PRIVATE GALLERY

In the case of Amrita, her father Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, an amateur photographer, documented both her extraordinary life and persona in frame after frame.
Umrao Singh is the subject of the current semi-biographical project that has been curated once again by Sundaram. The subtitle to the book suggests that the aura of great sorrow clings to the family history. Ah Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness) is the subtext of the collection and that makes it entirely appropriate in launching yet another reason for giving us the life and times of Amrita, the doomed enchantress of Indian contemporary art.

Having said all this, I have also to admit to being utterly entranced by the pictures themselves. Sundaram has selected and arranged them with a rare sensitivity. He has left the commentary to the bare minimum. Of course, there are the usual genuflections to the wisdom of Roland Barthes, et al. The afterward by Deepak Ananth is quietly authoritative and well worth reading, but in the end the photographs are what make the collection completely absorbing.

True, Amrita dominates the proceedings. As voyeurs, we cannot but ask ourselves what is it that makes her such a compelling spirit. In some pictures, you can see the trace of a moustache that some observers have noted, a particular sign of beauty that used to be much prized in the early 20th century. Anna Karenina, for instance, had an alluring down of hair upon her upper lip. This makes one wonder whether there is an undercurrent of androgyny in the images; some of the poses adopted by Umrao Singh, semi-nude torso, streaming hair, as noted by Sundaram, reflect the imagery of seductive female stereotypes. It’s Amrita’s Hungarian mother, another tragic figure in the family archives, who appears as the strapping macho force that drives her brood onward and upward into glory, like the Valkyries, or operatic heroines that she once hoped to become. Here again, one has to stop reading too much into family history. For that is the big trap. These intimate family images allow strangers to walk around and re-arrange the furniture as it were and play with the truth of that particular moment.
That, finally, is what is so disturbing about the series of photographs, the images that Umrao Singh so meticulously recorded. He invites us into his world with candour and a disarming sense of wonder that cannot but be completely riveting. At the end of it, despite all my reservations, I could not help but murmur, “Thanks Sundaram for letting us in!”