Photography and Memory - Series 1

 

Photography and Memory -  Part 1

A camera is a memory catcher. It is a technology-enabled device that is a powerful tool to capture the fleeting moments of life and preserve them forever. Visual media culture is solely based on this device. This photo was captured during a train journey between Chiang Mai and Bangkok during our short but memorable CELTA trip to Thailand. We were travelling in the night express train to Bangkok to board our return flight to India. This photograph can be considered a meta photograph. A photograph of a camera captured using another camera .i.e. a mobile camera.

Photography and Memory - Part 2 

These bags keep travelling between the two shores of the Arabian sea. This digital mnemonic representation embodies the essential experience of 'the temporary people ' (the novel by Deepak Unnikrishnan) of the Middle East. This picture can be captured in most of the houses in the state of Kerala also. The bags are kept ready for a well planned and prepared journey. This photo is a visual representation of migration and the expatriate experience of more than 50 years. The people who carry their bags are known as 'guest workers' or even 'invisible people'. This migration is not a forced one. The unpreparedness of the Rohingya Muslims, the Syrian refugees, and the population affected by the Partition of 1947 is not visible here. Dreams fuel this migration, and there is also a little bit of greed involved. The Wishlist includes: building their own homes, getting the sisters married, buying land and other properties. While travelling from the Middle East to Kerala, these bags contain 'Persian' or 'Gulf' items. They include Arabian dates, Arabian perfumes (Part of Lady Macbeth's night monologue), foreign chocolates, almonds and pistachios. Based on a shopping list forwarded months ago, the items are purchased. The list contains the shopping demands of grandparents as well as grandchildren. The number of items on the shopping list has reduced now; since most products are available in India. There is still a demand for the products like Olive Oil and international beauty products. Kozhikodan Halwa, chips and pickles find a place in these bags when they return to the Gulf. There are also the adventurous expatriates who carry a whole jackfruit, or even gallons of coconut oil and even boxes of mangoes. These bags sometimes are seized for their infamous contents. The airport authorities and the immigration officials are a bit wary about this baggage. The public memory of the state of Kerala is replete with images of seized and contraband goods. 

 

Photography and Memory 3 

According to BBC News, the son of Muammar Gaddafi, Saadi Gaddafi, was released today (5-9-21) from prison. I remember watching the cavalcade of Gaddafi while working in Libya in the year 2006. Libya then was a peaceful country under the rule of Big Brother. Libyans had food in their stomach, electricity and water in their homes. Gaddafi constructed the Great Man-Made River (GMMR), a network of pipes that supplied fresh water to all the major towns in Libya. Gaddafi himself described the GMMR as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World' We made an extraordinary trip to see the Great Sahara desert. The photo is one of the digital memories of the trip. We camped in the town of Ghadames, an entry point to the Sahara desert. It was a border town in Libya from where we could see the lights in neighbouring Algeria. Ghadames was known as the " Pearl of the Desert" We had found the town to be deserted and lonely. We travelled for 462 Kms from Tripoli in our friend's BMW car to reach this town. We clicked this picture before we entered the town. The town wore a deserted look at night with the desert wind that sounded like some animal howling. The Old Port of the town of Ghadames has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Islamic epic drama film — "The Message" used the town as a location. The city had connections with the Berber tribe of ‘ Tidamensi’ . Tidamensi was the original name of the town. The Romans changed the name to Cydamus and later on it became Ghadames. The town was one of the oldest pre-Saran settlements.