Once upon a Dilli

Veenu Sandhu takes a look at the city as it was 150 years ago

A lot can happen to a city in a 150 years. Especially if the city is as dynamic and historic as Delhi. Much changes, yet much of the history holds on. It is this history which is being recounted through the eyes of some of the earliest photographers at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi.

“Historic Delhi: Early Explorations of the Camera, c 1860-1950”, brought to NGMA in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, has been consciously timed with the Commonwealth Games. About 120 photographs are on display. “The oldest of them, by Italian-born British photographer Felice Beato, dates back to 1858,” says Rahaab Allana, curator of the Alkazi Foundation. The picture, taken a year after the uprising in 1857, captures its immediate aftermath on the city. Most sites that have been frozen in time — and immortalised — by these photographers are those affected by the revolt.

 

The visual representation of the durbars of Delhi in 1877, 1903 and 1911, being conducted under the Viceroys, gives a glimpse of political life in the imperial capital. Pictures such as ‘Entrance to Purana Qila before restoration’ (1914) also take us through monumental Delhi. One of them, Bourne and Shepherd’s ‘Gatherings Outside Jama Masjid’ (1877), captures the all-so-familiar hustle-bustle outside the historic mosque.

Through the history of Delhi, the vintage photography show also gives us a panoramic view of the earliest history of photography in the city.

(‘Historic Delhi...’ will show at the NGMA, New Delhi, till November 7. Mondays closed)