Exposing grim reality
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Ajeeb Komachi's exhibition of photographs focusses on the plight of children.
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Silent cry of children in distress.
HE HAS named it `Nashta Balyam' (Lost Childhood). As the title suggests, Ajeeb Komachi's exhibition of photographs is all about children. Children who have lost their childhood. There is little doubt that children are the worst sufferers in any calamities, natural or man-made. Komachi says that the success of the show is not that of his frames, but that of the subject he deals with.
The number of shows has already crossed 150. Komachi has won accolades from almost all parts of Kerala and abroad. Five sets of his photos continue to be exhibited at different places in Kerala - all showing different frames of human indifference.
Colleges, schools, clubs and other organisations are vying for a date to organise an exhibition of his photographs. These photos capture the agony of children. From the cataclysmic upheavals of Bhuj to the cold-blooded killings of Marad, Komachi has found a trusted ally in his Nikon F-90 to tell the world that whether man kills or nature does its macabre dance, it is children who suffer the worst.
Critique of society
These photographs cannot be ignored or can they be forgotten. They tug at your heartstrings and make you brood over them. Some of the pictures are sharp commentaries on our socio-political system. Who can forget that bleeding child who suffered severe head injuries in the police action at Muthanga? Or the child who was rounded up by the police for allegedly attacking them?
There are pictures from almost all aspects of life. Some of the photos shock us while some others make us think.
Child abuse
The limbless picture of Asna takes us back to the gory political clashes of Kannur and their futility. For Komachi, Muthanga is a classic case of child abuse, if total disregard for children can be considered an abuse. The photographer through his frames poses before us many vital questions.
Here is one of them: for a street child who has none to take care of her, is polio vaccine more important than a glass of drinking water?
He has given permanence to many paradoxes regarding the lives of children. The innocence of children who become victims of parental neglect and quarrels; the tiny tot destined to spend life in jail together with her mother; the tender hands that work hard for a living; children from communal killing fields; the burden of modern education; the sleep of the innocent in the streets; the children who know no sleep with their eyes closed; and children from the red street... all of them have stories to narrate.
One may not agree with Komachi comparing a lonely child in a day-care centre to our preparedness for old-age homes. But the picture is thought provoking.
He has borrowed phrases and lines from writers such as Bertold Breht, Herman Hesse, Khalil Gibran, ONV Kurup, Changampuzha Krishna Pillai, G. Sankarakurup, Kunjunni, Madhavikutty, Sugathakumari and Balachandran Chullikkadu to describe his pictures. Even without them, the pictures speak a universal language.
At times, people leave the exhibition in distress. The intensity of emotion is felt more in rural areas than in towns and cities. Komachi has a reason for this: "In cities, people are more or less accustomed to seeing similar images, and they may not be bothered. But in villages, those images can make a strong impact."
Gujarat earthquake
Komachi had earlier hit the headlines when he conducted over 350 shows of his pictures of the Gujarat earthquake. But he makes no money out of the shows. "My aim is to reach out to people," he says.
Komachi did not focus on the tsunami that killed thousands. "I didn't want to limit myself to tragedies. That was also the case when the Kadalundi train accident took place. Because, a photographer should not be viewed as a vulture."
ABDUL LATHEEF NAHA
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