Umbra SumusHere’s a recent tearsheet from the May/June 2011 edition of the rather lovely German Magazine, Effilee with my long term piece about the Indian Coffee House in New Delhi.
Effilee is a food and lifestyle magazine who commissioned the images and a 5000-word piece from me. The English translation can be found under the Writings section of my website here.
The piece is called The Palace of Monkeys and Memory
Well, according to the Daily Telegraph, conservation architects in Delhi have discovered that originally, a good deal of the Red Fort was originally… white. Quoting KK Mohammad, head of the Architectural Survey of India said the ‘Red Fort’ is a “misconception” because although its exterior ramparts are red sandstone “more of the Red Fort is white than people realise.” Apparently, the giant red stone sundial that is the Jantar Mantar was also originally all white too… ooops.
Happy Vesak (Vesakha) … not exactly the same date across all of the world but never mind…
I’m usually a day or so late with things and the centenary of International Women’s Day is obviously no exception… A week or so ago on assignment I photographed an extraordinary woman, Sheela, who runs a tiny tea stall that backs onto a rag-pickers’ colony.
I can’t tell her story any better than see did.
“I came to Delhi a long time ago. I came here with my husband and he was working as a chowkidar. That was in 1981. A long time. Then it all went bad. From the beginning I stayed on this piece of land. My husband died here 21 years ago. My eldest son then became sick and he also died. That was sixteen years ago and then my youngest (son) died I think six years ago. We spent a lot of money to save them all but despite the medicines they all died. I couldn’t save any of them. I don’t know why I am still here. But I am here alone and I must survive.
At my tea stall I get up very early and serve the rag pickers who work on the dump behind me. I have had this business since the children died. I am not happy but I don’t have the means to change my life. I am alone. I am a woman. It is not easy. I don’t make so much money – tea is Rs5 a cup and I have to buy the tea and the sugar and recently all this has increased in price.
I suppose Delhi’s a good a place as another: there’s work, you can survive. I can’t think about the future can I? It’s a waste of time <laughs>.
I have to be happy in the present.”
I was intrigued to find in a copy of today’s Tehelka magazine an article on Raghu Rai, the rather wonderful godfather of Indian photography, where he says that “Shooting a portrait is like making love by surprise”. Now, to be fair, the article is, as they say credited to ‘as told to Yamini Deenadayalan‘ but nevertheless it does strike me as profoundly daft.
Unless of course I’m doing it wrong. On both counts…
It reminds me of ‘Swiss Toni’ of the Fast Show fame – a comic character – a rather sad second-hand car salesman with a natty line in shiny suits whose metaphor for everything in life is that “It’s like making love to a beautiful woman…”. His take on making a cup of coffee is here.
Here’s a recent portrait. I did nothing more than press the shutter. Honest.
