Photos by Anna Riwkin-Brick, story by Vera Forsberg.
Children of the World Series
Published 1971 by Macmillan
Anna Riwkin-Brick (1908, Russia -1970, Israel), Swedish photographer, spent a good part of her life traveling the world, and to place she went she captured the lives of children on camera. Later, these photographs were used to produce a series on day-to-day lives of ‘Children of the world’, with text captions from collaborating writers added to weave a story. In all there were 19 such book with titles like Dirk lives in Holland, Eli lives in Israel, Gennet lives in Ethiopia, Marko lives in Yugoslavia, Matti lives in Finland, Noy lives in Thailand, Randi lives in Norway, Gia lives on Kilimanjaro and Salima lives in Kashmir.
The beautiful photographs in ‘Salima lives in Kashmir’ in all probability come from Anna Riwkin-Brick’s visit to Kashmir in 1969. The story that the pictures tell has a nine year old Kashmiri boat girl named Salima and she struggle for joining a school, about how she convinces her grandfather to let her go to school.
And this book offers something akin to that, broad smiles, Kashmiri children and a friendly camera. The effect casts a spell of heart-aching beauty upon the viewer. A spell that is broken only by the realisation that this beauty, this innocence is now gone. It is only an illusion in the mind and a shadow on the book. Or so it seems to a grown-up and the world of children remains the same.
‘Offerings to the unknown dead, Kyoto’ [Toshi Satow offering a candle]. Taken for a series on Japan for ‘Life’ 1964, Brake, Brian (1927–1988), Kyoto. One of the most famous photographs by Brake.
,
-0-
Previously:
By William Carpenter Junior published in Illustrated London News, June 1858
This time he called me ‘Ashok’. Still, he still remembers the names of his long gone brothers and sisters. And when I started this blog, I thought I maybe able to discuss some my discoveries with him. I may not be able to have any intelligible conversations with my Grandfather anymore but there are minor consolations.
This time in his room I found an interesting locally published ‘Hindu’ calender.
Most of the images were ‘tantric’ art in line of G.R. Santosh. And an odd image out in the calender I found was that of ‘The Shepherd’:
A painting by Miss G. Hadenfeldt from ‘The Charm of Kashmir’ (1920) by V.C. Scott O’connor (Vincent Clarence Scott, 1869-1945). More paintings by the artist here, posted to this blog back in 2010.
Another beautiful case of disjoint text and images. In this case a simple goof-up by an ‘angreez’ leads to a funny situation where a ‘pandit’ photograph ends up getting tagged as ‘musalmaan’, and then almost a century later, due to a vacuum created by lack of information, on a ‘social network’ the photograph and the actual subject does the rounds in all three social groups, in a ‘secular’ manner, devoid of any specific context, as a symbol of ‘Kashmiri Beauty’.
From National Geographic, 1921. Photograph by Fred Bremner. What is interesting about this photograph is that the caption suggests that the woman pictured is a boatwoman while the special danglers in her ear point to the fact that she is a Pandit woman.
Another photograph. Another pose. Same woman. By Fred Bremner in around 1900.
There are some photographs in Brian Brake’s 1957 Kashmir collection that I feel deserve individual attention. This one because comparatively Babri and Hydrabad are simple.
The thought occurred to me a few years ago when I showed a few images on this blog to my Nani. Among these images was an old photograph of Mosque of Shah Hamadan and just for the fun of it I quizzed her if she knew which place it was.
Her answer was quick. With hands held in a namaskar she said, ‘ Kali Mandar’.
I knew the history of this place, both the oral and the written one, about the fights, about how this spot stood for both a mosque and a temple and probably a Buddhist shrine too, but this knowledge didn’t make me realize what this place would have meant for people who lived in Srinagar during a particular era. Most of the old western travelogues I read simply referred to it as the Mosque of Shah Hamadan. Discussed it’s architecture and importance is discussed. In one book, ‘Houseboating in Kashmir’ (1934), an angrez woman, Alberta Johnston Denis, probably finding ‘men only’ policy of the shrine incomprehensible wrote:
Shah Hamadan was holy, according to the Mohammedans of Kashmir; but whatever he may actually have been, in their loyalty to him, at least, they were intolerant. To this day, this is evidenced in the inscription, elaborately carved on the verandah over the entrance, which, translated, reads: “This is the tomb of Shah Hamadan, who was a great saint of God. Whoever does not believe this, may his eyes be blinded and if he still does not believe it, may he go to Hell.”
In one of these books, I did read about Pandits who while going about their daily business, would pass along this place, stop at a particular spot where water could be seen oozing out and bow down and wash their hands and face. The pull of a hidden holy spring. A spring of strange stories, stories of Kali Nag, an ancient spring, that apparently sprang up just at the moment when Ram killed Ravan, a spring that kids are told holds broken bits of ancient sculptures, a dark spring they say turns you blind if you look into it. Stories of flying chappals and falling gods.
An interesting account on birth and survival of the spot is given by Pandit Anand Koul in his book ‘Archaeological Remains In Kashmir’ (1935):
Going up by boat, one’s attention is arrested farther on by a large building on the right bank between the 3rd and the 4th Bridges, which is called Shah-i-Hamamdan.
There is on this spot a spring, sacred to Kali. There was a Hindu temple over it which was built by Pravarasena II (110-70 A.D.) and was called Kali-Shri. The Mahall, in which it was situated, is still called Kalashpur, a corruption of Kali-Shri-pur. This temple was destroyed by Sultan Qutb-ud-Din (1373-94 A.D.) and, with its materials, he built a khanaqah. The later got burnt down twice and was rebuilt.
Soon after the conquest of Kashmir by Sikhs (1819) the Sikh Governor, Sardar Hari Singh, ordered the demolition of the mosque, saying that as it was a Hindu shrine, the Muhammadans should give up their possession of it. He deputed a military officer, named Phula Singh, with guns which were levelled towards the mosque from the Pathar Masjid Ghat, and everything was ready to blow it away. The Muhammadans then went to Pandit Bir Bal Dhar [a hero, a villian based on which Kashmir narrative you hold dear] who, having brought the Sikhs into Kashmir, was in great power, and requested him to intervene and save the mosque. He at once went to the Governor and told him that the Hindu shrine, though in the Muhammadans, was in a most protected condition and the removal of the mosque would be undersirable as it would simply lay it open to constant pollution by all sorts of people. There upon Sardar Hari Singh desisted from knocking it down.
On the wall fronting the river the Hindus have put a large ochre mark, and worship the goddess Kali there.
The spot captured by Brian Brake in around 1957. A spot that is now claimed and hidden by a tree gone wild. Claimed by a grayness that now fills the recent photographs of Kashmir. A place very simply once claimed in speeches made in Indian parliament floor as proof of syncretic culture of Kashmir.
During 1930s and for a couple of more decades, the image of Kashmir that reached the outer world was majorly a product of a photo studio based in Srinagar called Mahatta & Co.
It was started in 1918 (1915?) by Amar Nath Mehta and Ram Chand Mehta on a houseboat on Jhelum river.
Photograph by great Brian Brake published in ‘India, by Joe David Brown and the editors of Life’, 1961 [complete book available at Hathi] as a visual aid to the text that deals with relevance of Gandhi in India, The Nation’s Unsilenced Conscience. It would have you believe Gandhi was alive, in heart and spirit of Indians.
As I looked at this beautiful picture, something about it made me realize that this can be a case study about disjointedness of images, context and text. About giant sweeps of history. Of loss of footnotes. Of lost in footnotes. Of seduction by images. About loss.
One may ask why. After all it does look like a perfect picture for an article on Gandhi. Children = innocence = unsilenced Conscience. Children in love with Gandhi = The Nations’s un-silenced conscience. Simple and brilliant.
The problem is with the details. The book only tells you that it is by Brian Brake and appears courtesy of Magnum. Place where is was taken in not mentioned. No year is given. Online, the only other place where you will find this image (besides the online version of the book) is an Arabic page dedicated with love to Gandhi, his life and work. This, as often happens, after I post stuff at this blog, will not be the case for long. It will probably end up on Gandhi Love or Gandhi Hate pages on Facebook, adding a new cycle to the life of this image. And will probably be again lost in indifference of text and context.
So what is it that I know about this photograph that makes this entire setup ironic. What is it about this setup that makes me often doubt everything I read and see. Why do I want to try and rescue it from the narrative in which it is wrapped?
The little girl in green at the back is attired as an elderly traditional Kashmiri Pandit woman.
The photograph was shot in 1957 during a ‘national’ day, an Indian one, with cultural parade and all, organised under Prime Minsiter of Kashmir, Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammed in Srinagar. He was the man who replaced imprisoned Sheikh Abdullah.
Another photograph from the event shot by Brian brake.
Via: Museum of New Zealand
Although I couldn’t find the Gandhi photograph there, but the conclusion
that both very shot as the same event is quite easy to make based on the dress that children are wearing in the background.
“The close alignment of the Conference with the politics of the Congress was particularly distasteful to Bazaz. Bazaz had been moving away from Gandhian and eventually Congress politics throughout the 1930s. He had been taken aback by Gandhi’s dismissive reply to his letter asking for advice on the path Kashmiri Pandits should follow in the political movement in Kashmir: “Seeing that Kashmir is predominantly Mussalman it is bound one day to become a Mussalman State. A Hindu prince can therefore only rule by non ruling i.e., by allowing the Mussalmans to do as they like and by abdicating when they are manifestly going wrong.””
Lines about strange case of Prem Nath Bazaz From ‘Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir’ by Chitralekha Zutshi. Prem Nath Bazaz was later exiled from Kashmir (after differences with Sheikh Abdullah) to Delhi and spent his later life advocating Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan, returning only in 1970s after Shiekh-Indira accord to help Janta Party and attempting to create a democratic opposition to Shiekh.
Looking now at the grand narratives of the national myths of India, Pakistan and Kashmir, and looking at the realities as they often dwell on hard ground. where these myths crumble into incoherent bits and pieces, one does tend to agree, history is a nightmare. And that there is no waking up from it. For it is a nightmare within a nightmare. It is narratives ingesting narratives, facts ingesting fiction, fiction vomiting facts. An on top of it, it is always a book with a beautiful cover.
-0-
A panel from an old Indian comic based on story of Rupinika, from Somadeva’s Katha Sarit Sagara (The Ocean of Streams of Story)
Last year, I came across an interesting photograph in a book published in 1961 called ‘India, by Joe David Brown and the editors of Life’ that intrigued me. It was accompanying an essay on India and relation of its people to the Gandhian thoughts. That confused me all the more. Although the book didn’t offer any clues about the place where it was taken. But I saw something familiar in it. Something that made the photograph out of place. Even ironic. The quest to confirm its place of origin led me to some wonderful discoveries. The first clue: It was taken by famous photographer Brian Brake, best known in India for ‘The Monsoon Girl’.
The little girl at the back in green dress with white headgear in this photographs told me that she is portraying in Kashmiri Pandit woman. That told me that there was a good chance that it was shot in Kashmir. Told me that the great photographer must have been to Kashmir. What beauty he must have captured!
I have been going over and over these photographs for months now. And every time I look, the beauty of them drowns me in a weird feeling that the Kashmir we see now is just like navel lint. It’s just something.
But, I don’t want to write about. I have not time for ugliness. Too much of that abound. Instead I am going to write about beauty, about the photographs, the photographer who took them, a legendary photographer who inspired some of them and a living photography genius who was probably inspired by it. And about beautiful things that are now gone, only remaining in these photographs.
The story starts in 1957 with Henri Cartier-Bresson suggesting Kashmir as a subject to young Brian Brake. Among the photographs he shot in Kashmir we see some shot which as an obvious tribute to his mentor Bresson. Also, it is here that we see Brake try out his technique of ‘Set-up’ to get the perfect shot. The technique that mimics the unparalleled moment capturing abilities of Bresson by deliberately putting the subjects in a staged, controlled environment and setting the camera to get the right moment. It was this technique that much later gave us beauty of ‘The Monsoon Girl’ when he shot Aparna Das Gupta (later Aparna Sen) in fake rain in 1960. But there is a certain rawness to the ‘set-ups’ he shot in Kashmir, or possibly the viewer now gets that feeling because he can see all these photographs together, a viewer can almost see the various stages of a ‘set-up’. Back then, when a single photograph was published in magazine, a viewer could only see the final best product and form an opinion about the moment and beauty of it based on that. Some people done appreciate this ‘set-up’ approach to photography. But in the end, I guess it doesn’t actually matter much.
“A photograph is only a fragment, and with the passage of time its moorings come unstuck. It drifts away into a soft abstract pastness, open to any kind of reading.” – Susan Sontag, On Photography.
What is interesting is that in some photographs Brian Brake can be seen directly trying to recreate some images that were shot by Henri Cartier-Bresson a decade ago in Kashmir in 1947. That he was able to do it tells us about the pace of life back then in Kashmir.
Look at these:
Kashmiri boatwoman by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1947. via: Magnumphotos.com
And now look at this:
Kashmiri boat people by Brian Brake, 1957. The two photographs could have been from the same set and by the same photographer. Even the woman in two look the same. And even the place looks the same. It is almost like he sought out the same place where Bresson had been and in this was possible helped by Bresson.
Brian Brake even tried to recreate one of the most famous shot by Bresson.
Kashmiri women praying on Hari Parbat near Ziarat of Makhdoom Sahib. By Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1947. via: Magnumphotos.com
Now see Brian Brake’s one of the interesting obvious ‘set-up’ re-creation. (He actually did more than one version of it):
Kashmiri men on a Hill, Brian Brake, 1957.
B&W photographs, because of their obvious lack of more color, have this strange power of transporting their subjects to a realm where the viewer instantly knows he is probably looking into past. But that past for the viewer overtime becomes monotoned. The viewers stops thinking that the scene he is looking at was once alive, and actually had color. That it had life. That an apple back then too was red.It is colors that cast a more powerful spell over the viewer. The viewer instantly realizes that the past was once alive too and that the past and present have something in common, a shared color spectrum. The same sun. The same colors. And yet somehow, or rather due to the expertise of the photographer, those past colors look more appealing. See see colors you thought never existed.
Update: Now, also see an image predating both these images:
From the book ‘The Charm of Kashmir’ (1920) by V.C. Scott O’connor. Photographer: probably R.E. Shorter.
Look at ‘boatwoman’ in color by Brian Brake. It’s almost like both Bresson and Brake were at the same spot looking at the same woman.
Color photography was taking off arrive in a big way back then. Quite a few people were starting to experiment with it. And the colors of Kashmir were proving to be one of the palette. Something about its summer sun made Kashmir just perfect for color photography. The charm of Kashmir was again at work and now people could see it in all its colors.
Brian Brake’s work in National Geographic vol.144 no.5, November 1958. Notice that Bresson re-enactment.
Brian Brake’s color work in Kashmir was going to inspire another great photographer. Steve McCurry acknowledges Brake as one of the photographers who’s work inspired him a lot as a kid. He was eleven when ‘Monsoon Girl’ was published. Much later he went on to chase that feeling.
Sometimes images just provide a name or a setting of a subject.
Let’s take a look at one of the most famous Kashmir photograph by McCurry:
Flower seller, Srinagar, Dal Lake, 1996.
Now let’s one of the earliest color images of Kashmiri flower sellers. Shot in 1957 by Brian Brake.
Now look at this photograph by McCurry.
And then this beauty captured by Brian Brake in 1957.
And that’s how images live on. And so do memories.
-0-
Some other photographers inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Vogue fashion shoot in 1969. Photographer was David Bailey. Who at the age of 16 was inspired by Carier-Bresson’s famous photograph of Kashmir
-0-
Kashmir, 1955. By Sam Tata, a Parsi photographer mentored by Cartier in late 1940s.
-0-
Next, I am going to post some of my favorite works of Brian Brake in Kashmir.
,
