Picture Imperfect

Prashant Panjiar is well aware of the effect that a photograph can have.

Veteran photographer Prashant Panjiar presents a warts-and-all portrait of our living spaces

Prashant Panjiar is well aware of the effect that a photograph can have. Once,on assignment in Kalahandi,Orissa,we met a man who was so poor that he had to take a loan to ensure that his pregnant wife got some medical care and he did this at 100 per cent interest rate. That was so astoundingthat in a country such as ours a man would care so much for his wife. But thats not where the surprises ended. We got such a tremendous response to that story. People sent in approximately Rs 18,000 to help that family. When we took the money to them,the child had already been born and it had been a difficult birth. We found out that because of that story,people had directly sent money orders to the couple and the Rs 432 that they received this way was instrumental in saving both her and her babys lives, says Panjiar.

Panjiar is hoping that his latest photographic project has a similar impact on people and makes them sit up and examine their world more closely. The exhibition Pan India A Shared Habitat opens on January 27,at the Institute of Contemporary Indian Art in Kala Ghoda. It explores,the veteran photographer says,the full story behind a developing India. Were very taken with surface glitter, he explains,were very proud of what India has achieved,and rightly so,but we also tend to brush aside and ignore the unpleasantness that might disrupt our perception of life. That is why,when Panjiar photographed the DLF Emporio Mall,Gurgaons pride,he didnt focus on the architectural splendours of the building. Rather,the building merely formed one feature of a ravaged,urban landscape,where rusty pipes and wild scrubs form the foreground to the high street appeal of the luxury mall. Similarly,rather than marvelling at the architectural achievement that is the Bandra-Worli Sealink,hes chosen to take pictures of the workers putting the structure together.

The photographs for the exhibition were shot using his Hasselblad XPan,a panoramic camera which Panjiar has been using since 2000,alongside his standard SLR. But it was only in 2006,when he examined his photographs,that he realised that unconsciously hed been working on a theme. Id been taking pictures of places where people live. I wanted to show how we co-exist with each other and our surroundings and how our living spaces are not always just our own, he says.

This exploration ranged from a picture of Ladakhs pristine Tsomoriri Lake where stands a solitary monastery,to an image clicked inside the living room of an old couples historic home in Panjim,Goa. Getting inside peoples homes to document how they live was not a problem,he says. My experience as a photojournalist helped me communicate with my subjects and put them at ease, he explains,and adds,Besides,in India,we live so much of our private life in public,that people are not very wary of being photographed.

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