Snapshots from a walker’s heaven

Sarika Sharma

World War II had ended. Colonial domination receded and new nations came into being. Cameras became smaller and lighter to carry. Colour film was widely available. Magazines were using more photographs/picture stories to inform readers about what was happening in the world. Picture cooperatives like Magnum sent photographers around the world to report on the life of the common people as much as to shoot wars, social problems and political events. New York-based photographer Arvind Garg says it was in these times that many took to street photography of artists like Cartier-Bresson. He was one of them.

Today, Arvind’s images are in the permanent collections of the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Museum, Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and the Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Born in Bathinda, US-based Arvind — who happens to be theatre great Balwant Gargi’s nephew — studied English at Panjab University. Attracted to literature, he went to America to earn a PhD in English in 1976 with the dream of going back to teach at Panjab University. All that, however, changed when during his very first year in Madison, Wisconsin, a fellow student-worker at the Memorial Library introduced him to photography.

Since then, in his works — from Village Women in Alberca to Brooklyn Children, Photographing New York, India… — streets have dominated Arvind’s oeuvre. He says he has always been a walker and with a camera in hand, walking became a passion. “Variety of life that appears on the street is endless and unpredictable. If you are ready with your camera, there is always an image for you. Even now, after living here for three decades, there is almost never a walk from which I return without taking a few pictures,” says Arvind, who lives in Manhattan.

There was something that struck him on his last visit to Chandigarh in 2014. He was in India after a good 10 years when “a rather bizarre sight” caught him: Women riding their scooters with faces fully wrapped in their scarves and dupattas with narrow openings only for the eyes. “These floating figures on the road seemed like some kind of fashion parade.” The photographs are now out in a book titled Bandit Queens of Chandigarh. He says the title was on a lighter note for they reminded him of the pictures of the notorious bandit queen. “She had risen against male domination. These bandit queens seem making a statement of their liberty and equality as well as about their right to be fashionable in a very feminine but daring way.”

Glance through Arvind’s books on Amazon or Blurb and a lot of shadows and silhouettes seem to be reaching out. He says they create a different kind of reality for him. “One that changes every moment, even as you are looking at it... Silhouette in some ways makes the simplest of images. It takes away the mid-tones from the subject and presents the image in stark contrast,” he says.

Photography also meant he travelled the world for it. From off the beaten track countries like Guatemala or Uzbekistan to popular ones like Brazil or Egypt. And he realized that the less known a tourist destination a country is, the more exotic and colourful it turns out to be. Visiting places where ancient civilizations left signs of their glory interests him greatly.

And he captures them according to his own perception. Just like that crescent moon low in the sky but above the roofs of the townhouses in Manhattan. Arvind mailed us the photo and said it made for an exceptionally tender night. We told him we too caught it for a few moments before it hid behind rain clouds and that it seemed like a blessing to be a photographer…