From Chitpore to the garden of Eden

Lensmen Saibal Das and Prabir Purkayastha capture stories that strike a deep chord within us, writes Anand Sankar

TALES OF CHITPORE SAIBAL DAS
There is such vibrancy there, just take a walk down the road early in the morning,” says Saibal Das about Chitpore. Das, a well-known photojournalist who has worked with several media organisations, is now back in Kolkata, living in his home town and documenting the bustling area. “I know the pulse of this place. I was away for 10-12 years, but Chitpore is what I associate myself with,” he says. Inspired by National Geographic features on Sunset Boulevard, Broadway and Route 69, Das asked himself, “Why not Chitpore road?” And thus began his photographic journey.

Das followed a set route — so do his pictures: start walking north from the Lal Bazaar, he says, wander through Teritti, watching the ethnic Chinese sell vegetables, tucking into a breakfast of steaming momos, and then hop on to a tram — “the best way to see Chitpore”. Get off in the crowded Muslim heart of Nakhooda Mosque, dominated by migrant workers from Bihar. “This is an area of five-minute baths for people who dwell on the pavements.”

In other pictures, you get a different sense: Marwari women celebrating the Gangaur festival with a splash of colour. “They make rangoli and offer puja on the rooftops. But on the streets there is no sign of festivities. It is as if there is a whole world on the roofs.”

“Every old city is a Chitpore and every photographer loves chaos,” says Das, who says he will continue to be a fly on the wall there. “So many things I was not able to see...”

Tales of Chitpore was on exhibit at Gallery Art.Motif, New Delhi, curated by Tasveer

RETURN TO EDEN PRABIR PURKAYASTHA
Prabir Purkayastha has spent the last few years in Ladakh, producing an enormous body of work from the region, which, he says, covers “all aspects”. He has also spent five years in Assam documenting indigenous people and travelled to Indo-China (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). “Everywhere the thought of Eden was always playing in my head. The garden of Eden is a sad love story. It is a story that had to be told pictorially and, one day, I was finally confident that I had a body of work to do an exhibition,” says Purkayastha.

The story of Eden has been interpreted by Purkayastha at “three levels”. He uses rich saturation colour to depict life, appreciating its vibrancy, using light, foliage and water to convey this. The interplay between Adam, Eve and Lucifer leads to the tasting of the forbidden fruit. That is told through stark black and white landscapes photographed at night and animal carvings from Indo-China. Finally, the banishment of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden is told by depicting the flight of migratory birds during a misty winter on the Assam plains.

Purkayastha’s pictorials are eye-catching for their sheer richness and his compositions do not try to tamper with the entropy of nature. Take the picture of a banana plantation spied upon while floating down the Mekong river. It is set amidst “many types of trees, grass and plants”. “A storm had just passed over and they were all scrubbed by the rain. There was clear and polished light. I still get goosebumps when I see the image.” Purkayastha says. He is definitely not alone in getting those goosebumps.

“Instead of the viewer struggling to decode the message, I decided to use compositions that are direct. These pictures are about something we have experienced. We all seek Eden, the paradise, as we get older,” he explains .

Return to Eden is on exhibit at Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi, curated by Ina Puri