We are in the middle of a very stimulating workshop with 14 Bangladeshi, Nepali and Norwegian students and award winning photographer Philip Blenkinsop. The workshop is the beginning of an extended exchange program where participating students will produce an in-depth photo reportage project.

Philip Blenkinsop has been described as “one of the most essential photographers of his generation” (Christian Caujolle). He is adamant that the photographer should never censor scenes through the camera. “Photographers are both witnesses and messengers. Our responsibility must always lie with the people we focus on, and with the accurate depiction of their plight, regardless of how unpalatable this might be for magazine readers.” His work, published in international arenas, has been the catalyst for much discussion and amongst other accolades was awarded Amnesty International’s Photojournalism prize for excellence in human rights journalism.

The 14 students participating in this workshop are; Arfun Ahmed Shawon, Benjamin Ward, Gyanendra Bhattarai, Ina Inglingstad, Labib Mohammad Sharfuddin, Md. Samsul Alam, Prakash KC, Prasiit Sthapit, Rajan Shrestha, Rajneesh Bhandari, Salma Abedin Prithi, Sapana Shah, Sindre Thoresen Lønnes and Tapash Paul.

It gives us great pleasure to invite you to join us for this special screening of the students’ and Philip’s works:

SATURDAY, 11th February @ Summit Hotel, Kupondol Heights

4:30 PM: My Asian Heart
My Asian Heart follows award winning photojournalist Philip Blenkinsop on assignment to China, setting up his next exhibition. Capturing Nepal during the pro democracy uprisings. And reflecting on the plight of the Hmong “survivors” who continue to haunt him. In Philip’s world there’s constant tension between his artistic commitments and the drive to report on world conflicts. The film is directed by David Bradbury.
[The Summit Hotel TV Room]

6:00 PM: Student Showcase
[The Summit Hotel Inner Courtyard]

7:00 PM: Philip Blenkinsop Showcase
[The Summit Hotel Inner Courtyard]

The workshop is part of an ongoing programme between Oslo University College in Norway and Pathshala. South Asian Media Academy in Bangladesh.
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www.photocircle.com.np

I don’t get distracted easily, but the spectacular air show in the skies above the football field at the NID campus in Ahmedabad, India, made portfolio reviews difficult.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy this clip on full screen.

This is a sequel to an earlier film ‘Journeying with Mahasveta Devi’, and the second in the trilogy being made on the Magsasay Award winning writer-activist made by Drik India. The viewed and the viewer, the act and the response, form the basic pattern of this film and closes up further with both the inner-self and the outer-self of Mahasveta Devi.

The film has been selected in the international competitive section at Mumbai International Film Festival 2012.

Pathshala, the South Asian Media Academy takes pleasure in inviting you to the presentation of Frank Fournier in Pathshala.

Frank Fournier is a French photographer. He originally studied medicine before becoming a photographer. He moved to New York and became a staff photographer at Contact Press Images in 1982 after joining the office staff in 1977. His portrait of Omayra Sanchez, a 13-year-old trapped under the debris of her home, won the 1986 World Press Photo award.

Frank is currently in Bangladesh to conduct a workshop on international reporting at Sylhet in the north east of Bangladesh. He is one of three international photographers, the others being Greg Marinovic (Kolkata), and Philip Blenkinsop (Kathmandu), who will be lead trainers in workshops involving photographers in Bangladesh (organised by Pathshala), India (organised by Drik India) and Nepal (organised by Photo Circle). Pathshala tutors Munem Wasif (India), Tanzim Ibne Wahab (Nepal) and Debashish Shom (Bangladesh) who along with Per Anders Rosenkvist of Oslo University College (OUC)  in Norway, will provide mentoring throught the workshop.

Pathshala has been actively collaborating with OUC for over six years, and students from Bangladesh, Nepal and Norway have been involved in exchanges supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Frank’s presentation follows talks by David Burnett (December 2011) and Pep Bonet (January 2012) and is part of the regular teaching programme at Pathshala.

The schedule of the presentation:

Date: February 04, 2012
Day: Saturday
Time: 6.00 pm
Venue: Pathshala (Room # 1)

Inauguration of Exhibitions – Pradyumna Vyas, Director, National Institute of Design

1700 hrs T S Satyan – Recorder of Life, Beauty and Truth, Aquarium | NID & Tasveer
1730 hrs Travelling Light, Foyer | Maria Kapajeva
1745 hrs ‘+91’ Graduate Students Exhibition, Old Canteen | Richa & Soumyadip

1st February 2012
0900 hrs Registration
0930 hrs Inauguration & opening address | Pradyumna Vyas, Director, NID

1000 hrs Session I Photography and Photography Education

Shahidul Alam Drik | Bangladesh
Nayland Blake International centre of Photography (ICP) | USA
Anna Fox University for Creative Arts (UCA) | UK
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew University of Rhode Island | USA
Pablo Barthelomeow Photographer | India

1130 hrs Tea Break
1145 hrs Session II Photography and Photography Education

Sunil Gupta Photographer, Curator | India
David Moore Central Saint Martin College of Art& Design | UK
Peter Sramek Ontario College of Art & Design University | Canada
Deepak John Mathew National Institute of Design Ahmedabad

1300 hrs Lunch Break
1400 hrs Session III Connecting the World – Collaborative Projects and Exchanges

Lucida Photographer’s Collective | India
Maria, Peter & Chinar Collaborative Project | India, UK, Canada, Brazil
& Finland
Andrew Bruce & Shilpa Gavane Academic Exchange | NID-UCA
Nayantara Photo Circle | Nepal
Maniyarasan R & Rahul SR History of Indian Photography | NID

1530 hrs Tea Break

1545 hrs Session IV Photography and Practice

Karen Knorr Photographer | UK
Vivek Vilasini Photographer | India
Nandini Valli Photographer | India
Magi Viljanen Photographer | Finland
Neeta Madahar Photographer | UK

2nd February, 2012
0930 hrs Session V Photography and Research

Esa Epstein Sepia Eye | USA
Sabeena Gadihoke Researcher, Jamia University | India
Anusha Yadav Photographer, Researcher | India
Johny ML Art Critic, Curator & Writer | India

1100 hrs Tea Break
1115 hrs Session VI Photography and Dissemination

Abhishek Poddar Gallerist | India
Aditya Arya Photographer, Researcher | India
Radhika Singh Gallerist | India
Prasant Panjiar Photojournalist | India

1300 hrs Lunch Break
1430 hrs City of Photos/Three Women and a Camera (Documentary @ Auditorium)

Inside Out III (Closed session at Board Room exclusively for delegates)
1400 hrs Photography Education in India, UK and USA- Perspectives

1700 hrs Tea Break
1715 hrs Concluding Session (Auditorium)

Speakers Profile

Nayland Blake
Nayland Blake is an artist whose mixed-media work has been variously described as disturbing, provocative, elusive, tormented, sinister, hysterical, brutal, and tender. Among his most famous pieces are a log cabin made of gingerbread squares fitted to a steel frame entitled Feeder 2 (1998). When it went on display at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, visitors furtively nibbled off bits and pieces of the cabin’s interior walls, while the smell of the gingerbread filled the gallery.Another well-known work is Starting Over (2000), a video of the artist dancing with taps on his shoes in a bunny suit made to weigh the same as his lover, Philip Horvitz. The suit was so heavy that Blake could hardly move as he took choreographic directions from Horvitz offstage.Gorge (1998) is a video of the artist sitting shirtless being hand fed an enormous amount of food for an hour by a shirtless black man from behind. In 2009, a live version of Gorge was staged in which audience members fed Blake.

Dr. Deepak John Mathew
A design teacher and a practicing photographer lives and works in India. Deepak John Mathew is teaching at the National Institute of Design (NID). He has an experience spanning over 20 years in professional photography, painting and graphics.He holds a master’s degree in Fine Arts (Graphic Arts) from the M.S. University, Vadodara and has a PhD in Design Education from the Center for Advanced Studies in Education, M.S. University, Vadodara. He has been instrumental in designing and developing the dual postgraduate program in Photography Design. He also set up the Photography Design discipline and started an International Postgraduate Certificate Program in Photography at the institute in collaboration with University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK. Deepak has curated a number of exhibitions at NID, including those featuring the works of famed photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Anne Maniglier, and Raghu Rai. He has received many awards including the Commonwealth Fellowship for Photography (2011) and exhibited his works at many international and national exhibitions and has authored several papers. He has written a book called, Principles of Design through Photography. He has also been contributing to various NID publications. He has been invited as visiting faculty, lecturer, external evaluator, mentor, and advisor to various universities and institutes all over the world. Besides photography, Deepak’s interests include history of art, color&form, and illustration.

Sunil Gupta
Born in New Delhi, and growing up watching Bollywood films in all their glorious colour, Sunil Gupta moved to Montreal with his family in the late 1960s, where his interest in photography began to develop. From the mid-1970s he lived in New York, where he studied photography at the New School for Social Research under Lisette Model. At the end of the 1970s, he moved to London to continue his studies at the West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham, and the Royal College of Art, London. He was involved in the founding of Autograph (Association of Black Photographers) in London, and he also set up the Organization for Visual Arts (OVA) to promote a greater understanding of questions regarding cultural differences and their incorporation into the sphere of fine art. He works as a photographer, writer and curator out of London and Delhi

Sabeena Gadihoke

Sabeena Gadihoke is Associate Professor of Video and Television Production at the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia University in New Delhi and is also an independent documentary filmmaker and cameraperson. Her book Camera Chronicles on India’s first woman press photographer, Homai Vyarawalla was published in 2006. She is currently working on her dissertation on a cultural history of photography in India during 1945-1970.

Radhika Singh
When Radhika Singh set up Fotomedia in 1988, it was the first photo-library in Delhi to store, promote and market photographs. Radhika Singh had no experience in running her own enterprise. What she did have were three degrees — a B.A. in English, an M.A. in Social Work, an M.Phil in Sociology — and stints in modelling and theatre.She has an M.Phil in Sociology, been a model, is active in theatre, has dabbled in social work and is a successful entrepreneur. But for someone with her range of interests, Radhika Singh is a remarkably focussed woman. In less than 10 years, 42-year-old Singh has taken her outfit, Fotomedia, from an oddball little venture to a still-unusual, but profit-making, enterprise.

Neeta Madahar
Neeta Madahar received her MFA from the Museum School at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2003. As a British citizen of Indian descent who has lived and worked in the U.S., Madahar constantly refers to themes of migration and transition throughout her work. Madahar’s thesis project entitled Sustenance gained immediate interest and was shown at the Arles Festival curated by Martin Parr in 2005, followed by shows in Boston, London, and Germany. In this project, Madahar examines the complexities of the domestic environment through her exploration of the various bird species that gather to feed at her home in Framingham, Massachusetts. Using a large-format camera, Madahar juxtaposes contrasting ideas of familiarity and strangeness, belonging and migration, and prolonged routine and repetition.

Karen Knorr

Karen Knorr, an American was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and was raised in San Juan Puerto Rico in the 1960s. She finished her education in Paris and London graduating from the University of Westminster in 1980 with a first in Photography and Filmic Art. Karen has taught, and lectured internationally including The Sorbonne,Paris, Goldsmiths College, London,Harvard University and The Art Institute of Chicago in the U.S.After graduating from the University of Westminster in the mid 1970’s, Knorr exhibited photography that addressed debates in cultural studies and film theory concerning the “politics of representation” practices which emerged during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Karen Knorr is currently Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts at Farnham, Surrey and lives in London.

Anna Fox
Anna Fox first gained attention for Work Stations: Office Life in London (1988), a study of office culture in Thatcher’s Britain, originally commissioned by Camerawork and The Museum of London. She is best known for Zwarte Piet (1993-8), a series of twenty portraits taken over a five-year period that explore Dutch ‘black-face’ folk traditions associated with Christmas. The images of costumed revellers, posed in the manner reminiscent of seventeenth-century Dutch portraiture, have been widely exhibited internationally. Other projects have included The Village (1992), a multi-media collaboration with the writer Val Williams, examining the experiences of rural women, Country Girls, a collaboration with singer/songwriter Alison Goldfrapp portraying a fairytale nightmare vision of life in the country for young women, and Friendly Fire, which records the leisure activity of paint-balling in the manner of war reportage. More recent publications include Cockroach Diary and My Mother’s Cupboards and My Father’s Words (2000), which deal with autobiographical narratives and were designed as miniature, limited edition books. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally and she is now Professor of Photography at the University College of the Creative Arts, Farnham and has been part of the UCA team who have worked with Dr Deepak John Mathew to develop the PG Diploma in Photography Design at NID.

Annu Palakunnathu Matthew
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew is Professor of Art (Photography) at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island. Matthew’s recent exhibitions include Sepia International, New York City, the RISD Museum, Newark Art Museum, Newark, NJ, 2009 Guangzhou Biennial of Photography, China, 2006 Noorderlicht Photo Festival in Netherlands and the 2005 Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal Photo Biennale in Canada.Among the list of grants recently supporting Matthew‘s work include the John Gutmann Fellowship, MacColl Johnson Fellowship, Rhode Island State Council of the Arts Fellowship and the American Institute of Indian Studies Creative Arts fellowship. Her work can be found in the collection of the George Eastman House, Fogg Museum, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Center for Creative Photography and the RISD Museum among others. Matthew’s work is included in the book BLINK from Phaidon, that according to the publisher celebrates the quality and vision of today’s 100 most exciting international contemporary photographers and the upcoming books The Digital Eye by Sylvia Wolf and Self-Portraits by Susan Bright.

Pablo Bartholomew

Pablo Bartholomew is an independent photographer based in New Delhi, India Represented by Gamma Liaison for over 20 years, he worked as a photojournalist recording societies in conflict and transition. His works have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Business Week, National Geographic and GEO, amongst other prestigious magazines and journals. Pablo Bartholomew at the age of 19 won the World Press Photo award for his series on Morphine Addicts in India (1975) and the World Press Photo of the Year for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy(1984).

David Moore
Based in London, David Moore has been a practicing photographer since 1989 after graduating from West Surrey College of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including group shows in 2010 at the Thessaloniki Photo-Biennale and Les Photaumnales in Beauvais, France. The Last Things, a publication and touring solo exhibition, travelled to Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Belfast Exposed, Impressions Gallery Bradford and UH Galleries, Hertfordshire, 2008-09. Moore’s work is held in public and private collections including Nuffield College Collection, Oxford University; the Ranstad Collection, The Netherlands; and, the Ministry of Defence Art Collection, London. David Moore is currently Senior Photography Lecturer at Central Saint Martins College, London.

Abhishek Poddar

Abhishek Poddar is the director of Bangalore based gallery, Tasveer. Dedicated to promoting and showcasing photography in all its forms, Tasveer has created a network of galleries between Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Since its inaugural show in October 2006, over 100 exhibitions have been held and the also gallery organizes lectures, workshops and other educational activities, both in India and abroad.
Nandini Valli

Born in 1976, Nandini Valli was raised in Chennai, India where she continues to live. She completed several degrees before entering the field of photography. After an 18 month apprenticeship with a leading commercial photographer in Chennai, Nandini decided to pursue a B.A Honours in Photography from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, UK (now known as the Arts University College Bournemouth). This is where she realized she was more suited to producing art photography as opposed to commercial photography.

Anusha Yadav

Anusha S. Yadav, born in London, is a Mumbai based Urban Documentary Photographer. She was bought up London and later in Jaipur, Rajasthan India. She graduated in Communication Design from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad in 1997. Anusha’s interest in photography began while still at design school. Subsequently, she attended University of Brighton to study photography for a semester.After thirteen years of a successful career in graphic design and advertising, Anusha began working as an independent editorial and documentary photographer in 2006 in India. Since then she has photographed several well known personalities and significant events all over the country.

Johny ML

Johny ML is a Delhi based art critic and curator. With twenty years of experience, JohnyML has done several national and international art projects successfully. Founding editor of www.mattersofart.com and www.artconcerns.com, JohnyML has initiated and executed projects like Finding a Lost Culture and Tradition (FALCAT 2009), Vibrant Gujarat (2009), Video Wednesdays@Gallery Espace (2009), Expressions at Tihar (2009). He has curated several shows and directed documentaries on contemporary artists.

Prasant Panjiar

Prashant Panjiar is a self-taught photographer. A post-graduate in Political Science from Pune University, India, he worked on photographic projects focusing on peasant movements and other social issues through his college and university days. His first self-financed project that received acclaim was his work for a book on banditry in the Chambal region of Central India. As one of India’s senior photojournalists and picture editors, Panjiar is actively involved in guiding young photographers. He is one of the three senior photographers who select and mentor young documentary photographers for National Foundation of India’s fellowship programme. Panjiar served on the jury of the World Press Photo Awards in Amsterdam in 2002, the China International Press Photo Competition in 2005 and the Indian Express Press Photo Awards.

Shahidul Alam

A photographer, writer, curator and activist, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry at London University before switching to photography. He returned to his hometown Dhaka in 1984, where he photographed the democratic struggle to remove General Ershad. A former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society, Alam set up the award winning Drik agency, the Bangladesh Photographic Institute and Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, considered one of the finest schools of photography in the world. Director of the Chobi Mela festival and chairman of Majority World agency, Alam’s work has been exhibited in galleries such as MOMA in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Royal Albert Hall in London and The Museum of Contemporary Arts in Tehran. He has been a jury member in prestigious international contests, including World Press Photo, which he chaired. An Honorary Fellow of the Bangladesh Photographic Society and the Royal Photographic Society Alam is a visiting professor of Sunderland University in the UK. He recently set up a media academy in Bangladesh.

Vivek Vilasini

Born in 1964, in Trishur, Kerala, Vivek Vilasini trained as a Marine Radio Officer at the All India Marine College in Kochi, and then obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Kerala University in 1987 before turning to art and studying sculpture from traditional Indian craftspeople. Vilasini’s work has been exhibited in several solo shows including several editions of ‘Between One Shore and Several Others’ at Birds Gallery, Trivandrum, Arushi Arts, New Delhi, Sumukha Gallery, Bangalore, and the Visual Arts Gallery, ‘In Focus: Contemporary Indian Photography’ at Crimson – The Art Resource, Bangalore, in 2009; ‘Re-Claim/ Re-Cite/ Re-Cycle’ presented by Latitude 28 at Travancore Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2009; ‘Metamorphosis: Change and Continuity in Indian Contemporary Art’ at PAC Gallery, Phyllis Weston-Annie Bolling Gallery and the Krohn Conservatory, Cincinnati, in 2009; ‘Bapu’ at Saffronart, Mumbai, in 2009; and ‘Who Knew Mr. Gandhi?’ at Aicon Gallery, London, in 2008. The artist lives and works in Bangalore.

Peter Sramek

Peter Sramek studied photography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Minor White and has taught at the Ontario College of Art & Design University in Toronto since 1976, currently serving as Chair of Photography. In 1978, he became a founding member of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto, one of Canada’s leading artist-run centres. His work incorporates silver photography, digital imaging, handmade books and video installation. Represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery, he is included in collections such as the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, National Library of Canada, Musée Carnavalet (Paris), MOMA (NYC), Art Gallery of Hamilton, Toronto Archives and Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Recent solo exhibitions include the French Institute of Prague and Gallery 345 (Toronto). Sramek’s black and white silver photography currently explores European historical sites and incorporates rephotographic strategies, working from historical archives. His handbound artist’s books are in various collections, notably the National Library of Canada and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is currently recipient of a Google Research Award to develop an online/mobile presentation of his rephotographs of Paris street views made after photographs by Charles Marville between 1865 and 1877.

Magi Viljanen

Artist and photographer Magi Viljanen has created a long and respective career as an art and commercial photographer. Her photography original and stand out from the mainstream in a refreshing way. As a photographer Viljanen is unprejudiced and has chosen challenging themes many times during her career. Bravely she has tried different methods and materials in her works. “I think art is meant to move something in a person, and at its best art affects those things that people may have become numb to. I don’t see myself as a subjective artist but as a part of something common, and that is way I work. I am a documentary photographer and I think that art that makes a statement is important.” The work of Magi Viljanen is easy to approach and touching in its way to show the truth and representation of life. All the viewers can integrate with some aspect in her pictures. Her works brings the reality of others in front of us allowing us to see true stories from this world.

Lucida

Lucida is an independent photographers’ collective based out of New Delhi. It aims to develop and support a range of independent and critical photographic practices that focus on research and education. Lucida endeavors to influence photographic thinking through a design oriented approach in photography services.

Esa Epstein

Esa Epstein established sepia EYE in September 2009 which is dedicated to showing a spectrum of modern and contemporary photography and video work from Asia., During her tenure as the Executive Director and Curator of SEPIA International and The Alkazi Collection (1995-2009), Esa Epstein has published eight titles on modern and contemporary photography including: Atul Bhalla: Yamuna Walk (sepiaEYE & UW Press, 2011), Jungjin Lee: Wind, essays by Eugenia Parry and Vicki Goldberg (Aperture/SEPIA, 2009); Ketaki Sheth: Bombay Mix, preface by Suketu Mehta (Dewi Lewis/SEPIA, 2007); and Vivan Sundaram: Re-take of Amrita, essays by Vivan Sundaram and Wu Hung (SEPIA, 2006). In her former position, Esa Epstein has helped build an impressive collection of Indian photography and, along the way, has offered her expertise to both private and public collections. Esa Epstein continues to offer institutional planning and arts management through sepia EYE.

Maniyarasan R

He is a freelance professional photographer with a Bachelors degree in Architecture from the SPA New Delhi, and a Masters in Photography Design from NID Ahmedabad, where he worked as an Associate Faculty after his post graduation. He strongly believes that every challenge presents itself with a bundle of opportunities, if only we have the creativity, innovation and an eye for detail. His main inter­est apart from architectural and heritage documentation lies in capturing the essence of pure human emotions, and the sanctity and joy of weddings- moments that bind people together. Through his visual documentation, he has been on a constant endeavour to capture the context of ‘life’ in relationship to time, space and emotions. Besides, he was nominated as the ‘Wedding photographer of the year’ for two consecutive years, conducted by Better Photography and Kodak for the years 2010 and 2011.

Rahul S Ravi

Rahul S Ravi completed his Master’s in Photography Design from the National Institute of Design (NID), which is internationally acclaimed as one of the foremost multi-disciplinary institutions in the field of design education and research. A literature graduate and a graphic designer by profession, he was a passionate practicing photographer before joining the course at NID. A humanist eye drives his photography and his documentation has a conceptual approach to it. His photographic projects try to bring in focus socio-cultural issues that have been at times overlooked by the mass media. These very qualities in his work “Indian Jewish identity” made him the Second Indian to win the prestigious Tierney fellowship. He is currently working as a Teaching Associate in Photography Design at National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad.

Maria Kapajeva

First time Maria visited India as an exchange student coming to NID and returned later as a visiting lecturer and coordinator. Together with her personal project about Indian young women, Maria will present the results of two collaborative international projects such as Collective Body and Travelling Light show. Maria Kapajeva is Estonian photographer based in the UK who works for Photography course of University for the Creative Arts (Farnham, UK) and at the same time studies at University of Westminster (MA Photographic Studies course).

NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati

NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati graduated from Mt Holyoke College, Massachusetts with a degree in International Relations and Studio Art. She went on to the SALT Institute of Documentary Studies, Portland, ME to study Documentary Photography.

NayanTara came back home to Nepal in 2006 and began working as a freelance photographer and multimedia producer. Her work focuses on intimately documenting her country- ‘the New Nepal’- and its dynamic transformation from the world’s last Hindu monarchy to a new democratic republic.

In 2007, NayanTara co founded photo.circle; a photography collective that has created a platform for emerging and professional photographers in Nepal.

Biographer Sabeena Gadihoke’s book on Homai Vyarawalla tells the story of India’s first woman photojournalist who passed away on January 15 2012.

First published in Parsiana, April 21, 2006. 

Getting the three of them together for a photograph was a task. The launch function was over and Homai Vyarawalla, Sabeena Gadihoke and Shernaz Cama were dispersed over the Lalit Kaka Akademi grounds in New Delhi.

Guests wanted to meet them, arrangements had to be fine tuned and a self effacing modesty caused them to be inaccessible. Finally they posed for the cover photo with smiles of good cheer.

For over six years the trio had toiled to bring to print the remarkable career of India’s first woman photojournalist of national fame, the 92-year-old Baroda resident who still drives a car, is a do-it-yourself carpenter and starts her day with a broom, sweeping her small apartment.

Vyarawalla’s down-to-earth mannerisms, her ease with talking to people and answering questions endeared her to all present at the function. And her biographer Gadihoke and the person who initiated the subject for the book, Cama, not only complimented Vyarawalla’s presence but added considerable warmth and bonhomie to the event.

Indeed as the chief guest Ambika Soni, minister of tourism and culture for the country observed on February 25, 2006 after inaugurating a photo exhibition of Vyarawalla’s work and the launching of the book India in Focus: Camera Chronicles of Homai Vyarawalla the evening was “a celebration of their association” and she thanked the organizers for calling her to join in the happy occasion. The book is published by the Parzor Foundation in association with Mapin Publishing.

To become “icons” such as Vyarawalla, «women have to work harder» than men, observed the vivacious minister and confidante of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. Gandhi was scheduled to attend the function but was unable to do so.

At a question and answer session on February 26 chaired by noted jurist Tehmtan Andhyarujina, Vyarawalla modestly told the gathering «that it took me 30 years to realize they (the photographs) had value (and that too) because they told me.» Many of the original prints and negatives were lost or discarded over the years.

Vyarawalla had been part of India’s historical transition from colonial rule to independence, photographed monarchs and nobility, presidents and prime ministers all the while assuming it was a job, a living but one that she enjoyed immensely.

When photographing the high and mighty, Vyarawalla would try to catch them unawares. «When people know you’re taking their picture, the body language changes. I would wait in a corner till I found somebody interesting … Nehru knew (people were taking his picture) but acted as though he didn’t … if he saw me around (he) knew I would photograph him.»

Mahatma Gandhi, she related was exceedingly annoyed with her as she used flash bulbs to which he was averse: «He ladki (“girl”)», he barked, «tu mujhe andha banaigi our phir jayagi (“you will make me blind and then go”).»

She recalled the visually and hearing impaired Helen Keller greeting her with a namaste — «That was culture.»

But with the changing times and a more aggressive media, the equation changed. At one function an organizer barked: «keep those bloody photographers out … (people) had no idea how to behave in a cultured society … I didn’t want to be called “a bloody photographer”. Enough is enough.» She decided to quit the profession in 1970.

Did she want to take it up again? asked a member of the audience. «If you want to stop, stop it for good … I started taking interest in gardening.»

What about digital photography? She noted: «it was very advanced», but was baffled by all that could be done to alter the image. «You can’t tell a genuine from a fake. There could be misuse of the technology. I liked the old times when everyone was genuine.»

All her life she had been in the company of men. She believed women were interested only in jewellery, servants’ problems, etc. But in Pilani in Rajasthan where she moved to be with her son Farouq she found the stereotype did not hold true. «I met intelligent women.»

As Gadihoke notes in a letter dated June 26, 2003 to the noted portraiture photographer Dayanita Singh published in the souvenir brought out for the exhibition: «(Homai) has left … photography far behind. Now it is Homai the engineer, Homai the architect and Homai kabariwalla (old goods dealer) who preoccupy her more. She wants to tell me about the water tank that she has repaired or the money she saved repairing her TV headphone or tips in the kitchen. She loves watching the afternoon soaps (Bhabi and Kumkum are her favorites … about mother-in-law and daughter in law problems) and a program called Khana Khazana. Yesterday she repaired my chappal with glue and has asked me to keep some rubber solution with me in my bag always in case I ever need it.»

Gadihoke’s 232-page volume priced at Rs 2,750 tells about the women she greatly admires and features around 450 striking and technically perfect photographs replete with history and spanning a century. «The genesis of the book lies in Three Women and a Camera (1998), a documentary I made of three women photographers including Homai», states the author. The book tells of Homai’s nomadic upbringing as she travelled with her father’s Urdu drama troupe from Navsari to Singapore, Ceylon, Malaysia, Burma to Bombay.

Homai, aged 16, cooking.

When a child «I was not allowed to go to meetings to see all the big people. I didn’t know (that one day) I would meet all these people.»

«I was 13 and going (to Grand High School) with the mathabanu made me feel like an old woman …while going out I would also fold up my sudreh into my blouse. I had to remember to let both these items show when I got back home.»

Strapped for finance the doughty girl earned scholarships by offering tuitions to students in the junior classes. She met her husband-to-be Maneckshaw in 1926 at a railway station and as Gadihoke narrates, «Homai owes her initial interest in photography to Maneckshaw. In days prior to any formal training in the subject, both were self-taught…»

«Only a few people attended their wedding … the entire cost (of which) came to Rs 200 … we didn’t want mother’ to be burdened with expenditure but the real reason was that neither of us liked the elaboratetamasha (show) that accompanied Indian weddings.» In the evening they went to Chowpatty Beach and atebhelpuri. “«That was our wedding reception», she notes.

Bombay provided a good ground for aspiring photographers in the 1930s. Their photos appeared in The Illustrated Weekly of India and the Bombay Chronicle (both now defunct). During World War II the couple were employed by the Far Eastern Bureau of the British Publicity office. They lived in Connaught Place in Delhi.

Maneckshaw and Homai in 1931.

Sharing a camera with her husband Maneckshaw, nursing her infant son while developing film, having her photographs appear under her husband’s name in case the magazine would not carry a photo shot by a woman, Vyarawalla took it all in her stride.

«I never thought myself to be different» being a woman in a man’s profession, she observed. The only girl in her class at school, Vyarawalla recalled in her working career then there was «no gender bias … no embarrassment.» Even the work at home was “distributed fifty-fifty” between herself arid her husband.

«God helped me all the time … I was destined to do things.» When asked if she frequented fire temples, Vyarawalla pointed to her heart and said her spirituality resided within.

Partition and independence saw the country in a state of turmoil and Vyarawalla was around to capture the historical event barring perhaps the most momentous one. «On the 30^th January 1948, Homai was to cover the Mahatma’s prayer meeting at Birla House. Armed with a colour movie camera, she had just stepped out of the office when Maneckshaw called her back. He said that he would accompany her the next day with the still camera. This decision was to cost them dearly. Within a few minutes he returned with all the blood drained from his face. “I said, what has happened?” He replied, “Gandhiji has been assassinated!” As the news of the assassination spread, international agencies and newspapers started to call them for images. It was possibly the most important picture that she had missed in her life», notes Gadihoke.

Maneckshaw passed away in 1969 and his body was cremated at the Nigambodh Ghat. «Throughout our married life, my husband and I ate from the same plate. It always made reconciliation easier when we had our little differences! After his death, my son and I shared the same plate and when he got married, he shared the same practice with his wife.»

Thirteen years later Farouq died of bowel cancer. «I know that if things are going to happen in a particular way, you can’t stop them. This knowledge has helped me carryon with life. Try your best and leave it to God. But don’t give up trying. Even now if someone tells me of a death, it doesn’t affect me. I am not heartless, but it doesn’t affect me, because everyone has to go. There is only one certainty in life, and that is death. So why make a fuss about it. Some go early, some go late. I prayed for my husband to go when I saw his eyes turn blue. I would rather have him dead than suffer blindness and disability. I did the same for my son. My mother was al ways afraid of being alone in her death … but she didn’t have to be. All three of us were there and we were holding her in our arms when she was dying. So some are destined for one thing and others are destined for another.»

Gadihoke tells the story of a vibrant and courageous woman’s life and times with depth and understanding. Her writing is shorn of any pretension or mauldin sentiments. It’s a woman’s story told by a diligent biographer, neither of whom asks for anything in return. Telling the story well is reward enough.

Article by V. Sundaram

Kainaz Amaria on NPR Blog

 

 

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Forty years ago this month, the country of Bangladesh declared its independence from Pakistan. Then-President Richard Nixon supported Pakistan during the war because he wanted to prove the US would stand by an ally.

Many Americans disagreed with that stance. And when a ship headed for Pakistan with military equipment and ammunition was set to stop at a US port, one group of Americans felt it was necessary to get involved.

“I was ready to risk my life there,” says 78-year-old Richard Taylor. “I just wanted to get in front of that ship.”

In July 1971, Taylor and a group of protesters used canoes and kayaks to try and block the Pakistani freighter Padma from reaching the Port of Baltimore.

The ship was coming from Canada, bound for Pakistan. It was said to be carrying military equipment and ammunition, presumably to aid the government in its war with what was then called East Pakistan.

The US had ordered an arms embargo on new shipments to Pakistan. But newspapers reported that Pakistani freighters like The Padma were still visiting US ports to load military equipment that had been purchased before the embargo.

Taylor’s flotilla of two canoes, three kayaks and a rubber raft left from Baltimore’s Broening Park. The police and Coast Guard tried to stop it. But Taylor says the group was undaunted.

“One of key parts of this was that the US government was sending military aid to the West Pakistani government that was doing the invasion,” says Taylor. “So that made it poignant. People were suffering thousands of miles away, but our government was helping that suffering to happen.”

Timmy Aziz knew that suffering first hand. He grew up in East Pakistan. He was 10 when war broke out. He now teaches environmental design here in Baltimore.

“It’s really impressive how far they would have had to have gone,” says Aziz. “They would have been way in the middle of the water and completely in harm’s way. This massive freighter and these tiny little canoes, which would easily get washed away in the wake of the ship that size.”

Forty years on, Bengalis are expressing a renewed interest in their country’s independence movement. One of them is New Yorker Aris Yousuf. He finds the canoe blockade story so fascinating that he’s making a documentary on it.

“I wanted to see if I could make a film about the history of 1971, Bangladesh’s independence war and what happened in the US and be able to put it together from the people who participated at that time,” says Yousuf.

What happened that time in July 1971 was that the US Coast Guard foiled Richard Taylor and his friends. The Padma made it into the harbor; it was eventually loaded and left. The following month, protesters expanded their actions to include any Pakistani ship trying to dock in the US, regardless of its cargo. And they enticed longshoremen at the Port of Philadelphia to join the boycott.

“The cause had a heart, had a deep heart,” says 64-year-old Elliot Gevis. “And there were tremendous atrocities that were going on.”

Today, Gevis is a pediatrician. But back in 1971, he worked the docks in Philadelphia. He learned about the war in East Pakistan and the canoe protest from flyers, and helped convince other longshoremen not to load ships. The first freighter affected was The Al-Ahmadi. Richard Taylor and other protesters again used canoes and kayaks to try and block the ship. When it ran the blockade, Gevis and other dockworkers refused to unload it.

“Not everybody was supportive of that,” Gevis recalls. “But then again, they did respect unions. And they did respect not crossing picket lines, things of that sort. But at the same time, they had to pay bills and feed families. That was a big consideration.”

When the ship pushed off, no cargo had been loaded or unloaded.

After four more months of intense protests–and picketing in front of the White House– the US government finally ended all arms exports to Pakistan. It marked the end of one of the more unusual protest movements in America’s history.

“We’ve been just humbled by people who are Bengalis saying we couldn’t have done it without this movement here,” says Phyllis Taylor, Richard’s wife.

She, too, was involved in the protests.

“Not us necessarily, but a small group of committed people giving us hope, as Dick said, in the jungles that you could make a change.”

After nine months of fighting, East Pakistanis won the war. Their prize: a country now known as Bangladesh.

My Journey as a Witness

Shahidul Alam in conversation with Ranjit Hoskote

Goa Arts and Literary Festival Dec 17-21

2011-11-25

The 2nd Goa Arts and Literary Festival is meant to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Goa’s liberation after 451 years of colonial rule. It will reflect on the idea of India as reflected through the perspective of cultures, communities and writers of the country. It is hosted by the International Centre Goa from December 17-21.

The festival will touch upon Diaspora, on the Goan and other Indian migrant communities across the world which retain different ideas about what being Indian means; North-East of India and its art, music and literature. The festival will celebrate music, painting and photography, poetry, journalism and publishing, debates, discussions and book-releases: from 17-21 December. Local, national and international delegates will be attending.

Exactly 50 years after the historic days when Indian troops conquered, and annexed Goa. It was another dramatic moment in history for this tiny territory. Each day of the Festival will recall 1961, featuring historians and witnesses to the sensational events as they occurred, as well as lectures, special book releases, and panel discussions about the Goan experience of the Estado da India, quite different from much of the rest of the subcontinent’s experience with the British Raj.

The 2011 Goa Arts and Literary Festival will celebrate creative excellence across India, with a special focus on Goa and its Diaspora. As with the inaugural edition, there will be prominent daily showcases for the best contemporary poetry from across India, and for the extraordinary writers and musicians of the North East.

Events such as this Festival will be held annually so that the quality of the Festival is enriched and enhanced every year by involving more and more people and their ideas and the image of Goa in people’s mind is of a more vibrant cultural and intellectual destination.

Participating Authors:

Aatish Taseer, Abhay Sardesai, Amitav Ghosh, Anand Patwardhan, Anjum Hasan, Aniruddha Sen Gupta, Bhalchandra Nemade,Bilal Tanweer,Charles Correa,Chiki Sarkar, C P Surendran, Cyril Almeida, Deborah Baker, Desmond L Kharmawphlang, Eunice de Souza, Fatima Bhutto, Gulzar, H M Naqvi, Jai Arjun Singh, Jeet Thayil, Jerry Pinto,Jonathan Shainin, Kiran Nagarkar, Kjell Eriksson, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Manohar Shetty, Mamang Dai, Meena Kandasamy, Mitra Phukan, Mohammed Hanif, Mridula Garg,M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Naresh Fernandes, Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, Pablo Bartholomew, Pavan K Varma, Raghunath Mashelkar, Ranjit Hoskote, Robin Ngangom, S. Anand, Sadia Dehlvi, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Samar Halarnkar, Sidharth Bhatia, Shahidul Alam, Shailaja Bajpai, Shehan Karunatilaka, Sheen Kaaf Nizam, Sivasankari, Sonia Faleiro, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Sunil Khilnani, U.R. Ananthamurthy, Urvashi Butalia,Temsula Ao,Teju Cole, Vishwas Patil, Zac O’Yeah

Participating Artists and Performers:

Dr. Alka Pande, Atul Dodiya, Durgabai Vyam, Gulam Mohd Sheikh, Himanshu Suri, Lou Majaw, Luis Gumby Pinto, Subhash Vyam,Dr. Subodh Kerkar, Suresh Jayaram, Suresh Jayaram, Vijay Iyer

By Mark Dummett BBC News

On 13 June 1971, an article in the UK’s Sunday Times exposed the brutality of Pakistan’s suppression of the Bangladeshi uprising. It forced the reporter’s family into hiding and changed history.

Abdul Bari had run out of luck. Like thousands of other people in East Bengal, he had made the mistake – the fatal mistake – of running within sight of a Pakistani patrol. He was 24 years old, a slight man surrounded by soldiers. He was trembling because he was about to be shot.

So starts one of the most influential pieces of South Asian journalism of the past half century.

Written by Anthony Mascarenhas, a Pakistani reporter, and printed in the UK’s Sunday Times, it exposed for the first time the scale of the Pakistan army’s brutal campaign to suppress its breakaway eastern province in 1971.

Nobody knows exactly how many people were killed, but certainly a huge number of people lost their lives. Independent researchers think that between 300,000 and 500,000 died. The Bangladesh government puts the figure at three million.

The strategy failed, and Bangladeshis are now celebrating the 40th anniversary of the birth of their country. Meanwhile, the first trial of those accused of committing war crimes has recently begun in Dhaka.

Anthony Mascarenhas

• July 1928: Born in Goa
• 1930s: Educated in Karachi
• June 1971: Exposes war crimes in East Pakistan that alter international opinion
• 1972: Wins international journalism awards
• 1979: Reports that Pakistan has developed nuclear weapons

There is little doubt that Mascarenhas’ reportage played its part in ending the war. It helped turn world opinion against Pakistan and encouraged India to play a decisive role.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told the then editor of the Sunday Times, Harold Evans, that the article had shocked her so deeply it had set her “on a campaign of personal diplomacy in the European capitals and Moscow to prepare the ground for India’s armed intervention,” he recalled.

Not that this was ever Mascarenhas’ intention. He was, Evans wrote in his memoirs, “just a very good reporter doing an honest job”.

He was also very brave. Pakistan, at the time, was run by the military, and he knew that he would have to get himself and his family out of the country before the story could be published – not an easy task in those days.

When the war in what was then East Pakistan broke out in March 1971, Mascarenhas was a respected journalist in Karachi, the main city in the country’s dominant western wing, on good terms with the country’s ruling elite. He was a member of the city’s small community of Goan Christians, and he and Yvonne had five children.

It was terrifying – I had to leave everything behind”

Yvonne Mascarenhas

The conflict was sparked by elections, which were won by an East Pakistani party, the Awami League, which wanted greater autonomy for the region.

While the political parties and the military argued over the formation of a new government, many Bengalis became convinced that West Pakistan was deliberately blocking their ambitions.

The situation started to become violent. The Awami League launched a campaign of civil disobedience, its supporters attacked many non-Bengali civilians, and the army flew in thousands of reinforcements.

On the evening of 25 March it launched a pre-emptive strike against the Awami League, and other perceived opponents, including members of the intelligentsia and the Hindu community, who at that time made up around 20% of the province’s 75 million people.

In the first of many notorious war crimes, soldiers attacked Dhaka University, lining up and executing students and professors.

Their campaign of terror then moved into the countryside, where they battled local troops who had mutinied.

Initially, the plan seemed to work, and the army decided it would be a good idea to invite some Pakistani reporters to the region to show them how they had successfully dealt with the “freedom fighters”.

Foreign journalists had already been expelled, and Pakistan was also keen to publicise atrocities committed by the other side. Awami League supporters had massacred tens of thousands of civilians whose loyalty they suspected, a war crime that is still denied by many today in Bangladesh.

Eight journalists, including Mascarenhas, were given a 10-day tour of the province. When they returned home, seven of them duly wrote what they were told to.

But one of them refused.

Yvonne Mascarenhas remembers him coming back distraught: “I’d never seen my husband looking in such a state. He was absolutely shocked, stressed, upset and terribly emotional,” she says, speaking from her home in west London.

“He told me that if he couldn’t write the story of what he’d seen he’d never be able to write another word again.”

Clearly it would not be possible to do so in Pakistan. All newspaper articles were checked by the military censor, and Mascarenhas told his wife he was certain he would be shot if he tried.

Pretending he was visiting his sick sister, Mascarenhas then travelled to London, where he headed straight to the Sunday Times and the editor’s office.

Evans remembers him in that meeting as having “the bearing of a military man, square-set and moustached, but appealing, almost soulful eyes and an air of profound melancholy”.

“He’d been shocked by the Bengali outrages in March, but he maintained that what the army was doing was altogether worse and on a grander scale,” Evans wrote.

Mascarenhas told him he had been an eyewitness to a huge, systematic killing spree, and had heard army officers describe the killings as a “final solution”.

Evans promised to run the story, but first Yvonne and the children had to escape Karachi.

They had agreed that the signal for them to start preparing for this was a telegram from Mascarenhas saying that “Ann’s operation was successful”.

Yvonne remembers receiving the message at three the next morning. “I heard the telegram man bang at my window and I woke up my sons and I was, oh my gosh, we have to go to London. It was terrifying. I had to leave everything behind.”

“We could only take one suitcase each. We were crying so much it was like a funeral,” she says.

To avoid suspicion, Mascarenhas had to return to Pakistan before his family could leave. But as Pakistanis were only allowed one foreign flight a year, he then had to sneak out of the country by himself, crossing by land into Afghanistan.

The day after the family was reunited in their new home in London, the Sunday Times published his article, under the headline “Genocide”.

‘Betrayal’

It is such a powerful piece of reporting because Mascarenhas was clearly so well trusted by the Pakistani officers he spent time with.

I have witnessed the brutality of ‘kill and burn missions’ as the army units, after clearing out the rebels, pursued the pogrom in the towns and villages.

I have seen whole villages devastated by ‘punitive action’.

And in the officer’s mess at night I have listened incredulously as otherwise brave and honourable men proudly chewed over the day’s kill.

‘How many did you get?’ The answers are seared in my memory.

His article was – from Pakistan’s point of view – a huge betrayal and he was accused of being an enemy agent. It still denies its forces were behind such atrocities as those described by Mascarenhas, and blames Indian propaganda.

However, he still maintained excellent contacts there, and in 1979 became the first journalist to reveal that Pakistan had developed nuclear weapons.

In Bangladesh, of course, he is remembered more fondly, and his article is still displayed in the country’s Liberation War Museum.

This was one of the most significant articles written on the war”

Mofidul Huq/Liberation War Museum

In Bangladesh, of course, he is remembered more fondly, and his article is still displayed in the country’s Liberation War Museum.

“This was one of the most significant articles written on the war. It came out when our country was cut off, and helped inform the world of what was going on here,” says Mofidul Huq, a trustee of the museum.

His family, meanwhile, settled into life in a new and colder country.

“People were so serious in London and nobody ever talked to us,” Yvonne Mascarenhas remembers. “We were used to happy, smiley faces, it was all a bit of a change for us after Karachi. But we never regretted it.”