First-of-its-kind exhibition of photographs from S-E Asia reaches city

“We organised such exhibitions in the city and a very selected class of people used to visit but we have been pleasantly surprised to see that villagers gave an amazing response and for three days we even had to extend our timings,” said Daljit Ami,talking to Newsline.

The exhibition,which was organised by the Hri Institute for South-Asian Research and Exchange,Kathmandu and Panjab Digital Library,Chandigarh,was inaugurated by renowned artist Malkit Singh on July 18. “In our meeting last year with representatives from Kathmandu it was especially decided that instead of cities,such exhibitions should be organised in villages,” added Ami.

The exhibition,which started from Chandigarh,will also move to other places in South-Asian countries. The images in the exhibition have been collected from individual collections of common people,amateur and professional photographers from Afghanistan,Bangladesh,India,Nepal,Pakistan,Sri Lanka and Tibet. Some of the most prized photographs in the exhibition include a calendar published from Calcutta in the 1950s,an advertisement of footwear company Bata which appeared in 1963 in Pakistan,and a photo of six sisters from Agra born during 1935 to 1946 who got triple degrees.

The photograph of a Nepalese woman,Vidya Pradhan,who graduated in 1966 from Thakur Ram Campus,Birgunj,makes for an interesting story. Pradhan refused to have her class’s group photograph framed and hung on the wall of her house as she did not want to be reminded of her struggle to become a college graduate. Now,that image is being displayed in the exhibition.

The photograph of a village boy from Hoshiarpur district waiting for a tonga as his parents see him off on his journey to join the British army during World War I also received rave reviews.