge. The day for the summit attempt arrived finally. Pempa Ringzi Sherpa, an intrepid Sherpa, who had climbed Everest seven times, led the first party of India army climbers. He was just 200 meters from the Kanchenjunga summit when the rope ran out. He was unanchored and risked a fall to death when he straddled a sharp ridge and inched up with his ice-axes. But there was no way to move up without a rope. Everyone had to fall back to the ABC to recuperate and device another strategy. It was a great disappointment for everyone in the expedition especially Gary for the second summit attempt would include only the tried and tested mountaineers from the Indian Army.
Stopping to take breath. Mountain climbing is a slow activity. Its not a gallop but one step at a time where the slow and steady wins the race.
After a week Pempa Sherpa led the way again and this time six army climbers and five Sherpas finally managed to reach the peak. The mission was accomplished. Within a week we were trekking down to Ramche again. Going down was easy. Now I was sufficiently acclimatized to the lack of Oxygen. I did not tire out easily and reached Ramche along with the others. The Indian army climbers were in a celebratory mood and raring to return home where accolades awaited them. They unleashed a Bacchanalia of songs and dance and much drinking. However in the din of celebration it was sad to see how the contribution of the Sherpas was forgotten. Not a mention of them is made by any mountain expedition once it returns home. An impression is given that the climbers climbed unaided. It is just as well, for the mountains are now climbed more for glory, quick promotions and medals than for the sheer adventure. However the Sherpas don’t mind being blanked out at all. They are happy to get the money. And happy to get an opportunity to climb.
The next day a helicopter was awaited. It would fly us down to Tapleyjung . However the weather was cloudy and we weren’t sure if the Helicopter would show up. I secretly wished it wouldn’t. I had spent a whole two months on the mountain but still had not got enough of it. I wanted to be here even if for half a day more. But the weather played spoil sport. It cleared just when I thought it had worsened. Within half and hour I heard the distinct hum of the helicopter. I took the last few shots of the mountain and climbed in last with my ruck-sack.
(The story and photos of Oman appeared in the March 2013 edition of National Geographic Traveller)
Text: Mustansir Dalvi
Photos: Sanjay Austa
“Khallas!” The word slides trippingly off the tongue of my host Joe from the oman tourism ministry. He’s of tamil origin, but after 18 years in oman Joe is now a true-blue Muscati. Can we stop along the ravine at ras al-Jinz for some photographs? “Khallas!” can we return to the Opera House at the crack of dawn? “Khallas!” Sure! no problem. Don’t mention it again. There is ease, humility, and a quiet confidence in the Omani character that pervades both its residents and its places.
I was struck by the effortlessness with which Oman has charted its own path to progress. Modern Oman has embraced the multi-cultural diversity of the Arabic world and the world at large. As an architect on a five-day trip through the country, I was eager to understand how the country had managed to retain a comfortable sense of place in the world, rather than sliding down the easy slope of international homogeneity that, say, Dubai has been prey to.
Among the buildings that best embody this attitude is muscat’s newest jewel, the Royal Opera House. It rises tier upon marble tier like a ziggurat, casting sharp shadows in the harsh middle eastern sunlight. The Opera House opened in 2011, and was already into its third season of performances. The playbill at the box office was impressive: Jessye norman, Branford marsalis, The Music Man, Madame Butterfly, verdi’s Aida.
Nat Geo Traveller. March 2013
We were shown around by Dr. Nasser Al-Taee, its advisor. He was strikingly dressed in the Omani national attire of a flowing white dish- dasha, a turban, and the sheathed khanjar, or ceremonial dagger. While we waited for him, a military band in camouflage fatigues marched in the courtyard. This was a full dress rehearsal for a visiting dignitary.
Something like our own Republic Day, I thought, until i realised that every other soldier was female, differentiated only by a peculiarly integrated hijab and military beret. Another Arab stereo- type dispelled. All over Oman, I would see women and men occupying an equal space. Men wore dishdashas; women wore full body gowns. Both covered their heads, but out of choice.
As Dr. Nasser walked us through the structure, I was overwhelmed by the richness of its interior spaces, unequalled since the Golden age of art deco in the 1930s, when interiors were sumptuously adorned. Islamic tradition does not allow figurative ornament. This proscription had led to an architecture seamlessly covered with geometric, floral and calligraphic designs. In this continuous quilt of detail, Dr. Nasser pointed out influences from various islamic cultures: “the mashrabiya (screened bay windows) evoke North African morocco. the concentrically inset niches are of Mughal origin. The interlaced wooden ceiling takes from the craft of Omani forts.” From the exhibits of traditional musical instruments lining the foyer to the violin motif on the embroidered upholstery, this opulence never fell into kitsch.
Nat Geo Traveller. March 2013
As I thanked him, Dr. Nasser gave me a perspective on Oman’s contemporary buildings. Modern Oman is the creation of Sultan Qaboos bin Said, oman’s ruler of the last four decades, who makes no distinction between cultural heritage and contemporary needs, Dr. nasser said. All new buildings in Muscat are mandated to reflect the “Omani Style of Civic Architecture”. These rules, in effect since 1992, insist that the country’s architecture, particularly its public and ceremonial buildings, should follow “a combination of omani, arab, islamic and contemporary style”. this explained the unselfconscious presence of traditional elements in its newer buildings. Everywhere I saw arcades and mashrabiyas. White buildings rose in arched tiers and met the sky in fortress-like castellations. The architect in me appreciated why Omani buildings always grouped together into harmonious neighbourhoods.
What separates this desert country from its flashier nouveau riche cousins in the Middle East is the laidback poise that sucks you into its rich culture without fanfare, but on its own terms. Very much clued into millennial aspirations, here is a country on the move. This can largely be attributed to Sultan Qaboos, who has, since 1970, stamped his authority by relentlessly modernising the country, without feeling obliged to jettison its past. The Sultan himself is widely educated— from pune, where he received his primary education, to Sandhurst where he received military training—and he brings this inclusivity to his vision of his country’s future.
Nat Geo Traveller. March 2013.
Borrowing freely from the history and visual culture of the Islamic world, Omani architecture displays the exquisite craftsmanship only possible in stone and timber. No curtain glass buildings here. By choosing culture as a modern leitmotif, Oman has preserved its historical warps and wefts. While the exteriors are restrained, mostly in off-white or in pastels, interior spaces, like the opera or the Grand mosque, explode in a colourful kaleidoscope of intricate carvings and rich ornament.
Taking leave of the Opera House, we drove along Sultan Qaboos Street to Muttrah, Oman’s old port. We passed several pedestrian overbridges. Each one was faced with beige limestone and had balustrades incised with intricate floral motifs. Concrete and craftsmanship. Contemporaneity and continuity. I could now recognize Omani Civic Architecture.
I also saw an alternative, intangible Omani style in the common touch, where neither detail nor amenity distinguished high from low. While the Opera may be to the taste of few, football was for everyone. The Sultan Qaboos Stadium was not far from the Opera, and can accommodate every soccer-mad Omani, of which there are many. All along the main avenues, I wistfully gazed at banners announcing the FIFA qualifying match between the hosts and Jordan, scheduled to be played a few days later.
National Geographic Traveller. March 2013
The Muttrah Souq abuts the corniche of Muscat. The souq is a labyrinth, with ceilings of lashed timber, varnished and painted like an earlier avatar of the Opera House. Inside, my senses were assailed all at once with perfume, frankincense, and spices all mingling in its shop-lined caverns. My nose led me to a perfumery and I shopped for little vials of attar. Vendors of wholesale foodstuff betrayed a Gujarati presence in their name boards: Mohandas Muthradas, Harishchandra Dipchand Karamchand & partners. Outside, I stopped by the sea-facing Ramesh Mahal, one of Muttrah’s older buildings dating back to 1939, with a plaque in Gujarati and Arabic. this is the old- er part of Muscat, where Indian immigrants first came to seek a better life, many decades before the Gulf phenomenon of the ’70s, and left their mark everywhere.
Today, there are an estimated 2.3 million Indians in Oman. There are many things we Indians and Omanis share, most common among which is food, and the obsessive-pathological love of the mobile phone. No Omani can be separated from it, and if they are not talking to you, they are taking into a mouthpiece. Sulaiman al Alawi, Joe’s assistant, drove us northeast to the city of Sur. the grand freeways were smooth as silk. My enjoyment was soon tempered by the views of craggy geology and azure waters whizzing past faster than I could register. I turned to Sulaiman, only to find him driving the SUV one handed, negotiating turns and bends at 160 km/hour, his other hand stuck to one ear, confabulating about the evening dinner, and compiling a menu: “Samboosa, kachoooree, cutless….. chapauteee!”
Sur is spectacularly arrayed on the Gulf of Oman. Like most Omani cities, the tallest edifices in Sur were the minarets and the forts. Its sweeping waterfront was lined with houses of the wealthy, variously ornamented, but similar in height and mostly white. Omani Civic Style was at work here. I could only imagine the extravagance that lay with- in. One thinks of the Middle East as mostly desert but it also has hundreds of kilometres of coastline, beaches, harbours, and ship-building yards. There is a dhow factory outside of Sur. Can we go there, I asked Sulaiman. “Khallas!” he replied, with Omani consistency.
National Geographic Traveller. March 2013
Two dhows were under construction, made from Burmese and Malaysian timber. The boats were for the wealthiest Sheikhs. Once ready, they would be sent off for modern fittings. I once visited a dhow factory in Bekal, Kerala. Large wooden vessels were similarly made, with preindustrial techniques: planking lashed together; crevices filled with sealant. The Arabian Sea has been the sealant between cultures around it for over two millennia. Indus pottery has been found in Oman. Ruins of the port of muziris described in ancient Roman texts, have been found in Kerala. many workers in the Sur factory were from Kerala too.
The fort in the Omani landscape is easily recognisable: tall, cylindrical with smooth, unscalable walls and battlements. They recall a time when Oman was pivotal on trade routes to India. The most famous is at Nizwa, once a former capital. Dating from the 1600s, Nizwa Fort bleeds history. I climbed its fortifications, and ran the gauntlet of architectural deceptions, maze-like stairways and stout defences, most notably the “murder holes” that hovered above me at all times. Were I an invading force, this is where I would be stymied, scalded to death by boiling date syrup poured from above.
Nizwa- Shopping Market.
But it was peacetime, and I made it to the top, where a large store was filled with gunnysacks of dates. The museum in the fort is a pre- served residence, with living and sleeping spaces, kitchens and privies. Floors were made of wooden beams, overlaid with palm leaf matting and stone slabs. Wooden construction links the various architectures of oman, from its dhow builders, to bedouin tents at Wahiba, to rural settlements in Al Batinah, to the forts and souqs, and the new mosque and opera.
Oman has its fair share of rural idyll, settled cosily around oases and date palm plantations. Dates are one of its chief exports. Some villages predated Islam, and allowed me to trace the precursors of later Omani architecture. I visited the settlement of Al Hamrah, southwest of Muscat along the Akhdar Range, aka Oman’s “Grand canyon”. Houses in Al Hamrah were built directly on the tilted rock face of a hillock. I walked between alleys of two-storey houses of mud, stone and plaster. In these houses, now largely abandoned, floors were made of palm trunks, split lengthwise and tied with rope. Later, the dying sun hit the upper floors and I felt myself transported east, into the gullies of Jaisalmer, into the “Sonar Kella”.
to the northwest of Al Hamrah is the Wadi Ghul, an ancient ruin. The remains of the huts reveal walls of dry masonry, held together only by the precision of stone placement. They withstood the ravages of time, like the cyclopean walls of Machu picchu, although on a human scale. As I meandered around, taking photographs, Sulaiman cautioned me that the word “Ghul”’ referred to snakes, which present themselves for human contemplation when the wadi swells with mon- soon runoff.
The Sink Hole
No trip to Oman is complete without a visit to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. Since 2001, this is the central symbol of Oman. I en- tered through interlocking, arcaded courtyards. the entire mosque was faced with indian sandstone, carved with geometric motifs. My gaze kept returning to the central dome, gilded on the outside and then intricately latticed in hand-carved sandstone, like an upside- down basket.
The central prayer hall had to be one of the largest interior spaces in contemporary architecture, a square 75 meters on each side. The immense dome rose 50 meters off the floor. Everyone around me stared upwards, open-mouthed, at a phenomenal installation, nearly five floors high, floating above us. from the dome’s eye, a 14-meter-tall chandelier, gold plated with Swarovski crystals was suspended like the mothership from e.t. I walked around in bare feet on the carpet that covered the entire floor with endless arabesques. It was handmade, from the Khorasan province of Iran. I was told this was second-largest hand-woven carpet in the world. When the mosque was full, during eid for instance, 20,000 faithful would submit to allah here.
On my last evening in Muscat, as we traced our steps back along its central spine, where the mosque and opera dematerialised in the glare of the mid-afternoon sun, we crossed the path of hordes of enthusiastic Omanis, waving national colours, moving with determination and gaiety all in the same direction. Oman was playing Jordan to qualify for the World cup! Joe, I asked, do you think we could er… you know his answer.
The Football Captain loses his shirt to his fans.
And so it came to pass, on that evening I found myself planted squarely on the playing field of the Sultan Qaboos Stadium, not ten meters away from the Omani goalpost, proudly wearing a press card. Like the players, I felt the weight of 26,500 spectators on my back. No score at half time. A goal was missed on the Jordanian side, and, as if immersed in a 5.1 Dolby universe, I heard the roar of a Mexican wave whoosh behind me, left to right. This sound was much more impressive than merely watching it. It went all round the stadium two or three times before it died out. after 90 minutes, three minutes of injury time were played out. From every stand a high pitch whistling ensued, like a legion of bats had descended into the stadium. in the melee, the last minutes ticked by. Game over. the score, 2-1. I am happy to report that my newly adopted team, Oman won.
THE GUIDE
Orientation:
Musat, the sultanate of oman’s capital, is located in the northeast of the country. Although oman’s landscape is dominated by the arid al-hajar mountain range, it is a harbor city, opening into the Gulf of Oman, which separates it from Iran, further North East.
Dune bashing at Wahiba Sands.
Getting There:
There are direct flights (3-4 hours) to Muscat from Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai. Easiest way to get around the city is by taxi. Most taxis do not have meters and require a fair bit of haggling. It’s a good idea to talk to a few locals before heading out, to find out the acceptable fare. There are a number of car rental services that allow visitors with an international driving license to hire a vehicle. A basic four-door vehicle costs about `2000 a day.
Shell Shock
The geometric, jagged-edged facade of the Ras-al-Jinz Visitors Centre is misleading. The building doesn’t house a secret scientific base as its exteriors seem to suggest, but is one of the largest eco-tourism centers in Oman. Green sea turtles are the biggest draw here, and visitors can witness them nesting, and watch them crawl to the shore almost every night. As of 1996, Ra al-Jonz and its surrounding areas were declared a nature reserve with 45 km of protected shore. The visitors centre educates newcomers about responsible tourism and provides accommodation to those who’d like to stay on.
In a dusty, nondescript village in west Rajasthan- an Indian state with an extraordinary respect for flora and fauna-villagers have established a tradition of feeding migratory birds who fly here all the way from Mongolia and China. These birds- the Demoiselle Cranes, descend on this village in thousands every morning to feed. The village- Khichan- is now on the world map and known as the Demoiselle Crane village. The villagers revere the birds and call them ‘Khujar’ feeding them tons of bird-feed every year.
Wherever he went in India, photojournalist Sanjay Austa, found people in rural and urban areas devouring the daily newspaper. Even in metros, where a large number of people use public transport. It was a stark contrast to what he had found abroad, in countries like the US, where people preffered reading books.
The difference struck him. And over four years, Austa has travelled through cities like Madurai, Nagpur and Hyderabad, as well as hamlets in Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh) and Pushkar (Rajasthan), to capture the Indian reading habit. The result is more than 1,000 pictures, including one of a man at this year’s Jaipur Literature festival reading a newspaper in the middle of a session on William Shakespeare.
Wankaner Village. Rajkot District. Gujrat. Newspaper : Divya Bhaskar. Headline -''The wildlife researcher who had suggested shifting of lions from Gir had to run for life''.
It was in 2009 that Austa clicked his first shot of a person reading a newspaper. That was the trigger to a longer commitment for this Delhi-based freelance photojournalist, who also loves travelling. His photographs on social issues, like his documentation of elderly prostitutes and of people who were affected in the 1984 Sikh riots, won him the Indian Confederation of NGOs’, or iCONGO’s, Karamveer Puraskar in 2010.
Dubbed, with a trace of irony, Taaza Khabar—A Nation of Newspaper Readers, the ongoing photographic documentation throws light on the all-pervasive role of the newspaper in India. “The reason why newspapers are still around in India is because of the vernacular language newspapers. People in small towns and rural areas hardly read English newspapers. But most will read a local paper,” says Austa.
Jaisalmer Fort. Newspaper: Dainik Bhaskar. Headline '' Delhi Gangrape accused Ram Singh Hangs Himself in Jail''.
In a picture from Meghalaya, North East, a man seated in a taxi, stuck in a traffic jam, is reading a newspaper in the local language; in another, a man in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, reads his paper with a cow being milked in the background; and in a third image you can see a sadhu in Haryana engrossed in a newspaper (not shown here). There are also frames with several people—shoppers, people on the road—glued to their copies of the newspaper, oblivious to everything else around them.
Rather than a strict focus on the reader in a tightly cropped frame, Austa has shot these images with a wide-angle view, weaving the tapestry of the reader, his newspaper, and the surroundings. “For me the story that a photograph tells weighs more than the technique used to capture it, and in our country, no story is complete without people, and lots of people,” he says. But this reading is such a personal indulgence that the main challenge, says Austa, is to not let the people know that they are being photographed. Which is why he usually maintains a distance or even drops the picture if the subject comes to know he/she is being photographed.
Brahmpuri, Jodhpur. Rajasthan. March 2013. Newspaper: Tisra Pahar. Headline: ''A foreign tourist on her way to see The Taj gang-raped''
Himalayan Queen. General Coach. Newspaper: Dainaik Tribune. Headline ''Ma Tujay Salam. After winning the youth over Modi set to win the hearts of women''.
Jaisalmer Fort. Rajathan. Newspaper: Jaisalmer Patrika. Headlines: ''There will be commotion for water now''.
Old City,Ahmedabad. Gujrat. Divya Bhaskar. ''Gold price slashed by Rs. 750''.
