Images in black & white
By Vandana Shukla
A farmer from North Shropshire, Mark Lockett is a photographer by passion. The routine of farming contrasts with this intense abstract calling. While framing the hidden in the seen, his black and white photographs communicate what is serene.

Changing cultural landscape

By B. N. Goswamy
I WAS at this conference in Ottawa recently, and there was talk — engaged, persistent talk — of the changing cultural landscape of India.

Master of electronic marvels
By Nonika Singh
"A MODERATE voice can be elevated to the pinnacle of excellence by creating an acoustics panorama and the contribution of a recording engineer to the success of music album is no less significant."

A joyous journey in mineral colours
By Jangveer Singh
HE may have changed his name from Harinder Singh to Sidharth after being baptised by the Dalai Lama.

Images in black & white

By Vandana Shukla

A farmer from North Shropshire, Mark Lockett is a photographer by passion. The routine of farming contrasts with this intense abstract calling. While framing the hidden in the seen, his black and white photographs communicate what is serene. His selection of photographs ‘On the Edge, Wild Land and Western shores of Britain and Ireland’ were displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Panjab University, Chandigarh, recently.

For the past 10 years, he has been capturing the abstract elements in nature. And his photographs are a product of that magical moment which absorbs the totality of a concept, a thought, through a small aperture in a splash of a second.

On his trips (usually walking or cycling) in Britain, Ireland and western Europe, he has captured a variety of images where the land has been shaped by nature and by man and their combinations that leave a lasting impression.

How does abstraction find expression in the technical process of photography? Mark says he believes that the lines and shadows when used meaningfully express the abstract whereas colours interfere with the images. Hence, colour photography leaves less scope for expressing the element of mystery.

In this age of colour, he has opted for black and white photography which is regaining ground with more material being available now. In the UK, there are some magazines that publish portfolios exclusively in black and white.

Photography is often termed as either a pure chemical process or a creative art. Mark considers his work to be between these two extremes. He says photography is a craft as well. As far as the chemical process is concerned, photography is a technique but the selection of content and the use of the medium and innovations are the photographer’s own creativity. Content and theme play a very important role in his art.

He uses the elemental strength of nature to achieve a directness and honesty, allowing the landscape to speak for itself. He prefers using simple and straightforward methods, except when using gum bichromate and liquid emulsions.

The colour photographs that he showed in a slide show at the museum reflected the intelligent use of shades and images. Each photograph was a complete script in itself, communicating strongly the substance.

In an out-and-out commercialised world of photography, how does artistic photography fare in his country? Mark laments the end of the days of welfare governments that took care of the art community. Today, the hardcore capitalism of the new governments demands that artistes look after themselves.

Mark feels that the culture of workshops can actually enhance cultural growth. Strong appreciation for all art forms exists only among the elite who form a minuscule of the population. It is only through various workshops that he has been able to reach out to many people.

He enjoys working the most with the working classes who enjoy art at a participatory level.

Apart from appreciation, accessibility and enjoyment of the process of creativity need to be encouraged, he says.

He attributes the strength of his work to a total lack of drive to achieve. Not being a professional photographer, he is free of the compulsions of the trade, hence his exploration is more authentic and intense.

By B. N. Goswamy

I WAS at this conference in Ottawa recently, and there was talk — engaged, persistent talk — of the changing cultural landscape of India. This was not the main theme of the conference — put together by the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, composed of a large group of Canadian universities with a strong interest in India — and the focus, among other things, was on issues of social diversity, the interface between the sciences and humanities, the uses of history.

But the talk veered again and again to the cultural changes coming over our land, for the sheer scale at which all that is happening is bewildering, catching almost everyone unprepared. One gets the sensation of being pushed towards the unknown at a hurtling pace.

There was analysis and description. The history of changes over a period of time was traced. The rise of popular culture, as against the classical, was gone into. The raging influence of the West, the power exercised by the media, principally cinema and satellite television, the steady breaking-up of the old social order, the role played by commerce, the coming into play of new, global market forces, were all spoken of at some length.

There was talk then of how changes on a major scale are sometimes best grasped through ‘ordinary’, every day occurrences: seemingly insignificant images in which things become reflected with remarkable clarity. Two images of this nature, from my own, recent experience, I wish to share with the readers.

I was in the little town of Nathdwara, near Udaipur, a great seat of Vaishnava worship, where a black stone image of Krishna lifting the mount Govardhan receives homage as Shrinathji. A major centre of pilgrimage, Nathdwara is a ‘sacred town’, all life in it centring upon Krishna and Krishna-worship, governed with remarkable rigour in matters of ritual by the head of the establishment. There are strict codes of conduct, of dress, rules touching upon matters of purity and pollution.

Eight times in a day, the image of Krishna is thrown open for darshan here to crowds of surging devotees; each of the eight times in the day, Krishna is dressed and adorned differently, listens to devotional hymns sung for him. He is awakened, takes cows out for grazing, is fed with great delicacies, takes a siesta, receives evening worship, goes to bed. No one thinks of him as an image: he is a living being, addressed as such, attended to in this manner.

Among the priests and functionaries of the temple, there is a clear hierarchical order, but one thing which marks the hunderds of temple personnel is the dress they wear: a short double-breasted jacked of white cotton, tied under the right arm; a white dhoti; and a close-fitting skull-cap, the Vrindavani topi as it is called, which covers most of the forehead and the head down to the base of the neck at the back.

It is while walking through the winding lanes of this soaked-in-tradition, utterly conservative town that I suddenly came upon one of the barefoot sewaks of the temple, a minor functionary, wearing the prescribed jacket and dhoti, but sporting on his head, instead of the prescribed Vrindavani topi, a maroon baseball cap with the word "Panther" emblazoned across it in bold lettering. The sight was curiously disorienting, the eye taking its own time to adjust to it, the mind taken aback.

What did this signify, I asked myself? Does the man even know what he is wearing, or the cultural milieu from this comes? Can he read English and therefore the legend written on the cap? Does he even care? What led him to replace the traditional wear with this one? Is he wearing it consciously as an act of defiance, some kind of personal assertion? I do not know, nor could I have asked him. But the image lingers in my mind.

The second image: A year back I bought from a Firozabad craftsman selling his wares in Delhi, a beautifully made glass bell — of the same shape as small traditional temple brass bells — with a tiny figure of Ganesha placed at the tip of the vertical handle. It was a finely crafted object and I grew fond of it. This year, I went to the same craftsman again, and was about to pick up a couple of what I thought were the same bells when I noticed that the figure on the handle was not of Ganesha but of Christ on the Cross. He did have a few ‘Ganesha’ bells still, but much the large number he had made featured the Crucifix. I felt disoriented again. What was happening here? Did the craftsman know anything at all about the Crucifixion? Was it this easy to dissociate function from form? Were the forces of market asserting themselves so obviously? Again, I do not know. But the bell rings in my mind.

There was of course much else that formed the staple of conversation, and discussion: the role of the state, the increasing shift in emphasis from the classical to the regional and the local, the new emerging agendas in which, without taking any real interest in culture, certain groups are intent upon using it only as an arm of politics. The feeling of drift — massive, unknowing drift — however runs like a thread through so much that is happening.

Aping the sahibs

Speaking of cultural drift, shortly before leaving for Ottawa, I read, with disbelieving eyes, this news item, accompanied by photographs of sozzled young men and women in masks, that Halloween was ‘celebrated with great enthusiasm’ in certain bars/restaurants.

Halloween in Chandigarh? But, of course! Wasn’t there a St. Valentine’s Day here some months back? And a Rose Day? And a Father’s Day? What if no one from among these very men and women would be caught dead going from door to door to beg on the Lohri festival, our own day that comes closest to Halloween, because it would be so desi to do that? What if no one has the faintest clue about who St. Valentine was, or what actually happened on the day that is so celebrated?

Commerce takes care of everything. In soothing, persuasive voices it keeps whispering into young ears that isn’t everyone after all a citizen of the global village now?

What next, I wonder? Thanksgiving Day? George Washington’s Birthday?

Master of electronic marvels

By Nonika Singh

"A MODERATE voice can be elevated to the pinnacle of excellence by creating an acoustics panorama and the contribution of a recording engineer to the success of music album is no less significant."

Sounds pompous? Well, take a look at the impeccable track record of the sound engineer Daman Sood whose signature appears on 1,000 odd albums, 26 recording studios, chartbuster music of "DTPH", "Maachis," "Gupt" et al and the proclamation will not seem like an exercise in self-glorification but a resounding fact. Master of a highly competitive and dynamic field (what with the advent of new mixing techniques, multi-track system), he creates the "you were there" feeling with modern electronic marvels.

He reflects, "Sound engineering is more challenging than the medium of cinema itself, for in films you merely capture what is available and edit/process it in the laboratory. But a recording engineer by controlling the reverberations and echo, evolves a sound aesthetically appealing to the sequence and mood of the song."

So this winner of Technical Excellence for Radio and Television Award for "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" (the popular national integration television flick which had whipped up patriotic nostalgia countrywide builds up an atmosphere, a space suitable for and relevant to the singer’s persona and his poetry, with an artist’s flourish.

And come to think of it, in the 60s even Daman had little inkling of the craft he was ordained to specialise in. Instead, smitten by the glamour of cinema, he nursed ambitions to be a cinematographer. However, hailing from a family in which the very word "filmi" was forbidden, he was pushed into Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh.

But a year of clear-cut dried laws of physics were enough for the creative mind to revolt and he moved to the Film Training Institute of India, Pune. Here, ironically, he was destined to fulfil both his personal desire and his father’s wish, as he graduated with a degree in cinema specialising in sound engineering and recording.

Armed with a gold medal, lots of gumption, an agile mind bristling with innovative ideas, he found himself at the threshold of Bollywood. By God’s grace, life wasn’t a bed of thorns. "No sleeping on the pavement, surviving on a single piece of bread" phase for him. He remarks, "The Film industry might have its quota of ungrateful wretches, but ultimately one’s talent is always recognised."

So the initial hesitation of singers like Asha Bhonsle and Kishore Kumar to work with him melted away when the song Laila o Laila... (from Feroze Khan’s "Qurbani") went on to create history. Today, not only has Daman recorded with who’s who of musical world — Jagjit Singh, Mehdi Hassan, Vilayat Khan, Allha Rakha — but singers of mettle like the great Lata Mangeshkar insist upon his presence.

In a self-laudatory tone he preens, "Just pick up the album of Lataji in which I am the recording engineer, and you can immediately discern the difference. I make her sound like a 16-year-old."

Arrival at this high point in his well-paying career has been possible through a keen sense of musical aesthetics, an ear for a good voice and, more significantly, an unsatiated thirst for music. As he says, "Even after listening to music for 23 hours a day, I haven’t said — I have had enough."

Apart from honing perfect voices, helping them achieve the desired decibel note, Daman is also into designing recording studios. With over 20 studios in Bombay itself, his clientele includes names like Baba Sehgal and Alka Yagnik. Only recently he has designed one at Mohali as well.

Each studio bears a "stamp of sound", the common thread that runs through them is technical excellence. Incidentally, his life-time mission too revolves around a studio as he promises to create a studio of international quality, a la Hollywood replete with surround systems, the very latest in the musical circles.

For a man who believes in looking ahead and not resting on past laurels for "past is history fit enough for books," this is not an empty promise but a "musical" dream which will be realised only too soon.

A joyous journey in mineral colours

By Jangveer Singh

HE may have changed his name from Harinder Singh to Sidharth after being baptised by the Dalai Lama. He may have left Punjab to settle in Delhi. However, he has retained his touch with his village background to which he keeps coming back in his art. Birds and other creatures he saw during his village days keep appearing as motifs in his paintings.

The works of Sidharth, displayed in the newly opened gallery, Patiala Art World, at Sheranwala Gate in Patiala, are like a breath of fresh air for art connoisseurs. They are an attempt by him to show his art in his home state. "I would have liked to show my art in the villages, but this is also a good step as that may not be possible due to lack of infrastructure", says Sidharth.

The paintings of Sidharth are themselves a revolt against the Western form. He has used the gouache technique, that is using specially grounded mineral colours. He also uses handmade paper only. The revival of both these old forms has resulted in his paintings acquiring tremendous luminosity and earthiness reminiscent of the colours of the Mughal and Pahari miniatures.

To describe the process through which his paintings have been created, Sidharth makes use of a prose-poem. The title defies translation, but is the name of a bird found in the villages of Malwa. This bird eats, drinks water, sleeps and even mates while flying. Landing on the ground means death. He describes a visit to a village called Fatehgarh in Punjab which takes on a fairy-tale dimension.

Describing his use of mineral colours in his prose-poem, Sidharth says, "The pigments of London and Germany were pale in comparison. These colours brought alive even the fragrance of the village". He goes on to equate them with the colour of a peacock’s neck, a sand dune, a kikar tree, a dove, a mother’s chunni, the bare back of a camel and the colour of rain.

Sidharth says the mineral colours give him joy. "Earlier I used to feel sick when I painted with chemical colours. Now I enjoy the very act of paintings".

Sidharth’s journey in art began very young. His mother was his first teacher. He started working as a sign board painter in his hometown along with attending school. He did his diploma in painting from the Arts College at Chandigarh following which he extensively toured rural Punjab sketching folk motifs. He has been awarded three Punjab Lalit Kala Academy awards.

Sidharth has travelled a wide circle. He has made documentaries on ancient Indian art, worked on papier mache, done etching for the International Biennial of Prints at Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, acrylic on canvas (symbolised by the "The fire"), paintings on the Gulf war, participated in an exhibition of paintings titled "MF Husain and Contemporary Indian Artists" at Dubai and finally started work on mineral colours in gouche technique in 1995. In between he has held a series of one-man exhibitions.

The exhibition will remain open till December 12.