Before the Shutter Clicks

“To photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude.” – Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others.

Photography has evolved significantly over centuries. Not just the process of photographing but the intent has changed with time. The shift from commissioned photographs of the early nineteenth century to the “shutter, non-professional” photographs of this century can be traced easily. Camera Obscura or the Dark Room Camera of the nineteenth century, now comes to your fingertips in the form of smart phone cameras. Photographs are a pivotal part of the 21^st century mass culture where images are just a snap away.

Photographs and memory are deeply connected. The use of photography for memory or remembrance goes back to the 20^th century ethnographers, Margaret Mead and Geoffrey Bateson, who used camera for the first time in the field of ethnography. Mead says, “I think that we must squarely face the fact that we, as a discipline, have only ourselves to blame for our gross and dreadful negligence.” She wrote that camera could have “caught and preserved for centuries” dances, rituals performed perhaps for the last time, animal sacrifices and so on. She emphasizes to “memorialized (everything) on film, before it all disappears in front of everybody’s eyes.” Susan Sontag, in her book, ‘Regarding the Pain of Others’ says that photographs indeed provides a quick way of apprehending something and a compact form for memorizing.

Photography is something which did not come naturally to me. All the more, it is even too early to call myself a photographer. But it is fair to say that I compulsively take photographs, which are of course an amalgamation of a technology at-hand and opportunity. I have delved myself into capturing everything that catches my attention over the past year. So when I had to write a paper on photography and its ethicality, I did not know where to begin. Photography came to me as an instinct—an instinct when words failed me and I was left with camera to express what I saw in front of my eyes.

The question of ethics, insider-outsider, subjectivity-objectivity, and larger histories of colonialism and orientalism are closely knit with photography. I carried these questions with me everywhere I went. A few days ago, I was walking by a relatively lower middle-class housing colony and spotted two boys playing cricket. Unlike the most gully cricket, they were throwing a plastic doll’s head as a ball. The sight of a head being thrown into air became grotesque and interesting at the same time. But seeking consent of the subject, which is the first requirement in the ethics of photography became live, the moment I took out my smart phone to capture. So instead of going ahead with the photo, I went near them and stood in one corner. They stopped playing. I smiled and asked if I could capture them playing. And that was it. One of them, who had the playing stick in hand, rushed inside the house. The other, smilingly followed him. Both of them now stood as close to their house as possible and waited for me to leave. Their father came out, laughing and told the boys that I just meant to photograph. I apologized and left the place with a heavy smile. Throughout the metro ride, I kept thinking about what had just happened. I had lost on a ‘beautiful’ shot but I told myself that at least I asked. But the truth is, I lost a good photograph. I again soothed myself saying that I respected the desire of my subject. But it is also true that I lost a good subject. The photo along with a few hashtags could have bagged a few hundred likes. But I was happy or at least that’s what I told myself that I kept the ethics of photographing as priority. This was the turmoil.

I still contemplate why did I choose to photograph only the boys who played with the head of the doll and not otherwise. The image of a human face being swung in the air and then tossed by a bat invoked what Susan Sontag in context of war photography calls, “the image as shock”. And juxtaposes it with “image as cliché”. She says, “images be jarring, clamorous, eye-opening seems like elementary realism as well as good business sense. The image as shock and the image as cliché are two aspects of the same presence.” In other words, the so-called conscious choice of the photographer to capture a moment of shock, is done with an intention to unite the good will of the people in the form of likes and comments; who in economic terms also become the consumers of that photograph. Like Sontag says, Shock has become the leading stimulus of consumption.

Now that we are talking about shock and its cosmopolitan consumptive implications, it is important to talk about Mayank Austen Soofi, whose work both fascinate and disturb me. 

Mayank Austen Soofi. Photograph by: Dayanita Singh

Austen Soofi, whose Instagram bio reads, “The self-proclaimed hyperlocal Homer”, popularly known for this long-time blog The Delhi Walla, remains an inspiration for me. One of the Instagram followers of Austen Soofi, Taruna Khatri, commented on his post which echoes perfectly with what I feel towards his work. She says, “Who would’ve thought captions could have genres of their own. “Mayank Austen Soofi” is my favourite caption genre and if it weren’t for my conscience that begs me to be original I swear I’d begin to write captions like that all the time. Sometimes I’m walking down the road and I see a dried up Bougainville with a few flowers in front of an old wooden door and I go like “Emily Dickinson’s outhouse” or something like that. I find a street dog looking at me and I go like “A loyal stranger’s direct gaze” or I go into the old city for a case study and immediately think of the “The disappearing element of the hyper local architecture”. Very less people have had impact on me like this. There’s wes Anderson and then there’s you. Everything you post is a delight. Consider this “Sylvia’s self-confessional poetry” or something like that. I’m sure you can think of something better.”

While we are talking about captions, it is only necessary to talk what Sontag has to offer about the importance of putting captions. According to her, if there’s a distance between the reader and the subject in a photograph, then “what the photograph says can be read in several ways. Eventually, one reads into the photograph what it should be saying.” There’s a considerable distance between the subject and the words Soofi deploys in explaining them. But to me, it appears that the intention behind putting captions like, “Cent Percent King Lear!” for an ordinary aging man; makes the subject more distant, exotic, and extraordinary.

John Berger, in his book, ‘Ways of Seeing’ tells how we see things is affected by what we already know or what we believe. Hence, the admiration I held in Mayank Austen Soofi’s work (both writing and photography) reflected in my photography and captioning skills. What I see, or the way I see it, corresponds to what Austen Soofi has to offer. Nothing can be learnt in isolation. Everything is affected by every other thing – they are relational in nature. So, when I stop on a empty road, to photograph a rickshaw puller sleeping, the role of Soofi’s perspective is at play.

In one of the interviews on his book, Nobody Can Love You More, which is a book about the lives of sex-workers of Kotha no. 300 at G.B. Road, Delhi; Soofi was asked about the significance of the title. To which he replied, “I wanted it to be beautiful.” The usage of the word ‘beautiful’ opens up another set of debate for me both as a writer and a photographer. What comprises beautiful? Whose perspective qualifies for something to be called beautiful? Who/What is beautiful and for whom? A beggar lying bandaged on footpath or a daily-wage laborer sleeping on his cart; they are the actual hardships of life but for some it becomes a beautiful spectacle.

In another interview, he said that he never wanted to simplify complicated things. But the way he captions photographs or calls the title of his book “beautiful”, his words fall back on him. Like Soofi, many more photographers (consciously or unconsciously) have fallen into the trap of making the vision of suffering spectacular. “But the spectacular is very much part of the religious narratives by which suffering, throughout most of Western history, has been understood”, says Sontag. I have fallen into this trap as well and it is not limited to the photos I capture but other kinds of visuals which draw me—postcards are one of them. I love postcards. No matter where I go, I buy postcards, not to be sent to a friend or family but to be glued on my bedroom wall. But it is not as simple as it seems. There’s a pattern to my purchase. I buy postcards only of the tribal women of Rajasthan. Sometimes I look at the collage and ask myself, “why do I buy postcards of tribal communities?” One of the postcards which deeply unsettles me is that of a tribal woman breast feeding her toddler, staring into the camera with one breast exposed. I remember one of my friends asking the intentions behind buying a particular kind of postcards. I simply turned to her and said, “They are beautiful. Aren’t they?”

Postcard on my wall.

But there are things more to them besides being just beautiful. Each postcard, which claims to represent indigenous communities, carries with them a trail of exoticization. And probably this is what draws me to Soofi’s work. There is certain grandeur, epic-ness to his portraits. Sontag talks about the epic or grandeur nature of photographs. In context of the Crimean and the American Civil War, she says, “As for the war photographs published between 1914 and 1918, nearly all anonymous, they were – insofar as they did convey something of the terrors and the devastation—generally in the epic mode…” Hence, there is a romanticization in the idea of wars being fought, just like photographs of Austen Soofi where he makes the beggar or laborers, the European or Mughal kings.

But there is something which Soofi’s photographs do. Something which is a little difficult to explain. Something which is as vague as these sentences. I’ll attempt to explain it through an interview which he gave, and says that he wants to “capture the ordinariness of their (his subject’s) extraordinary lives”. Sticking true to this statement, he captions his photos, which are about ‘ordinary’ people by adding a layer of extraordinariness through linking them to European classic writers like Woolf, Shakespeare or Proust. But what about this fascination to the colonizer’s literature remains a question unanswered. Why do people from Indian diaspora need validation of the Western Literature?

Mayank Austen Soofi, as an author talks about the importance of consent while writing anything which is other than oneself. While writing his book, Nobody Can Love You More he tells that, if any of his subjects showed any discomfiture in sharing any information and asked him not to incorporate the detail, he obliged. But what about his photography? Does he seek permission? He acknowledges the limitations of a writer or photographer and says, “I think when you are writing a book about somebody else’s life, it is a little unfair, because it is my thought process at work and they have little control over it. I cannot be their voice.”

While I was balancing this admiration and discomfort with the genre of on-spot photography, also known as “shutter, non-professional” photography, it struck me that seeking permission to respect the desires of the subject results in loss of candidness or originality of the moment. Further, it made me question what comprises of candidness. It is more often than not intrusive. 

But finding answer to the question of whether my postcard collection is beautiful or exotic remains unanswered. According to Christopher Pinney, the practice of photographing with new technology is also a colonial practice. But the history of Photography as a colonial project goes back to nineteenth century, when Lord Canning, the Governor-General of India, expressed his desire to photograph the native castes and tribes of the country. Project titled, ‘The People of India’ was compiled between 1868 and 1875, and comprised of 468 annotated photographs to classify and categorize the colonized subjects. The origins of the project lay in the desire of Lord Canning to possess photographs of native Indian people. In the essay, ‘The Camera Obscure and its Subjects’, Jonathan Carry talks about the attempts made to theorize vision and visuality … that emphasize a continuous and overarching Western visual tradition.

Bringing consensus to the debate of ethicality in Photography has been a hard-fought battle. It has been widely discussed not just by the professionals but amateur photographers as well. Indeed, it is a battle which provides you with the means of fighting but does not leave you with a settling victory. How I see it, you cannot purely devour into ethicality while photographing your subject. But it is the attempts you make – even if failed, count. When you honestly try to understand the complexities of your subject and not take them for granted. “Margaret Mead obviously did not think it was necessary to deal with the ethical issues of photographing those who had little interest or stake in a project in which their ‘participation’ as subjects was vital.” No matter how much oddly satisfying the photographs of Mayank Austen Soofi are, his mere acknowledgement of the complexity of the subject brings everything into perspective. He says, “I think when you are writing a book about somebody else’s life, it is a little unfair...” Hence, it can’t be ignored that camera is an apparatus of political and social power, resulting in what Carry calls, “monolithic construction”. But it is important to be aware of this monolithism and continue to acknowledge its complexities.

References-

Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. Picador.

Crary, Jonathan. 1992. The Camera Obscura and Its Subject. Techniques of the Observer. October Books.

Berger, John. 1972. Ways of Seeing. Penguin Books.

Delhi Walla: An Interview with Mayank Austen Soofi. KnowledgeMust Blog. 

The Author as a Voyeur and Many Other Questions. The Hindu.

There's Nothing Romantic About the Life of a Sex Worker.Rediff dot com.

Ethics of Photography - The delicate balance of power between photographer and subject. The Telegraph India.

Telling My Mother about my Dark Skinned Boyfriend

Light skin equals beautiful and dark skin equals ugly. I was introduced to this skin colour based discrimination prevalent in India at a very young age within my family. To be honest, I was taught this discrimination. My young, mouldable and rather naïve mind perceived this discrimination as a given. The privileging of the fair skin seemed like common sense to me; something inescapable, especially since it worked in my favour.

As a fair skinned girl in a North Indian family of Uttar Pradesh, my skin colour has always been an aspect of obsessive pride for my family. For as long as I can remember, every compliment directed towards me always had something to do with the way I looked which was directly related to how gora (light skinned) I was. My light skin was such a highlight of my personality for the people around me that slowly it became the only highlight for me as well. As a little girl of seven or eight I had internalized this contradictory perception of skin colours so much so that I felt superior in having a lighter skin tone. This was also instilled in me through endless comparisons with cousin sisters, family friends or my school friends who had dark or relatively darker complexion.
This comparison never always worked in my favour since I obviously wasn’t the “fairest of them all.” I always aspired to have an even lighter skin tone; the kind I witnessed on the glowing television screens or the front pages of the magazine. My self-worth was involuntarily attached to my complexion and I clung on it as hard as I could. Even with the social privilege of a light skin, I was constantly trying to better it and was immensely frightened of losing it.

The paranoia cultivated in me was so much that during the awkward years of my teenage when my skin tone darkened a shade or two, my self-worth took a huge plunge. I tried every method in the book and my mother’s ‘indigenous’ knowledge to lighten my skin shade. I harboured great insecurities and took pleasure in comparisons with girls having darker skin colour. “At least my state isn’t that bad,” used to be my saddening line of thought.

Thankfully, that phase passed and I grew out of my prejudices as and when I was introduced to newer ways of perception. But as I look back, I recall some cringe-worthy (or funny) moments that reveal the staunch prejudices regarding dark skin that have circulated in my family since I can remember.
I recall the day my niece was born and how everyone fixated on the skin colour of the four hour old baby. She was instantly given comic names that like ‘kallo’ or ‘kariya’ that were colloquial synonyms of black. The word was spread throughout the family that the baby was healthy and the mother was fine but “bas thodi kaali hai but theek hai. Shayad kuch samay baad rang badal jae. Papa mummy toh dono gore hain” (She is just a little dark. Maybe after some time the skin colour changes. Both her parents have a fair skin).
It was really troubling to witness this attitude towards a new born. It was equally troubling about three months later when the entire family had a video chat with the little baby and expressed their collective relief afterwards: “chalo rang to saaf hogya hai. Ab iss parivaar ki lag rahi hai” (Thankfully the complexion is clearer now. Now she looks like a member of this family).

Similarly, whenever any wedding is about to happen in our huge joint family, it always starts with one question: “ladki/ladka dikhne mein kaisi/kaisa hai?” (How does the boy/girl look?). By look, it is always assumed that one is talking about the skin colour because beauty is always associated with the colour of the skin.
So when my gora (fair) cousin decided to marry a dark skinned girl, everybody took turns to convince him against it. The funny part was that no one knew exactly why they were trying to do so because the divisions of class, caste and religion were not working in their favour. Their reasoning was something vague like, “a fair guy would look better with a fair girl.” It was actually pretty surprising to see how this reasoning was used to devalue the love shared between the couple; it was genuinely considered bigger than it.

Of course my family isn’t to be blamed entirely. Discrimination based on skin colour is deeply rooted in the normal Indian psyche. Skin colour forms various layers variables and acceptability with the Indian society. For a long time now, beauty standards have been governed by the media. The media glorifies the fair skin both in male and female models. Moreover, television stars, movie actors and actresses openly endorse fairness products. If one observes closely, it is hard to ignore the predominance of light skinned models on the billboards. Often, even authentically Indian products like sarees and antique jewellery are advertised by white models from the West. These ideal or aspirational images available everywhere for ready consumption certainly reset notions of beauty and define it in terms of skin colour.

However prejudices associated with dark skin do not limit themselves in defining what’s beautiful or not. Acceptability in the Indian society is not merely limited to skin colour even though a fairer skin colour is constantly desirable. Many derivatives are responsible for a person’s reaction towards someone’s skin tone. These derivatives play a role in the acceptability of the person as well. For example, an upper caste or upper class man or women have acceptability than their lower caste counterparts. However, within the same class or caste, lighter skinned individuals are almost always preferred to those with darker skins. Similarly gender also is a part of one of these derivatives, a man with a darker complexion would be more accepted if he has a good financial status than a woman. In our society a woman is required to be beautiful according to specific standards. Her acceptability is very much dependent on how she looks.
It is also important to note that caste prejudice is invariable connected to colourism in India. It is often believed that all Dalits have dark skin tones. Even though this assumption is clearly misplaced, it is a commonplace belief in the Indian society.  
The fixation with this classification into good skin or bad skin manifests itself in the humongous market size of fairness creams and lotions, which is approximately 450 million USD.

My mother is a person who has been born, brought up and marinated in this discriminatory setup. It is very difficult to change the perspectives of someone older than you; especially in our country. If someone has survived for more years on the planet than you, it is inevitably assumed that that person has the ‘right kind of wisdom’ and well, you’re wrong.
My mother, who is an upper caste, upper middle class, fair woman, never bothered to question the hierarchies based on race, caste, class, gender or skin colour. Or, as she would say, she never had the time to do so. The invisible privilege that she enjoys also invisiblize for her any problems that crop up with the existence of such hierarchies and discrimination. Moreover, she even contributes in strengthening these hierarchies on a familial level quite ignorantly.

Even then, I consider my mother to be a progressive Indian mother who is open to somewhat newer perspectives. In today’s day and age when body shaming, skin colour based discrimination, limited ideals of beauty and the violence of caste and class structures are actively being questioned and deconstructed on social media platforms, our parents are always on Facebook consuming all of it. The base of such ideologies of division is unstable right now. While some people reject it as a corrupting new thought propagated by the ‘irresponsible millennials who have no concept of culture’, others struggle with what beliefs they should adhere to and what to let go of. My mother falls in the latter category as she calls me up for explanations when she reads something online and it strays away from her pre-existing ideals and beliefs. But one can ignore the effect of the fact that she moves about in circles that are filled with people who have the former line of thought; people who do not shake the foundation of her entire belief system like new perspective do.

However, her sheer effort and the fact that I am really close to her, makes me want to share every aspect of my life with her. She has been my go to person all my life in times of happiness as well as crisis. So, it is only natural that I wanted to tell her about my first relationship.

Even though she is someone who will directly think of marriage when I tell her about any boy, she does listen to my relationship stories quite enthusiastically and with minimal judgement, mostly. In any other case, I would have just walked in the house and declared my relationship status to her accompanied with pictures and stories. However, since I had chosen to be with a boy who had a dark complexion, my approach was different. The politics of introducing the fact that you are seeing a dark skinned boy is full of scheming, planning and plotting. I did not hope for an immediate approval. I even prepared my mind for a disapproving shrivelling of nose or a sigh of disappointment but I still was adamant to facilitate acceptance.

Forgive my hypocrisy, but instead of trying to dive headfirst into the topic and attempting to radically argue how skin colour is irrelevant or how acceptance or admiration cannot be guided by something as superficial as skin tone, I chose a direction that would be more hassle free. I had my reasons and my very real anxieties. To be honest, this bias attached to skin colour is so deeply rooted and internalized, that on some level, even I felt like I was disappointing my mother. I was looking for aspects that would compensate for the dark skin and encourage acceptance.

I was home for the holidays. It was a scorching summer and all the June conversations revolved around how bad the weather is. My mother and I spent our days laying on the bed in an air conditioned room. There were multiple instances where I could have told her about the recent development in my life on the very first day of my arrival but instead I resorted to a more manipulative approach.

I began with talking about this ‘new friend’ I had made in the past months. I was careful not to mention him too much as well. I have a clever mother. However, my mentioning was strategic. After spending twenty two years of my life with her, I knew the attributes that pleased my mother and I told her stories about this boy who helped me so much when I was shifting flats in Delhi. In one conversation, when we were discussing the general messiness of the male kind and my mom was frustrated with my father, I slyly mentioned how there is only one guy I know so far who loves to be neat and tidy. I was conniving enough to tell my mother how my ‘new friend’s’ mother sent home cooked meals for me. How very sweet!
Other little anecdotes of this ‘new friend’s’ politeness, chivalry, intelligence and kindness were sprinkled across conversations throughout summer. I was extremely anxious about my mother’s disapproval and hence refrained from telling her till the very last week of my vacation.
Since, the boy was also a Malayalee, I had been sure to bring up some positive stereotypes attached to Malayalee people as well. It was a tough endeavour to causally break into conversations like these, but I managed.

Seemingly trivial yet degrading commentary and disdain over darker skins has been regular feature in my family. Skin tone related jokes and judgement is a Monday morning breakfast in the house. “How did she even become an actress, she is so dark,” is what they would say when they saw a picture of Priyanka Chopra in some newspaper or magazine.
I was usually unaffected by such statements and brushed them off as ignorant banter because it never personally affected me. I never felt personally attacked by such comments and to avoid unpleasantness in the house, I stayed clear of arguing over them. But that summer was different. It felt bad to hear those seemingly harmless ‘jokes’ and remarks. Moreover, they further discouraged me from opening up to my mother. Every joke confirmed her eventual dissatisfaction.

It was a three days before I had to go back to Delhi that I gathered some courage and opened my Instagram page and pulled out a photo of K and I. I really wanted to share my experiences with my mother and  tell her how happy. I had consciously pulled out a picture where his skin appeared the lightest it could and felt a little bad doing so. As I said, I was adamant for acceptance.
I had even armed myself with very specific information about his class, caste and financial status that would compensate for his dark skin. I was aware of the questions that would come my way and I had rehearsed my answers to all of them.

I moved my phone towards my mother while she was scrolling through her Facebook newsfeed on her phone and watching a random video of a money drinking coca cola. I was careful enough to make lace my voice with honey and appear as docile and non-defensive as I could. Taking a strong defence never works well with Indian parents.

“This is the boy, I have been talking about. I am sorta in a relationship with him,” I avoided eye contact like I was ashamed of some unknown thing. My mother picked up my phone and abandoned her’s on the bed next to me. She instantly tried to zoom the picture by pinching the screen to focus on the guy’s face. She squinted her eyes for clarity of vision and moved the phone a little away from her face. Defeated, she sat upright and picked up her reading glasses from the bedside table. After placing the glasses carefully on her slender nose she resumed her inspection of the image.

This small act felt like it lasted for a day as I was getting anxious for her reaction. Even after she had inspected the photograph for two full minutes, she was silent for what felt like an eternity. It felt like she was also trying to formulate an appropriate response; a response that would not hurt of offend me.

After a long time she finally spoke but what she said wasn’t very pleasing. She inquired about the seriousness of my involvement in a manner that made it clear that she was hoping I wasn’t very serious. My heart instantly sank to my stomach but I wasn’t ready to give up. I honestly told her that this relationship mattered to me. Almost instantly I got what I had feared; the sigh of disapproval. I felt frustrated and angry at my mother’s shallowness and perspective but I knew better than to start an argument over it. Arguing wouldn’t bring about acceptance, I told myself to push down the bubbling anger.

“Is he a south Indian?” the series of questions began. This was the good part, I was prepared for this. I nodded my head to convey the yes and also pointed out the fact that he is from Kerala but has lived in Delhi all his life. I felt a pressing need to tell her that in his mannerisms he is more North Indian. I guess I did not want the regional prejudices to get attached to the already existing skin colour prejudice even though I knew they were hardly detachable. 

“From Kerala? Is he a Christian? A converted Christian? You know lower caste people converted to Christianity?,” the agitation in her voice increased and she was no longer careful about not offending me. Her eyes widened and the crease between her eyebrows deepened. Her nose involuntary shrivelled up and her horror was palpable on her face. This reaction and such line of questioning was infuriating. “You wouldn’t have asked me all this if it was a fair skinned boy,” every cell in my body was urging me to blurt out these words. I wanted to argue the very premise of such commentary but I had some convincing to do. Ignoring the rebellion within me, I calmly answered her queries even if my voice was involuntarily laced with acid now.

“No he isn’t a converted Christian mom, he is an upper caste Hindu for God’s sake. His name itself is of a prominent Hindu God’s name. He is a Nair to be precise who belong to a high caste. They worship the same Gods. Not everyone in Kerala in a converted Christian,” my defence was satisfactory for my mother as her body loosened a bit and she sat back against the headstand of the bed. However, it was quite shameful for me. My inner voice was vigorously shaking her head in immense disapproval of the stand that I was taking. But it felt necessary to do so.

I knew what the next question would be and my mother did not disappoint me. “What does his father do and where is he studying?” This is one question that every girl’s mother has irrespective of a boy’s physical attributes so I did not mind answering that. What became troubling was my mother’s surprised reaction when I told her that he was from an upper middle class family as well. Seeing his skin colour, she had already assumed in her mind that we did not share the same class and was rather surprised when I told her something contrary. Her eyes widened again but out of astonishment.

I was done with this conversation when she said, “Then it’s alright.”

I remember being extremely hurt by my mother’s attitude and series of questions even though I had already prepared for them. I felt hurt that she never bothered to ask about what kind of a person he was or what made me choose him. She did not want to know whether I was happy or not.
I also remember being excessively angry with myself for indulging her. 

I walked out of the room feeling lighter that I had finally told her but with a heavy heart. I never got a chance to tell her about my happiness or discuss any experience with her. I knew in that moment that her approval or disapproval did not matter to me anymore but my inner voice did.  I felt ashamed for ignoring it. I also knew that the more humane aspects of being in a romantic relationship did not matter to her.

It felt like I had just been in a battle after days of preparing for it. A battle that I had won since I got the acceptance that I was fishing for. I came out of it physically unscathed but with no idea about how to escape this patronising system that is so deeply embedded that I can’t help but perpetuate it every now and then for my own benefit. My conscience was in tatters and so was my desire to share with my mother.

Reading in Metro

                                             

The first time I took an underground metro my mother took a half day leave from work, invited her colleague and her kids, packed us all a lunch and hailed an auto. We were all planning a picnic. I doubt whether I would now call it a picnic. Because the instructions to us then were: we will board from Patel Chowk metro station; go to the last station and then come back the same way. We kids were very deflated to see that once inside underground, there was nothing much we could do other than just slide from one silver seat to another silver seat. Climbing on poles had yet to enter our imagination. When I asked my mother why did she not let me carry any of my toys, she said, because it was a different kind of picnic.

Now however I make sure that every time I travel in metro, I have something to read. As much as my first sense of boredom comes from traveling in metro; metro ‘picnic’ was a fulfilling experience that day.

Over the last decade, reading as an activity has become more visible in public transports. I became alert to it while I was on my school bus – people cramming for tests, writing and completing practical file work. I saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in hardcover for the first time in the bus and subconsciously made a mental note of its price. Once, I saw a young boy tearing a page from geography notebook, as the ink from his blue gel pen made a nice river all along the page. Our bus conductor would always advise us against reading and writing in bus – eyes will get weak, he would say while reading almost everything written behind trucks and buses. Another day, I took Mockingjay on a short road trip with me, and my eyes regretted it as soon I reached the part where Katniss was moving around in District 12, taking in the ruins and becoming more and more sorrowful, which is to say, my eyes hurt while reading Chapter 1. I slept most part of my reading, my head lolling back.

As I grew up, reading while traveling became important

It was nice to have company. It was a good distraction from the small talk. It was one of the things I could be in control of while traveling. It rendered to escaping – a journey undertaken within a journey.

It was good to make sense (or not) of the visuals outside and the world inside a book. It was absolutely remarkable to realise that not all books can be read anywhere – that there are perfect weather conditions for a book too, ideal reading conditions and these may not always be zones of quietness.

The amount time I have closed The Finkler Question on Violet line is more than the number of times I have registered Rina Simone saying ‘Please mind the gap’.

The God of Small Things co-incidence

On a breezy October Saturday afternoon, I boarded Yellow line at Kashmere Gate. My co-passenger had just gotten up to deboard and beside her was a girl reading earnestly. I saw in small ant-black letters PAPPACHI’S MOTH staring at me. The copy of her book was larger in size than mine and that is how I met A, a first-year student in DU. She was reading The God of Small Things, when I showed her my copy of the same book. Her thoughts were definitely in some other universe when they suddenly reconfigured, as she gave an ‘OH!’ of recognition. Her eyes lit up, “It’s so good na”, mildly melting at the sight of the book. I nodded at her. When I did not look away, she added, “Yeah, but a bit difficult too.” My inner student thanked her for saying that.

I shared with her how I read it wayyyyy back in school and that I was so proud of having finished it in a week. She laughed like she understood the feeling of children wanting to show off after having finished a book. As we chatted along, I got to know that she is a frequent metro traveler, “I usually do make it a point to read in Metro, because I have 30 mins of free time. I don’t get time to read otherwise. I am doing Sociology honors, you know.” “So, do you also listen to audio books or read on other devices?” “No. I like to smell and touch books. I like to hold them.” With a hint of unsteadiness in her voice she mentioned how the crowd and their loud voices in metro sometime do more than just disturb her. “When it is crowded, it is really difficult to read, especially in the morning time. I take the blue and yellow line. So, I literally have to”, laughing at incredulous nature of it all, “fold myself and the book to read. I do love reading in metro though. Sometimes, it is so upsetting… I am in between an important paragraph and suddenly these loud voices would just break the flow.” “But are there no good memories of metro reading?” “Hai na. Once I literally cried (in a crowded metro) while reading A Thousand Splendid sons... My co-passenger got worried and asked me if I was alright. I said ‘yeah’ feebly. But that book made me so emotional. Have you read that book?”

I shook my head and told her about a Ruskin Bond book. I had finished reading Uncles Aunts and Elephants in metro and without realizing, started beaming at everyone in the metro who looked at me because I was so happy. “It was all involuntary”.  What I didn’t tell her was that at that exact moment, words from Ghachar Ghochar were ringing in my head and that too, in Rina Simone’s voice, as if announcing the next metro station no longer interested her – ‘Language communicates in terms of what is already known; it chokes up when asked to deal with entirely unprecedented.’   

In the same week, while traveling to Durgabai Deshmukh Metro Station, Pink line, a woman dressed in blue jeans and black checkered shirt, purposefully took out her earphones and a hardback with a black cover. She began reading, but was distracted most of the times. I therefore did not have any guilt in disturbing her, so I gently tapped on her arm. She looked at the green leaves floating in water and a resting small pink bougainvillea flower which appeared to have fallen from somewhere – this was the cover of the book and it took her some 3-4 seconds to recognize that we were both holding the same book. I had recognized the book again from the set of words that were in the topmost center of the page, PARADISE PICKELES AND PRESERVES.

She smiled a small smile on recognizing the book and said “This is actually not my book. It is my father’s. Old copy. I am not a habitual reader. I just thought I will read it today”.

Reading might be a solitary activity but reading in metro isn’t

There are people who recognize chapter names, book covers, may even surreptitiously read side by side, may even stop you to ask a review. So many times, we lose track of stations that we are supposed to de-board on, all because we are so engrossed in a book.

“I see a bright deep tangerine book shining every now and then. I don’t even guess, I know it is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. It is interesting for me to see people of a certain age group reading certain books – Every time I go to office, I usually see young urban working class holding the tangerine book. I am seeing less of Chetan Bhagat these days. There is a Jodi Picoult that I just saw today. Women’s compartment usually have a lot of women reading almost all the time that I have travelled,” said a woman in her mid-thirties, who takes metro once a week and also liked judging people for the choice of their clothes and the complimentary books they read. “I even count surfing on Myntra as reading. Every time I refresh there is a quote that appears on screen and tries to make a case in the favor of buying clothes.”

A young content writer working in Noida once mentioned how he sometimes just closes his book and observes people as sometimes it is more refreshing. And it doesn’t pain that it also helps in getting ideas for the characters (of a novel) that he is writing.

When people are looking at you while reading, when you close your book after reading an excellent poem and think, while staring at the visuals that are passing by, as metro on Violet line curves along Badarpur flyover; reading in metro does not remain an isolated experience.

We are driving slowly, the road is glass.  

“Imagine where we are was a sea once.

Just imagine!” The sky is relentlessly  

sapphire, and the past is happening quickly:

The lines above are from Agha Shahid Ali’s Snow on the Desert. One cannot help but feel the isolation that these lines are creating for the reader but we also have to take into account the evocation produced is because of metro too. That as we are traveling in metro, our reading experience is being paved for us.

Try reading Kaveh Akbar’s My Kingdom for a Murmur of Fanfare or Wislawa Szymborska’s View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems.

When body becomes like a book

Early morning rushes are something to definitely fear especially if you have seen Kashmere Gate or Rajiv Chowk. Yellow line would always keep swarming and just keep ingesting people, Violet line would keep flagging pre-recorded sorry messages “There will be a short delay to this service. We appologise for the inconvenience caused… ” at least five times in the journey. Blue line would always be brimming and you would never be able to decide what time is it ever empty.

Even in such desperate times readers can always be seen desperately trying to cling to their book in the crowd, trying to not lose track of the passage, reading by folding the book. They can be seen either leaning against the pole, or standing with laptop bags in front, pressing their two fingers against the door glass for support, and a book in the other hand.

Once a boy was hooked in his reading of Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy so much that at Sikanderpur station he was pushed outside by the Rapid metro crowd, but instead of raising alarm, he quietly stood aside and got in through the next door of the coach.

Reading spaces in metro

We all enjoy a good light, a good chair, a good place to sit and read. At Mandi house, people seat themselves under the tube light lit hoardings. At Green Park, students can be seen taking up circular seating near the staircase. In metro, the comfortable coach junctions are more crowded in the evenings than in metro. The corrugated rubber near the junction is another space that people lean on and read newspapers in the morning as the metro snakes its way along. The reading junta also leans along the poles, supports itself on the glasses of both sides of the door and the doors that do not open at every metro station. The end of metro coaches has also seen scenes where people take out newspaper and sit, as they dig in the bag for Pratiyogita Darpan.  

At the metro stations with interchange facility like Hauz Khas, INA, which also amounts to people walking a lot and reading books but not bumping into each other. Reading in metro then can also become about learning about metro station as a space. Reading in these spaces then can make us hopeful that there is a future where reading books can be seen as normal as the pitter-patter of metro is. 

The pain of reading

In the summer of 2018, I was commuting in metro for three hours every day. I was reading Many Lives and Many Masters only during my commuting hours. It is a book that I would never go back to, but it didn’t make me realize where my time went while reading. Somehow my physical pain of standing was taken up by the act of reading which immediately wafted into imagining a connection between two different worlds.

Orhan Pamuk in his book My Name is Red, has a beautiful prose: “When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, gets to know the streets so well after a number of years that in a fit of melancholy, perhaps stirred by a light snow falling ever so sorrowfully, you'll discover your legs carrying you of their own accord toward one of your favourite promontories”.

It is not hard for me to understand why I loved reading Ruskin Bond more in a metro than at home– the noise, the smells, the terrains of some world cannot be felt when you are static. Delhi metro creates a world of its own as soon as you enter, but this world serves as an entry point also to the book as I opened it. The sight, chatter and the whiff of women’s coach evoked a new memory. I can no longer read the same book without thinking about how colourful the coach looked.

I believe some words only make sense when you are literally traveling, so as to understand the metaphorical passage of immersing yourself into some other world. Some words are better felt with the passage of time and space.

Books on Delhi Metro (BoDM)

“This is a very strange incident. The doors of the car had just opened at Pragati Maidan metro station. I saw a book kept on twin railings of the staircase. I ran towards it, got hold of it, and dashed back inside the metro. Later, I wrote to BoDM asking them if I could join them as a volunteer.” The sunny afternoon of November in Connaught Place Park was privy to many of such stories as a bunch of around fifteen volunteers met to discuss their next month’s drops.

But unlike this enthusiastic reader, there are people who get suspicious of books dropped, although if you see the places of drops, you will realise that the books are very strategically placed – to catch the eye of a commuter: Kept on the side of escalator, railing of stairs, between door handles, seats on platforms- places where they will not get in the way of walking.

However sometimes the results may be funny. “They think it might a bomb or they fear getting caught in the act. I personally therefore do not make it a point to stop there to see the book being picked up. Sometimes we wait, sometimes we hide, sometimes we leave. Sometimes people pick it up, flip through it and leave it there again… We trust people who take these books to re-drop them. There is also a BoDM sticker on front cover and a note from us inside. The staff of Delhi Metro, CISF people posted in metro stations are also curious about books and ask us for books… We have started dropping books of Hindi and Urdu too.”

Team BoDM persuades  readers to re-drop

Another book fairy shared this observation, “I have come to realise that reading books in metro is also about knowing your metro stations. Vidhan Sabha is empty during morning hours so I tend to not drop there. If I have a Hindi book, then I usually drop at Chandni Chowk metro station, because I know there will be more takers of such a book.”

Making Reading more accessible and visible

As I was listening to these stories, I realized that in so many years of commuting in metro, I have never been able to see any books being dropped. Since the volunteers are usually using yellow and blue line, the frequency of drops at these stations is highest. However, the incidences of drop at Red and Green line are increasing. For Pink and Magenta line there was only one book fairy. “People connect with us on social media. They ask us where we are going to drop and have sometimes asked us to wait for them before we drop. Sometimes we wait, after all the person is showing so much effort in order to pick that one book”, said a volunteer. “But the re-drops are around 40 percent, not as much as one would expect. The only way we get to know about a re-drop is when they share on social media and tag us. And it is really something to say as our main motive is that people should start reading more.”

But do dropping books on metro is equal to reading books in metro? I think not. What BoDM is trying to do is foster reading. It doesn’t matter whether people read in public or private. The important thing is that people read.

Since people are travelling long stretches of time and distance every day, reading a book in metro helps in focusing. It serves as ‘me-time’, as a jumpstart to another refreshing evening, as a meditative exercise, as a space to conserve energy, to concentrate and get away from distractions. Isn’t it ironic that to close off the distractions of this world, we are ready to plunge in another world with distractions all around us?

To see people reading in metro, is like seeing libraries walking. There is so much to know - read, learn, communicate, understand, marvel and wonder about everything, that finally just the presence of seeing people read, gets the ‘picnic’ started.

We need books. We need citizens who read. The more people see reading in public places – be it reading to each other, reading from smart phones, reading from newspapers, reading from kindle, the more chances are we will be able to understand how much there is yet to know!

Road to Avankhu

The first story I wrote, was about a twenty year old man entering Nagaland from Burma, through the Avankhu international border in phek district.

 I had heard stories about the road from neighbors and relative. Some said the dry season was the best time to travel, as there were less chances of the road getting blocked due to landslides.  My uncle suggested I visit after the first rainfall, he said the barren mountains would be covered in a blanket of greenery.

 And that was exactly what I imagined when I wrote the story of the twenty year old man entering Nagaland from Burma. I also imagined Alder trees covering the hills, along with rocky paths and misty mornings. What I didn’t take into account was the grassland, that all the trees had been cut down for lumber

NAGALAND- BURMA MAP

                                                             ALDER TREE

and all that was left was the grasslands. But uncle told me it was a sight to behold, and I imagined the grassland to be the same as the one in the story of origin; maybe if my character crossed a grassland instead of an Alder forest, he would encounter his elder brother the tekho (tiger). If he did he could ask for safe passage; but if the tekho was still miffed about the tricks the old men played on him, my character would be in a lot of trouble.

 Another person, Bertil Litner, a journalist travelled through Nagaland and entered Burma through phek district in the 1960’s.

                                                               PHEK DISTRICT

 he wrote a book recounting his experiences. Upon reading the synopsis I realized that he did exactly the opposite. While my character traveled from Burma to Nagaland, he undertook a real life journey from Nagaland to Burma or what is today known as Myanmar. In his book he mentioned many forest, and swamps that leeches lived in those swamps and that banana trees sprouted everywhere the closer you got to Burma. But he mostly talked about the people, their loyalty, their superstition and his meeting with rebel leaders.

I never considered the possibility of tying my character to rebels (underground); I imagined that he had friends and those friends had ties to the underground. Where else was he going to get fake ID’s and how would he have known which path to take, to avoid the Indian army. Even with his mongoloid face, he would be ousted because he could not speak the language the fifteen tribes spoke. The district he was infiltrating had five languages to being with and he was proficient in none. He would need friends, but to find friends you would need to look in the right place and who would be mad enough to take such risk.

But relatives told me the story of an uncle who got shot down while protecting two American journalists. They said that his body was brought back to phek hospital, the district hospital. And that very night his best friend and brother came to collect the body, least the army got hold of it.

travelling was hard those days, and no one told me how the body was brought to the hospital or what vehicle they used. They did not have proper telephone lines and it was hard to make calls without being monitored, but people were loyal and secrets were well guarded, so the brother and friend were able to collect the body on time. Or at least that what my mother told me, because she was on duty at the hospital the night the body arrived.

First-hand experience like my mother’s was what I turned to if i wanted information, or a historical account. Like our oral tradition, people did not keep records. The former was because we did not have scripts but the latter was so documents could be used as proof of the holders conspiring against the state. If found guilty whole villages were burnt down and many executed. So I found it unrealistic for people and villages to risk so much to help foreign journalist, or my character who was not a journalist; he was simply someone looking for his homeland. So why take the risk.

But Reading bertil linters account and the stories told my parents, made me think otherwise. Back then people united under one common enemy, of course there were tribal rivalries but the rivalry allowed tribes to form stronger bonds within their own tribes, and most tribes functioned as one unit. Like bertil litners case, where it was the chakhesang tribe who hid him and his wife for almost one year, till the responsibility for their protection was transferred to their kachin brothers in Burma.

Reading this I also realized there were many ways to enters Burma, Litner did it by infiltrating phek district and then Manipur; but there were shorter routes like the one at Avankhu. Infarct some old grandfathers went all the way to china on foot and returned safe; a friend even told me that her grandfather travelled to japan with the Japanese army, and that they got along well because of the cultural similarities.

                                                      KOHIMA WAR CEMETERY

                                                     

I would not have believed these stories, if the war cemetery at kohima did not have the inscription carved in Kanji. I simply could not picture people travelling so far; at a time period without proper transportation and communication. But the Japanese soldiers lying with the Naga, Nepali and Indian soldiers, is proof that people connected long back before the term globalization could take shape. And it was not just crossing borders, people traveled long distances crossing mountains and thick forest, just to get to the next village.

                                                       JHUM CULTIVATION

My grandparents were one of those people, or so I’ve heard. The stories say they had a jhum field near Shilloi Lake; and grandfather possessing a strong spiritual presence caught the eye of a thero (a being from the other world). They said the thero attached a long rope from Shilloi Lake to my grandfather’s hut, they also said he would ride a stranger vehicle on the rope ,and many a time the naughty thero would empty their wine pots, or scare my grandmother but levitating her in the air.

                                                AERIAL VIEW OF SHILLOI LAKE

                                               SHILLOI LAKE AFTER THE RAINS END

 Realistically speaking it was hard to imagine a spirit, but it was harder to imagine my grandparents cultivating a field near Shilloi Lake; it was just too far. If we took a car we had to drive for eight hours, and that was if the roads were OK, if not it took much longer. Today we don’t have to fear tigers or any other wild animals, but back then they had look out for their lives even as they traveled to cultivate food. Then again they spoke of the experience as something normal, and they would not have thought of it as anything special had the thero not interfered. It would have just been another way of surviving.

                           

                  

Today if we wanted to visit a place like Shilloi Lake it would take at least two days, a lot of packing and a very bumpy journey; today we don’t need to fear tigers just tumbling rocks and bad roads. But if we managed to get to Shilloi Lake we would be closer to the village where two countries meet.

With a population of just one hundred and eighty six, Avankhu and its eight four male and 102 female population Avankhu sits at the end of the tunnel. Bertil Litner did not travel to Avankhu; he took another path because it was too heavily guarded. He might have, had it not been so well guarded, we will never know.

 In the 1960’s Avankhu might have had a larger population due to its proximity with Burma, and the trade that took place between the two countries.

With borders and territories marked out, it is no longer possible to travel to china on foot. Now we need passports, visas and many, many approvals. Avankhu’s situation is not as dire yet, but its larger sub division Pongkhungri and its people now seek medical treatment in phek as place so far away from their own, the don’t enter Burma like they did in the past, at least not as freely. And rightly so; because now roads are filled with Assam rifle Army patrol men. Check post are set up every few meters to regulate underground illegal activities.

                                    SATELLITE IMAGE OF JESSAMI AND  PHEK

Even visits to close places like jessami, which sits on the border of Manipur are regulated. But that doesn’t stop trade because everyone in my town still travel to jessami to buy morie (Burmese) products. And so does my family, because we know that is the place we find cheap blankets, jumbo boxes ( big plastic boxes) and more importantly fermented sweets and sunflower seeds. The shops in jessami are filled with all sorts of electronics, emergency lamps, snacks, footwear, all stacked till they touch the ceiling, all you need to do is ask.

And ask I did, but I learned that on my second trip. I regretted it because the shops were always up to date with the latest trends and more often than not they only introduced experimental products once. If I had asked the first time, the shopkeepers might have magically conjured the mini water boiler I wanted so much.

Getting to this shoppers haven is much more relaxing journey, if you ignore the check post along the way; because every once in a while the river banks along the road, provide much needed calm for a tea stop. And the roads are not so terrible just a little narrow and bumpy.

As my cousin would put it,

 “You won’t die from that height; there are trees below and the river’s pretty shallow.

If you want a taste of death try driving to thewati”

What brought on this comment was his trip to thewati a small area under Pongkhungri, a few hundred kilometers from Avankhu. He was on election duty as were ten other people, and thanks to digitization of voting system, two huge EVM machines added to their already heavy luggage.  As expected the vehicle carrying the election party could only go as far as the man made road went, halfway through they had to get off and wait for the villagers to arrive.

 Even though the villagers carried most of their luggage, the town bred men on election duty found it hard to keep up with the nimble villagers who were so used to climbing the rocky hills; the army personnel from the plains were worst off as they found it hard to carry even their guns, or at least that was what it seemed like from the video my cousin sent me.

Tired men were not all he captured as from the top of the hill; he got the view of old thewati and the endless mountain range. He told me about the plants that grew on the mountain, how pine forest mixed with alder trees and how wild orchids bloomed on those trees. His stories did not end there; he talked extensively about the people and how language travelled. It was shocking revelation that the older population still spoke Angami, because the primary language used in that area was pochuri. So finding a local speaking fluent Angami and even recognizing his accent to be from Khonoma was the highlight of his stories.

My own journey to Avankhu started with the story of the old woman, my cousin told me she cried when she spoke to him; that she thought she would never meet someone from Khonoma before her death. The old lady probably visited the Mao hills as a girl or perhaps she encountered some Angami underground, but her story reminded me of AZ phizo’s last day in Khonoma.

My mother said she heard the story from her mother; that on his last day he asked my great grandmother, his cousin to cook him a meal “uramia ga”.it is said that the meal consisted of vegetables from great grandmother’s garden. Another part of the story goes that for the last time he washed at the village well, and that he saved the last bit of soap for the next person. Because That night a few associates snuck him out of Nagaland to Pakistan and then London; he secretly visited Nagaland many times but at the end he breathed his last in London.

The story goes that he died in regret because he could never see his homeland. My character was also supposed to be someone looking for his homeland, so I imagined over and over again what his reaction would be when he entered Avankhu. But there was only so much I could write from the stories I had heard and each person gave his/ her own version of the story.

So the second part of my journey began, it would not be the stories my cousin told me, or the stories passed from my grandfather. It would be the Avankhu I saw with my own eyes.

Uncertainties aside I was afraid I would be disappointed, that the place was not as I imagined. Over the years I had constructed and image of Avankhu. It was the meeting point of two countries so I imagined I could see Myanmar on the other side when I looked from Nagaland.

Or the Avankhu after the first rain, after all dust had been washed away, the mountains would be covered with green grass, like in the stories.

Then there was barren Avankhu, when all the grass would dry up and the mountains would be colored the shade of the setting sun.

                                       ELECTION PARTY EN ROUTE OLD THEWATI

The Avankhu I saw was neither, it poured the whole night before the appointed day. By morning the roads were muddy and there was fear of landslides. Extra ration of biscuits, water and blankets were prepared in case we got stranded. While my cousins prepared for the worst, I prayed that our trip not be cancelled. Luckily it wasn’t, but we moved out very late because mist had risen from the river, covering out vision in a blanket of white. If we weren’t careful the boleros engine would stall from the cold.

Once there was enough visibility we went full throttle, the first part of the journey was nothing special, just the usual pine forest mixed with the smell of the misty mountains. But once we descended into thewati the scenery changed, though we couldn’t see too much because it was so late. We spent the night at a guest house run by the village and unlike other trips we did not stop at Shilloi Lake but went straight to Waziho.

Because we knew we had a trek coming, we gave ourselves time to unwind at new thewati, that evening I tried looking for the old lady my cousin mentioned; I never found her. But I later learned that she was from old thewati and I had just missed her because we in such a hurry. Ironic because once we got close to old thewati we had slowed down, because that was where we got off the vehicle, to continue on foot.

The villagers were kind enough to help us with our things, but in the midst of panting and trying not to fall off the steep rocky path, I forgot to ask about the old lady.  If I look back, most of the time I was trying not to fall into the ravine or roll down the mountain.

In the end I never saw Avankhu; it started pouring before we could enter old thewati. To comfort me our guide pointed to one of the mountain range on the right, he said

“It’s there, just beyond those mountains, it’s not very far so you can visit next time”

i remember how cheated I felt, when he said it was just a few mountains away. All I could see thought the pouring rain, was bits of green and curly mountains.

By the time the rain stopped the whole mountain range got enveloped in a thick blanket of fog. Like the legend of that place, It was the mountain god telling me to go back. Perhaps I was not ready to face Avankhu, maybe I will this year as I have another trip planned. And if the mountain god permits, i will take the path to Avankhu, the village which sits between two countries.