Poverty, malnutrition, lack of education, poor sanitation –all those pictures of the rural North India that scream for help constitute ‘Hindustani’, the latest exhibition of photographs by freelance photographer Ajeeb Komachi, that began at the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art Gallery in Kozhikode on Tuesday.
Watching the fifty-odd frames, it is not the skill of the photographer that one notices, but his outlook as a compassionate human being.
Ajeeb’s photographs speak volumes about the deprived sections of society in the Northern part of India –Bihar, Assam and most importantly West Bengal where there are the maximum number of homeless people. Most of these photographs are lessons in simplicity to the people of Kerala who are mostly unable to relate to the extent of poverty in the North Indian States. Ajeeb has carefully chosen some frames to show how privileged people in Kerala are compared to those people, who have to bear with violence as well, besides poverty. A man who cannot afford to get a photograph clicked with his wife, a boy who kills a flying bird for food, as he does not have the luxury of chicken, a girl who is unmarried as her family cannot afford Rs.50,000 dowry, children who sleep in the classroom as they are too tired after helping their families, children who longingly watch others of their age going to school, people who wait before a tea shop at midnight for the food that is left after the shop closes… the images pull a chord in a stony heart.
The exhibition is being sponsored by the Kozhikode based organisation Human Care Foundation that has been undertaking charity works in North Indian villages for quite some time. It will conclude on October 25.
