A clutch of carriages
IN the splendid collection that the Crafts Museum in Delhi houses, is an album of painted sketches of designs and patterns that is a delight to leaf through. The work is a 19th century craftsmen’s sample book, with page after page filled with designs of artefacts on the making of which carpenters and gold-and silver-smiths and upholsterers must have collaborated. The binding of the volume is now coming apart but, fortunately, all the leaves — consisting of machine-made European paper — seem still to be intact.

A ray of hope for the handicapped
By Mohan Varghese
SWAPNA, a 24-year-old girl from Kerala, born without hands, paints with her legs. Determined to be self-dependent from early childhood itself, she learned to do most of her daily chores like eating, brushing her teeth, combing her hair etc. with her legs.

Another serial on Kashmir
By Madan Gupta Spatu
WITH the democratic process having been restored in Kashmir and the Line of Control (LoC) being under control, though punctuated by certain minor and major mishaps, it is the time to take stock of the situation not only in the news programmes but also through a dramatised version of the happenings.

Black ‘n’ white world of old cameras
By Laisram Indira
FAR from the world of digital photos, polaroid cameras, sophisticated studio lights and special effects, are a group of photographers churning out black and white classics reviving the old world charm.

An artist’s call for peace to all
By Ranee Sahaney

NOW, more than ever, does it seem to be the perfect time to endorse the message of peace and goodwill to all men. As history brings us to the turn of a new century, never was it more saddening to see what-we-have-made-of-our-lovely-earth..., how the beauty of her lovely visage is besmirched with sorrows of a thousand tears and fears..., how bleak does the morrow seem when change and decay confronts the vision at every turn.

But hope springs eternal... and gentle reminders of this from those who can rise above the humdrum affairs of life and bring fresh nuances to the business of living are always welcome. With the new millennium fast upon us, Delhi-based artist Kanwal Chaudri’s “Ode to Peace” Textile Art Exhibition gathers fresh relevance and poignancy.

A symphony of strength and beauty wrested from the mire is played out on an unusual canvas of silk in appliqué technique.”Ode to Peace” has enjoyed a successful season in Delhi, having also made its presence felt at the Raj Ghat ceremony on Gandhi Jayanti and the Tourism Environment meet, and is now poised on a pinnacle of its onward journey to Chandigarh in the new millennium.

Kanwal’s exposition is scheduled to travel to other select cities, both here and abroad, in an endeavour to call upon people from all walks of life to spread the message of peace and global harmony. Capturing the story of the human journey with the lotus flower as an effective medium for the message, these 12 panels of textile art wall hangings are dedicated to Gandhiji and draw subtle parallels from his life’s mission of peace. Kanwal hopes that the call for peace will inspire other fellow artists, musicians, poets, dancers, artisans etc to carry this message through their own medium of calling and spread it to all corners of the world.

Kanwal sees the series as a “thought carrier, extending a gentle reminder, indulging in the silent soulful with the heart and conscience. It’s a call to all ago groups, unifying the known and the unknown...allowing for interpretation at all levels and age limitations.” The depiction of the lotus through its struggles to survive despite all odds, in serenity and beauty, finds its parallel in a human life finding those same intrinsic qualities despite the horrors of war or domestic strife. For Kanwal the “lotus knows how to remain beautiful after the catastrophe and how to be a source of inspiration for others.”

Though each panel is complete in itself, the series has a unifying theme and can be viewed as such in its harmonious blend of colour and intonation. These works are not simply individual pieces of design, they are connected to each other through the philosophy of life, according to the artist. The first canvas depicting infancy (the lotus bud) makes its difficult journey for survival in the pond, metaphorically passing through the hostile territory of adolescence, adulthood, the relationship between man and woman, the making of a family, exploring the mother-child relationship, co-existing with fellow human beings...all the time struggling to keep its beauty and inner equilibrium intact. each of the panels is accompanied by a message from Gandhiji.

“Ode to Peace” encompasses some of the most vital themes that play upon our lives — survival destruction rejuvenation. Inspired by the sorrows of Punjab, Kashmir, Bosnia and other strife-torn countries, the exhibition holds out the bud of hope that will blossom afresh rejuvenating the pond again. Steeped in metaphor, the art works can be enjoyed afresh every time.

Kanwal specialises in art, design and textiles (has contributed extensively to the Festivals of India for Pupul Jayakar), and handwoven silk and appliqué and embroidery, with their subtle textures and hues, were the perfect medium for her evocative theme. She has also gifted Mr LK Advani one of the panels on “ Co-existence” during the Kargil conflict as an ambassador of peace.

Kanwal revels in expanding her philosophical bent of mind on new canvases and has been delighting Dilliwallahs with her beautiful voile purdahs and duppattas, celebrating spring, the meanderings of the Ganga and much else. The artist has been greatly inspired by her widowed grandmother with whom she lived as young girl in Punjab. Sardarni Kishan Kaur Rai of Dehre was an unusual woman of her days. Widowed at the age of 22, she went on to become one of the biggest landladies of Punjab. It was her vision which took her daughter Hardit into the field of medicine in the 1920s. Hardit was to become the first lady civil surgeon of Punjab and also went on to open the honorary clinic at Banglasahib gurdwara. Kanwal’s father, Chaudri Khazan Singh, an accomplished bureaucrat, rose to great heights in finance and construction during his times. He played an important role in the rehabilitation of the Sikhs in Delhi after Partition. Kanwal has imbibed the best parts of creativity, humanitarianism and sensitivity of her illustrious family.

A clutch of carriages

IN the splendid collection that the Crafts Museum in Delhi houses, is an album of painted sketches of designs and patterns that is a delight to leaf through. The work is a 19th century craftsmen’s sample book, with page after page filled with designs of artefacts on the making of which carpenters and gold-and silver-smiths and upholsterers must have collaborated. The binding of the volume is now coming apart but, fortunately, all the leaves — consisting of machine-made European paper — seem still to be intact.

Each leaf is painted on only one side of the paper, and generally carries only one sketch, so as not to clash with any other. On the leaves, however, discreetly tucked away at the bottom of the page, are occasional notes in English and Devanagari, giving estimates of the prices of the ‘illustrated’ objects, and one can imagine some enterprising craftsman, or his agent, taking the sample-book and doing a round of the still flourishing courts, and noble houses, showing these designs and booking orders.

One can be almost certain of this, for most of the objects included are not of the kind that the common man would have been interested in, or able to afford. Palanquins and elaborately carved chairs, European-style settees and foot-stools, royal parasols and bejewelled dagger handles, jostle each other on these pages, with brief jottings — made almost certainly in an Indian hand familiar with the English script — of what the object would cost when made in solid “selver”, or what it would run to if made of silver plate. There is an Indo-European feel about the entire work but the occasional Hindi notings — like “chandi bhari” — which appear in the volume leave one in no doubt at all about its Indian origins.

But this prosaic and fact-filled description does no justice to the character or the quality of the album. For to turn its pages is to be led suddenly into a world of opulence and fantasy. Consider this design of a chair-like carriage: the whole structure has something of the outline of a boat with its ends sweeping back in elegant curves and ending in animal-headed finials; the sides of the deep seat, into which the rider must have simply sunk, are

made in the form of some winged fairy, with an elegantly carved bust and head, bejewelled and wearing a crown, her wings luxuriantly spreading behind her; the front of the chair curves gently, its top shaped like a tiger’s head and its neck slowly merging into the form of an enormous fish whose head comes to rest where the rider’s feet must have been.

This entire structure, clearly meant to be carried on shoulders, is attached to two long poles, with their metal-covered ends shaped again in the form of beasts, and at its base is a lightly bent pole with enormous tiger’s claws serving as the feet on which it must have rested on the ground, when not carried. Not an inch of the contraption seems to be left un-carved or un-painted but, surprisingly, there is no air of garishness in the design or in the patterning. All parts merge and cohere together with great elegance, redolent of a period, evocative of a class. It is as if excess were being handled with restraint.

The elan, the theatrical element, that one sees in the moving chair that I have just described, is carried with ease into a whole range of other carriages, other ‘products’: thrones meant, like a takht-i-rawan, to be carried on four shoulders; long wood-and-metal platforms with one carved seat placed behind another as if to be occupied by a royal figure in front and an heir-apparent behind; domed palkis with spaces meant to be covered with gold and velvet curtains. In all this, opulence mixes with fantasy, as I said. There is no single source of inspiration that the craftsmen appear to have tapped, for Islamic peris and Egyptian sphinxes and European griffins all commingle together, co-exist in the language of ornament one sees.

Where exactly is this album from? It is difficult to be certain, but the Punjab comes to mind as a source, the work reminiscent in some manner of the craftsmanship that one associated, at least in the 19th century, with Amritsar or Hoshiarpur. I am tempted, at the same time, to

mention that stunning painting from Patiala — the procession of Maharaja Narinder Singh on elephant-back — to which I drew attention in an earlier column while speaking of the London exhibition of the “Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms”, and to which, incidentally, I hope to be able to devote a full piece in the future. In that, in the far distance, just outside the city wall, even as the Maharaja himself rides on elephant back, a number of unoccupied carriages are moving along, as if to be available for the Maharaja’s use at any time. Among them is one that, carried on their shoulders by four liveried footmen, appears remarkably close — tiger and horse shapes, griffin’s wings, curving fish and all — to the kind that one finds in this album. One wonders if, in that little detail, one has some clue to our album here.

Other carriages

While on the subject of carriages, the names of which are not specified in the album, I was tempted to go to that perennial source of delight, Hobson Jobson, that “Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases” which Yule and Burnell put together in the 19th century. There is a whole range of carriages that the book speaks of, from “palkee garry” to “ekka” to “jampan”, giving engaging examples of their use and their possible etymologies. But a phaeton, drawn by a four-horse team, which one also sees in the Patiala painting I have mentioned, does not figure in the book. I looked it up elsewhere, and found that its name is derived from Phaethon, in Greek mythology the “son of Helios permitted for a day to drive the chariot of the sun and struck down with a thunderbolt by Zeus to keep the world from being set on fire”. Now one knows.

A ray of hope for the handicapped
By Mohan Varghese

SWAPNA, a 24-year-old girl from Kerala, born without hands, paints with her legs. Determined to be self-dependent from early childhood itself, she learned to do most of her daily chores like eating, brushing her teeth, combing her hair etc. with her legs.

She developed a neat writing and studied up to class 10 at Mercy Home, Chettipuzha, Kerala, under the care of Sisters of Destitute. She discontinued her studies thereafter, not finding much prospects in pursuing an academic career.

She faced a bleak future as she belonged to a poor family, besides being handicapped. Though she painted occasionally, nobody showed her a concrete way to come up in life other than showering her with empty praises.

Then a light shone in the dark horizon of her life. It originated from Roshni Society, a home at Rajpura that rehabilitates disabled children. Swapna and her poor parents came to the home to get a pair of artificial hands as it (Roshni) arranges these in amputation cases. Her hopes were shattered when she was found unfit to be fitted with artificial hands because of a hump on one of her back shoulders, which she had developed in the course of the years when she did her daily chores.

But Father K.J. Thomas, President, Roshni Society advised her to see the brighter side of life by developing her painting talent. Swapna went back home with a glimmer of hope. Father Thomas chose some of her paintings to publish these in the form of greeting cards for the millennium Christmas and New Year. The proceeds will be sent to Swapna.

For most people being handicapped is a curse, a punishment for some grievous sin, but for Roshni Society it is a challenge to develop the latent potentialities of handicapped persons. At present Swapna is undergoing a painting course in Kerala with the help and guidance of Roshni.

Father Thomas has launched a special drive to rehabilitate the maximum number of disabled children as a millennium programme for which he is seeking public support. Generous and needy individuals may contact Roshni- 01762-27004.

Another serial on Kashmir
By Madan Gupta Spatu

WITH the democratic process having been restored in Kashmir and the Line of Control (LoC) being under control, though punctuated by certain minor and major mishaps, it is the time to take stock of the situation not only in the news programmes but also through a dramatised version of the happenings.

The valley, the peace and tranquillity of which underwent a sea change in the recent past, experienced a different type of problem for a variety of reasons in the national as well as international context — our neighbouring country was exercising a proxy war which involved the people of Kashmir.

The militants, aided, funded and trained across the border, recruited the local people and brain washed and used them against our own people.

“Sahar” (dawn), the new six-episode serial shot by G.S. Chani in the beautiful valley of Subathu (Himachal) and Kashmir, underlines the entire concept making the people of the valley think deeply and dispassionately about what went wrong and the horizon to which they got misled.

The serial not only presents a glimpse of what happened in the past, but also looks at it in a manner which is incisive and insightful besides churning feelings and thoughts about the events.

Javed, the main character, who is a member of a militant group, while trying to leave the gang has a train of thoughts and memories as he hangs between life and death. His journey into the past is interwoven with the present, having an emotional appeal, light-hearted moments, tenderness and a good deal of high drama. It is the story of a militant joining the mainstream.

“Bandhak”, Chani’s earlier serial on the Kashmir issue depicting the plight of hostages based on real-life high drama, was telecast by three channels of Doordarshan in 1998.

“Sahar”, slated for telecast in the early part of the millennium by DD-I, seems to be the extended story of the main militant hero Javed played by Dippy.

Though there are no known faces from Bollywood, Chani banks upon local amateur artistes and non-actors and yet offers the best to the viewers, technically as well as artistically.

The other artistes include Pravesh Sethi, R.C. Girdhar, J.K. Raina, Jatinder Kaul, Usha Moza, Preeti Sakhuja, Madhvi, Kanha Ji, Kuldeep Bhatti, Rajesh Pawar, Kapil, Kalyan, Sidharth Vig, Ashok K. Sarin, Master Sahil and Atul Veer Arora, besides many residents of Subathu.

Mr Vasu Dev Gupta, Principal of Arya Public School, Subathu, was instrumental in suggesting beautiful locales that matched and resembled the valley and offering tiny-tots of his school for one of the sequences.

The production team comprising Harsimran Singh Kohli, Honey and Kanwal Bansur also included staff of a couple of hotels.

The camera of Debu Burma captures the atmosphere of Kashmir finely with the direction team comprising Munna Dhiman, Rajeev Sharma and of course G.S. Chani.

Black ‘n’ white world of old cameras
By Laisram Indira

FAR from the world of digital photos, polaroid cameras, sophisticated studio lights and special effects, are a group of photographers churning out black and white classics reviving the old world charm.

Armed with a liberal dose of natural light, a black piece of cloth, a stool and, of course, a ready customer, a group of 25 photographers sprinkled all over the Capital eke out a living by holding on to one of the most ancient cameras in the world.

For most of them the profession and the cameras date back to the colonial period — a legacy handed over by their ancestors.

“These cameras came in use during the British rule. The pavements of the Capital are our studio of sorts since 1947”, says Chander Gupta, one of the oldest lensmen at Chandni Chowk.

The reason these cameras have lasted to date is because no repair is required for a long time and maintenance costs very little, says Suresh Kumar, who took to the cameras eight years back after the death of his father.

Everyday about 10 to 15 persons line up along these pavements unperturbed by the din and bustle of life to immortalise their personae in the realm of photography.

But the business is slow and perhaps on the way to extinction, they rue, as the use of Polaroid and other hi-tech cameras already swarming the market are bound to sway their clientele.

But the world of old cameras offers an interesting glimpse in the photographic style of yesteryear.

A wooden box placed atop a long stand is set with papers attached in the inside with a mixed solution of bromide, hydrocline, alkaline soda, sulphide in water, which brings out the negative.

In front of the box is attached a focus lens and a small mirror for the benefit of the client. As the photographer gets ready to click, his one hand remains inside the box through a long sleeve fixed at the back of the camera box to mix the paper in the solution placed inside the box.

“The negative is then pasted in front of the lens and focused on it one or 10 times depending on the number of photos one wants”, says Kumar.

As the light is focused on it, the photo is formed. In 10 minutes it is all ready and everything is manual, explains Lal.

Photos in only black and white are churned out in various sizes — from stamp size to postcard — with four passport photos costing Rs 20.

People come in to take passport photos for use in application forms, visas, ration cards. But it is not that only ordinary people come here. There are also businessmen visiting them, boasts Kumar.

Most of them are foreigners and tourists who take keen interest in us, says Bhatia noting, “We earn around Rs 150 to 200 per day”.

But everything depends on sunshine and as there are no artificial lights, rainy days are lean days”, says Bhatia.

“To savour the old world classical charm, I prefer coming here. Moreover, the ambience transports me to the black and white world of the 1940s”, says Mufti Altaf, who has been frequenting the place for a long time.

But clicking photos on the roadside, away from the glare of the studio lights is a hard day’s job for them.

“The moment the sun rises we are on the pavement and close work when the sun sets”, says Narender Kumar.

“There is a parchi (ticket) system. Everyday, the parchi decides as to who should sit on which side of the pavement”, says Kumar, noting that the right side of the pavement turns out to be more lucrative than the left.

They work in rotation — each one for 15 days in a month — because of lack of space to accommodate all of them. They even have to shell out Rs 540 to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi for using the pavement.

For the next 15 days of the month “we are either looking for other areas to shoot or holidaying,” says Bhatia.

“I could not think of doing anything else and so took on to this profession as it was there in the family”, says Kanhaiya Lal noting that no special skill is required for it.

Though small in number, they are all affiliated to the Delhi Photographers’ Association, which they use to vent their grievances such as when harassed by authorities, which seldom happens, says Lal.

Sometimes we are also called to the film city in Noida and other functions where we are asked to display our cameras and how it works, says Kumar adding he had recently been called at Taj Palace Hotel for the same.

Bhatia also claims he once displayed his camera in a soft drink advertisement five years back in which he was shown as part of a cricket show coverage.

These kind of invitations come as perks in their profession which is virtually on the brink of being routed out as technology overtakes every aspect of their lives.

Other areas where these photographers eke out their living are in courts and transport authority offices where instant and cheap photos are much in demand.

And as each day follows the other in endless succession, so does their work. When the sun sets they pack their bags and store it in a room which they have all rented as it is too cumbersome to carry it back home everyday.

And to keep some pace with the new world, they also share a dream — to own a studio. — PTI