Karnataka - Bangalore   

Snapshots of people from nowhere

Captured: Swapan Nayak’s photographs present the predicament of the dispossessed.

Bangalore: “Unity in diversity” is the most favourite catchphrase in our country. But how much anyone knows about this diversity is the real question.

How many, for instance, know that there are around 2,000 habited temporary islands on the Brahmaputra? Called “chars”, they are home to migrants from Bangladesh who have been living there since the early 1950s. They abandon their villages when the river rises during the monsoon and move to either new villages that are formed or to nearby towns on the banks. According to the Government of Assam’s Char Development Authority, around 16 lakh live a life of constant uncertainty in “char” areas without access to basic amenities.

Swapan Nayak’s ongoing photo show in the city is striking because it gives a peek into the lives of some of the most marginalised people in the north-eastern States of India, a region that the rest of the country knows so little about.

The exhibition is divided into two sections, “Nowhere People” and “Refugees in Their Own Land”. While the former captures life in the “char” region, the latter focusses on those in who have been rendered homeless because of unrelenting ethnic conflict in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.

Mr. Nayak, a photojournalist with Outlook, steers clear of the typical journalistic style in the series. Rather than capture conflict situations in action, he focusses on the predicament of people who have been victims of these situations. They are stark black-and-white pictures with people in focus, often staring vacantly straight into the camera. Impoverishment is suggested in details around. Thatched bamboo walls, so typical of the region, run through most pictures like a leitmotif.

The most striking among the pictures are those that provide complexity to the situation by providing contrasts. “Sons of Lost Soil”, for instance, has a wizened woman next to a young man playing the guitar. “Displaced Existence” has a worried woman near the entrance of a hut. A bunch of giggling kids provide a counter to her mood. “Mobile Singer” has a man on a boat singing with abandon. Two boys at a wedding party, looking gleeful in their coloured plastic glasses and watches, is another arresting image.

The show is on at Sua House, off Kasturba Road (next to British Library), till October 25.

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Snapshots of people from nowhere

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