Knowledge of history is important and vital and what better way to know, feel and assimilate it than looking at photographs of an age gone by? “The past reminds us of timeless human truths and allows for the perpetuation of cultural traditions that can be nourishing; it contains examples of mistakes to avoid, preserves the memory of alternatives ways of doing things, and is the basis for self-understanding...” said Bettina Drew.
“History in Bromide”, a chapter-wise 28-minute documentary directed/produced by Gaurishankar Raina, and presented by Doordarshan was screened at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) last week. The film highlights the history of the subcontinent spanning over 50 years.
The narrator, Vaibhav Verma, takes the viewers down memory lane with the help of more than 600-odd old photos depicting the political and social events, leaders, masses, et al providing the ultimate evidence of things which happened in the past. Zeroing in on a mass of work by the well-known photo-journalist of yesteryear Kulwant Roy, an unsung hero of the visual medium, the film emphasises the value of these pictures.
Aditya Arya of India Photo Archive Foundation (IPAF), who inherited the pictures, describes how the photographer’s work has been preserved and catalogued for posterity. The narration terms Kulwant a “headstrong and patriotic” Indian who was discharged from the Royal Indian Air Force, where he worked as aerial photographer, since he could not brook ill-treatment by the colonial rulers.
Aditya also notes how through the book “People of India” the British rulers catalogued the people they governed through photographs of various castes, sub-castes, tribes, communities, etc. The pictures showed their physical appearance, dress and other details. This, he said proved that the rulers were desirous of keeping records and documents for future generations.
Kulwant’s images were shot when techniques were hardly advanced, during a time when the leaders were least interested in getting photographed, much less giving a second chance to the shutterbugs. As Aditya remarks, the lensman had “one opportunity to capture that image”. Therefore, these were spontaneous but still encompassed all the aesthetic elements. These qualities were evident in the photos of Jawaharlal Nehru’s hand curled around Rajiv Gandhi’s neck, Gandhi and Jinnah at odds in an animated discussion and Nehru and Frontier Gandhi (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) strolling down a Shimla street, among others.
Aditya takes the viewers on a tour of a museum in IPAF which has 110 cameras, talking about its evolution and bringing out the enormity of the task accomplished by photographers of the bygone era.
Raina says he chose this theme since “looking at history is very important especially for the youth of the nation” and what better means than photographs since they cannot be “manipulated”. The film goes to show how statesmen and politicians of the pre- and post-Independence era were accessible to the people and willingly interacted with them. He chose to focus on Roy’s work as he felt that the artist was first recognised and praised abroad but hardly recognised in India.
Roy for all his passion and the photographic treasures he gifted to posterity, died a poor man, disillusioned and broken in spirit.
Raina, a Ph.D from Jawaharlal Nehru University, has produced 12 documentaries so far. He started as a playwright and graduated to be a drama and later documentary producer for Doordarshan. At present he is a consultant with IGNCA for which he plans to make films.
