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Banker Nivas

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Banker Nivas

Banker Nivas is a house in Tellicherry - a small, coastal town in Northern Kerala. It's where Dad spent his childhood having first entered the place as a 6 month old baby, soon after it was constructed some months before the second world war began. It's also where he passed away 80 years later. He didn't live there all his life though. Those two events - of having been carried in for the first time and later carried out for the last time - bookended a life of some decades as part of the diaspora outside Kerala. The diaspora. Migrants. Tellicherry natives. Keralites. Indians. Others. People who leave home seeking a better life. Returning later. Returning older. Returning 'home'. Or maybe not. Growing up in Hyderabad, Banker Nivas was where we spent our summers. That annual ritual centred around school breaks in April when middle class Indian parents - of the 1980's - took their children to the 'native place' to meet the grand

Sisterhood

Granny. Her sisters. Her nephew and her daughter - my aunt - at the extreme right. Tellicherry. 1950s. By this time my uncle and his mother had been living in Pondicherry for awhile. This picture was probably taken on one of their visits to Tellicherry. There's a set of pictures from the same day including one with Dad and his cousin. All taken at the same photo studio. Granny grew up in a large family with several brothers and sisters. When I met the sisters in my childhood, they were all grannies. All dressed in white. As a kid, I associated white with grannyhood. It was only later I understood that the white signified widowhood. I had actually never met their husbands; all of them having died pretty young. At the time this picture was taken, granny and her younger sister were both widowed. Granny being the first, then the sister. Then her other sisters one after the other. Until every sister in this picture would dress in white. The plain white sari for every day of the

A Suitable Girl

Mum's friend. Khammam, Andhra Pradesh. 1960s. This picture was probably part of a portfolio, targeted at prospective grooms for an arranged wedding, to be distributed physically via the social media of the day - friends and family. Over the decades the medium of distribution may have changed, but the routines haven't. Even today millions of Indian women - and men - will have their portfolios created, targeted at prospective partners, now to be distributed electronically. But beyond all that, this is also an exceptionally well crafted picture. Keep in mind this is from a time when there's no Photoshop . Instead the photographer works with what he has at hand: the subject, his camera, light and shade. I wish we knew who the photographer was - I'm reminded of V K Murthy's genius in movies like Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool ; I wonder if those movies were referenced. Aunty's confident pose, the play of light and shade, and you have a work of art announcing a suitable

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