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An ode to Kashmir

The incredible beauty of Kashmir comes alive in Dr. Rajesh Parikh's photographs. MEERA MOHANTY takes a look

LENS VIEW OF KASHMIR One of the photographs on display

We've all heard of how Emperor Jehangir came to Kashmir, and promptly fell in love with it. "Gar firdous baroe zameen ast, hameen ast, hameen ast, hameen ast," he said famously declaring it was Paradise on earth. Dr. Rajesh Parikh, a leading neuropsychiatrist, reiterates this popular opinion. If you have doubt, he has proof. "Kashmir: Hameen ast", a travelling exhibition of photographs, is his ode to the State where he once proposed marriage to his gynaecologist wife, Firuza.

Although Dr. Parikh has been visiting Kashmir for the last 25 years, the current exhibition is the result of photographs shot in the last two years. And still there were hundreds to choose from. Having narrowed it down to 400, he let photographer friends take over. The last 200 were handed over to a curator who picked the final 55.

"I must not take credit where I don't deserve," said Dr. Parikh at the launch of his exhibition at the Taj Coromandel. "I was too involved and it was difficult to choose, as there was a story behind each picture. But then, a photograph has to stand on its own."

Many moods

The landscapes on display are quite brilliant. Then there are those like the carpet weaver seen through a haze of threads, or the saffron flower that resemble watercolours. Dr. Parikh also captures people and moments that tell us of a Kashmir we rarely get to see — a man praying with gorgeous autumn chinars in the foreground or a bubblegum-blowing Kashmiri girl. "I've travelled all over the world, but when there is so much beauty right here at home... ," says Dr. Parikh, who has addressed students at Yale, John Hopkins and Harvard. In fact, it was at the suggestion of a student at the Harvard Medical School that he took his photographs to Boston's Zona Labs. After a few professionals felt the pictures were truly good, Dr. Parikh agreed to exhibit them. "You can always make time for what you are passionate about," says the doctor, who's also a poet and a painter.

The photographs are printed on acid-free archival paper that can last for at least 90 years. In a coffee table book titled "Kashmir: hameen ast" that he has carefully crafted, the many moods of Kashmir are captured — houses, staircases, billboards, with snow all around. The exhibition will also showcase a real flower boat that Dr. Parikh brought back from Kashmir.

The exhibition hopes to raise money for a "small" Post Traumatic Disorder Programme for earthquake victims at Urri. "Small, because," says Dr. Parikh, "I want to create a project that can sustain itself over a period of time." He has conducted similar and much larger programmes in Latur and Bhuj.

The photographs are far from the terror-struck images of Kashmir. Dr. Parikh's is heavenly. "In fact, the real Kashmir is even more beautiful. What I have captured is just a slice of the whole," he says. But if his photographs are anything to go by — if the morning sunlight hits the oar of a boat to create a poetic shaft of gold in a winter grey Dal lake, if the boats leave trails of silver on the water surface, if the dew-kissed flowers look so beautiful, and if the lights flickering on the door of a church covered in snow can look that enchanting — then Kashmir must truly be `hameen ast'.

Incidentally, Dr. Parikh's next projects will focus on stray animals, and the bond these animals share with homeless people.

The exhibition, held in association with Mehta Jewellery, will move to Lakshana Museum of Arts, 8, Judge Jambulingam Road, where it will be inaugurated by actor Kamal Hassan. N. Ravi, Editor, The Hindu will be the chief guest. The exhibition is on till February 9.

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