Road to Leh

The result? A collection of photographs titled “Beauty Along The Treacherous Road” that stray away from the usual close-ups of monasteries and monks and zooms in on the life and beauty of the place.

“We have never travelled together and so,the exhibition brings in individual pespective and timeframes,” says city-based Sarabjit Pandher,as he takes us through his works,revealing the life of the people there,without showing their faces. One picture speaks about the hardship that people in that region face through a snapshot of a pair of wornout army shoes kept in the sun to dry. The shoes are placed next to a window that is covered with a black polythene bag so that the cold winds can’t enter the house. Also demanding attention is a photograph that captures the bright days of Leh as a pretty flower peeps out of a house.

If Pandher focuses on people,professional photographer Sanjeev Sharma captures the greens and blues of the valley. His works zoom in on the Dal Lake,Srinagar and Gulmarg. Then there is Gurpreet Singh,an engineer,who has captured the after-effects of cloudburst in a photograph of ruins that has one rustic green door in the centre. The works of Jatin Gandhi focus on the play of sun on the snow-laden mountains that dwarf the city in prospective.

Capturing scarcity of water in the region is Pawan Singh’s photograph that has colourful kerosene cans queued in front of a water tap. The one section of the gallery that is deprived of bright colours is where the works of Panchkula-based Sanjay Kaushal are displayed. His camera has strayed away from the sky and rested on the mountains — the sand,dry trees and the rocks. “The idea is to bring in all aspects of the region. The brightness and dullness of the journey and the people who live there,” says Kaushal.

The exhibition is on at Punjab Kala Bhawan,Sector 16,till October 4