Mirrored in a Sharp Lens

Yet the slim, almost austere, brown-paper-covered volume creates boundaries where there are none. In essence, Panjiar8217;s is a cosmic canvas, where degradation and dignity, despair and hope, pain and joy are so intimately fused that it becomes impossible to see them in shades of contrast 8212; proof, if it is needed, that under the packaging, we are all depressingly standardised, mass produced by an impersonal Creator.

Turn to a portrait of the reclusive Maharaja Narendra Singh Rathore who spent his entire life entombed in a red chamber, estranged from his wife and children. Rich, yet unaccountably poor. On the opposite page is farmer Sesdev Saraf, tenderly nursing his ailing wife Pushpanjali through the ravages of Orissa8217;s worst drought. Poor, yet unaccountably rich.

Then there is Fatheyab Ali Meerza, the dispossessed nawab of Bengal, forced to end his days in a decrepit one-room tenement. His unlikely partner is Kartik Chandra Das, a forgotten fixture in the Home For Freedom Fighters, Garia. Feudal and democrat, exiled by kingdom and country, to face the ignominy of an inglorious end.

Number 28 shows two newlywed, HIV couples from Chengalpet, Tamil Nadu, embracing each other 8212; and the future 8212; with infectious joy. On the page opposite is Phool Devi, a midwife from Bihar, demonstrating how baby girls are strangled to death on a ghoulish rubber doll, against the backdrop of malevolent, monsoon thunderclouds. Life in death, and death in life.

Yet these contrasts are mere superimpositions, kaleidoscopic pieces arranged into patterns through the prism of the human mind. Unfortunately, the word contrast itself is so flatly two-dimensional that it fails to describe many of Panjiar8217;s other photographs, which simply refuse to be cast in black and white.

I personally loved the portrait of Kamal Chandra Bhanj Deo, the maharajah of Bastar, in his fusty, tube-lit durbar. Dressed in jeans and a checked shirt, the teenaged maharajah slouches sullenly on his throne before a procession of obsequious auntyjis who have lined up to pay homage to His Highness.

But the picture I am unlikely to forget is a faceless, shapeless bundle of pink outside a mud hut. The caption identifies it as little Kunti Devi of Jehanabad, Bihar, a child widow whose husband was butchered in a caste war. It is a stolen portrait, full of savage irony: a desolate little figure in her Barbie-pink shroud, hopelessness wrapped in candyfloss.

That, I guess, is what distinguishes this man8217;s work from the rough and tumble of photojournalism. Slaves to the dreaded deadline, photojournalists do not usually have the 8220;luxury to loiter8221;, observes Sanjeev Saith in his foreword.

Panjiar, 50, knows this well. Self-taught, he spent his seminal years documenting peasant movements and bandits in Chambal. This was followed by more 8220;mainstream8221; stuff: wars in Iraq, Israel and the Gulf, several stories in Pakistan, plus the 8220;regulars8221; 8212; Punjab, Kashmir, Ayodhya 8212; with Patriot, India Today and Outlook. Yet, obviously, deadlines never prevented Panjiar from straying beyond professional boundaries.

Since 2001, he has finally left his craft to pursue his art, serve on the jury of the World Press Awards and Ramnath Goenka Press Photo Awards, work with international foundations on AIDS. And, oh yes, allow himself the luxury of loitering.