Photojournalist Kandukuri Ramesh Babu celebrates what’s normally considered ‘ordinary’ and his new show ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’ marks the third anniversary of his gallery, Samanyashastram, which he established at Manikonda, Hyderabad, in 2016, to turn the attention on observations drawn from everyday life.
Having worked in the media, he avers that while there’s enough room to discuss happenings in politics, entertainment and development projects, there’s little scope to train the lens on life as it happens around us. “It took me a lot of time and effort to establish a gallery dedicated to photography and with an intention of celebrating the ordinary. The logo of my gallery has a crow, a bird we see often but don’t take seriously,” he says.
Kandukuri Ramesh Babu
‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’ is his eighth show at the gallery and will display 75 photographs he took over the last 10 years in Parsigutta, Ram Nagar and Musheerabad areas of Hyderabad, apart from a few villages in Telangana. With the focus being on children, Ramesh preferred working in areas he had lived in and was familiar with, so as to not come across as a stranger and thereby make the children camera conscious. Even in photographs where they are looking into the camera, they are unaffected by its presence and don’t pose.
The title of the show is borrowed from William Blake’s collection of poems ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’ and Ramesh affirms that he has been hugely inspired by Blake since his college days. He mentions how Blake’s poems ‘The Lamb’, and ‘The Tyger’ also influenced the narrative for some of his photographs. “I believe that through simple imagery, I can convey how children are innocent and they gain experience by what they do. Before we, as adults, condition and corrupt their thoughts to mould them to suit our lives, they have a means of understanding things and are happy with the simplest of things,” he says.
A photograph by Kandukuri Ramesh Babu
He explains his stance with images that depict two children seated on a rock and studying, oblivious to the outside world. Their home is just a hut, with no electricity. They have to finish studying before dusk sets in, but they find a way to get things done.
A photograph by Kandukuri Ramesh Babu
Through another set of images, he argues that a child doesn’t need a toy to stay occupied. Once a toy is gifted to the child, she clings on to it with a slight fear that she would lose it or it would be taken away from her/him. “There’s a lot of innocence with the way children react and adapt to the world around them, and also stand up for each other,” says Ramesh, pointing at a photograph that shows a group of school-going kids, where two boys walk ahead but hold the hand of a younger child, protectively.
Ramesh hopes parents will visit his gallery to view this exhibition because it’s they who mould children to be adults: “There’s a lot of joy in just letting children be, and observe their facial expressions and body language.”
‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’ will be on view at Samanyashastram gallery, Hyderabad, till November 14.
