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Strangers in the view

Capturing the mundane Jasmeen captures ordinary things that catch her eye

There are no arty angles. No profound messages. No breathtaking visuals. Jasmeen Patheja has simply captured the regular mundane things that just caught her attention. A four year-old girl in a pink lehenga going down the escalator in Frankfurt. The coldness of the metallic structure juxtaposed with the feminine feel of the pink or the girl herself was what attracted Jasmeen to capture the moment. In “Running Amok” Jasmeen’s ongoing exhibition, she has captured spontaneous situations, moments and the people in there.

“I enjoy having an interaction with people simply walking on the street. My camera allows me to do that. When I go out in the street with a camera, some smile at me, some look at me. Being a woman, I also appear less threatening. I don’t go out having a specific plan in mind. I just know that this is the moment,” says Jasmeen.

Like the torso of a street actor dressed in a fancy blue dress in Germany shot from behind or the shot of a man standing across the door in a hotel and staring at Jasmeen, all her pictures narrate an incident which happened at a given time and place. “I was waiting at the hotel’s reception for a room and this guy kept staring at me. The whole setting also made for an interesting composition. As soon as I took the picture, the man vanished,” recalls Jasmeen who has shot these pictures over a period of five years in Bangalore, Kolkata, Germany and Mumbai.

In Paris, there is a picture of people travelling in the tube. And right next to it is the image which shows various hands of women making chapattis in a langar (community meals in Sikh religion where food is prepared and eaten together). “In one situation, people come across as stiff and aloof. They don’t make eye contact. And here, there is a feeling of togetherness,” reflects Jasmeen. But again these pictures were not planned. “The only picture I kind of choreographed is the picture of my cousin running in Cubbon Park but her long hair flying in the air and her feet not touching the ground was definitely not something which was planned,” she shares.

As a photographer, Jasmeen likes to be surprised and that is evident from her pictures. The image of several fake buns, women’s inners in an array of colours hung symmetrically at Gariahat market in Kolkata or a top shot of glasses in a sink at home are again such moments where Jasmeen’s reacted on purely visual basis. Jasmeen has taken a lot of pictures at home of people she knows. The photographer is in fact working on a project with her grandmother Indri. A picture of her grandmother holding a tomato in place of her nose is interesting in a weird way. “Our relationship changes with the camera. She has an interesting rapport with the camera. While flipping through old family photographs, I got to know that she loves being in front of camera,” says Jasmeen who is also the voice behind Blank Noise, a community-public art project that seeks to confront street harassment. Jasmeen began it as a student project in August 2003 while she was studying at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. With a view to address the issue of eve-teasing, the project works with the victims, the perpetrators and spectators of street sexual harassment. Jasmeen also uses video installation, sound, performance and blogs to give vent to her creative urges.

(The show “Running Amok” is on at Tasveer gallery, Sua house, Kasturba Road till July 18. For details contact 2212 8358)

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