Top class: Rajesh Vora’s ‘Everyday Baroque’ documents Punjab’s rooftop sculptures

In 2014, on a visit to Punjab for a story on global migration, I witnessed a unique scene — at a place of worship popularly known as the Airplane Gurdwara, I saw devotees offering plastic toy planes in the hope of quickly obtaining a visa to leave India. While there, I heard of successful immigrants from the US, Britain, western Europe, Canada and other countries returning to their villages and placing a sculpture of an airplane upon their newly built homes. The toy planes are a symbol of hope, while the sculptures are a symbol of achieving that hope.

When I first encountered these rooftop sculptures in rural Punjab, I was in awe of their grandiosity, elaborate ornamentation, sensuous richness and emotional exuberance, often creating a sense of drama. I couldn’t help but call my project ‘Everyday Baroque’. As an architecture photographer, I was intrigued by the integration of these sculptures on the houses built in vernacular style by local artisans as I started photographing these NRI houses. I observed that the sculpture also functions as a water tank, a brilliant idea that combines form and function.

With Google yet to map the remote areas of Punjab, documenting proved difficult and it became like a village-to-village search. On each trip, as I found more and more water tanks, their sheer variety and hope of discovering more was like an expedition into the unknown — further realising that these icons of aspiration are often entwined with the personal histories of their immigrant owners.

Over the years, I realised that different models of airplanes carrying the name of the airliner or the name of their family were most common, signifying the journey to a foreign land and returning to their homeland. So were the religious symbols like the lotus, falcon, horse, etc, but the most unusual ones were the pressure cooker, water jug, teacup, Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower. As I travelled over 6,000 km, crisscrossing and backtracking across four districts in Punjab over five years to photograph them, I visited over 150 villages and photographed over 250 rooftop sculptures.

When I began photographing these, like everyone, I, too, wondered why one would put such a sculpture on top of the house. It begs the question: why are Punjabis so keen to tell their story in such a manner? Is it their unique way of establishing their Punjabi identity, which they cannot express in their immigrant land? Or is it because they are shaukeen — the word often used to refer to one who is extremely fond of something and therefore practising it simply for the love of it? Or could they be read as venues for celebrating an anticipated return, re-situating the owner’s status in a grounded relationship with their homeland?

The answer wasn’t easy.

An architect and educator, Rahul Mehrotra, with whom I have worked for many years, writes, “Architecture, and perhaps its most essential unit, the home, has historically been a codifier of a society’s beliefs, achievements, and aspirations. It has also long symbolised stability: a haven to return to each night, a repository of memories contained in the images, artworks, and heirlooms that cohabit the space. And it is often more than that — the home is also a signifier of societal status through symbols of economic mobility, or sometimes their absence, representing beliefs both religious and cultural.” I realised that migrants leave behind everything familiar and venture into the unknown, often experiencing feelings of isolation, loneliness and cultural shock when they arrive in a new country. However, through their long journey of adventures, the Punjabi immigrants express their success through these sculptures. That claim is loudly exhibited for all to see in the form of swagger that holds within it the Punjabiyat that Punjabis continue to hold so dear.

The owners of these houses usually return to Punjab for a short period in the winter. As I constantly travelled from village to village, coinciding our trips and meetings was nearly impossible. This inspired me to photograph these houses like an outdoor studio portrait, coming face to face with my subjects and portraying the owners’ aspirations in their absence. This also meant that I couldn’t photograph from the road level. I needed to be face-to-face with my subject, and climbing up onto the rooftop terrace of a house opposite was the best option. However, I missed photographing a few subjects with some homes remaining locked.

In 2016, this work was first shown at Photoink and subsequently at Pondy Photo in 2016, Jaipur Photo in 2017, India Art Fair 2018 and Art Mumbai 2023. In 2022, I had an exhibition of these water tanks at the Surrey Art Gallery, Canada, to show the work to Surrey’s sizeable Punjabi immigrant community. While the older generation could identify with these photographs and thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition, they also proudly brought the generation grown outside India to experience the Punjab landscape of these unique water tanks.

At the ongoing exhibition at the French city of Arles, which has a global audience, the work is seen as a cultural and sociological phenomenon reflecting the themes of migration, identity, and the pursuit of dreams.

In reflecting upon my project, I found ‘Everyday Baroque’ becoming a record of five decades of particular historical and cultural periods and a diaspora’s ethnic and architectural artefacts as a valuable archive and a tool for speculating about these emerging landscapes. As time goes by, the second generation, who, for the most part, are born outside of India and have adapted more completely to their respective cultures, may, over time, further shift the trend of sculpted water tanks started by the first-generation migrants. However, as the migration of families from other levels within Punjab society continues, we might see different manifestations of sculpted water tanks. Or will their fate be like the 18th-20th century Rajasthan’s Shekhawati havelis of wealthy Marwari merchants, or the 19th-century palatial homes of Tamil Nadu’s Chettiar traders that were later abandoned, demolished or repurposed? Or, we might see its natural demise.