Now showing at museum: A photographer’s journey with past masters
Times of India | 22 December 2024
12 Kolkata: When photographer Dayanita Singh selected never-before-seen candid shots of music maestros, like Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma, Pandit V G Jog, Vijay Kichlu, Girija Devi, Ajoy Chakrabarty, and Rashid Khan, taken four decades ago for an exhibition at the Indian Museum, she crafted a special pillar with hand-picked photographs of Rashid Khan from those tours as a tribute to a friend who passed away in Jan. Little did she know that while this exhibition would be underway, she would also lose her life mentor, Zakir Hussain.
Grief-stricken over the loss of someone who taught her what commitment to art meant and how to live the life of an artiste, Singh wants to create a pillar for her guru when the exhibition moves to the first-floor corridor where it will be on display till March 2025. She is even keen to showcase the pillar at the Dover Lane Music Conference for other musicians and music lovers to pay their tribute.
"I have not yet been able to accept the fact that Zakir Hussain is no more. Because I was photographing him — he led me into this privileged world of the musicians' bus — some of the most talented artistes who would set off on the musical tours from Kolkata each winter in the 1980s. Pandit Vijay Kichlu (Sangeet Research Academy) and Krishna Choudhury would hire a bus, remove all the seats and turn it into a caravan that would take the musicians to distant towns, like Bharuch in Gujarat and Bidar in Karnataka, to popularise classical music. On the way, the bus would stop at scores of small towns and the artistes would perform," recounted Singh, who was then just out of her teens while most of the musicians were established names.
"From 1981 to 1986, six years in a row, I rode with musicians, witnessed their debates and heard their small talk, watched them get ready for concerts in improvised green rooms. Rashid and I were the youngsters on those trips that lasted up to three weeks. We were mindful of not stretching our legs in a manner that the feet pointed towards the seniors while taking naps on mattresses placed on the bus floor. We would also do our own pranks. We had recorded the snoring of different musicians. I don't know where it is now. We would stop at dhabas for food or have an impromptu picnic. Zakir Hussain would pick up the lid of a pressure cooker and wield it like a bat while Rashid would bowl. We would play ‘antakshari' with improvised bandishes. Rashid would be playful, do pranks, and then do a riyaz before the next performance. Everyone on that bus would inhale and exhale music," she said.
Those trips during the formative years helped Singh evolve into one of the most distinguished photographers in the world. While she received many accolades, in 2022 she won the Hasselblad Award, whose past laureates include Wolfgang Tillmans, Cindy Sherman, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
"I learned life from those trips. I absorbed the respectful conviviality among the musicians, their generosity towards audiences, the ethos of daily practice. All that became my training," Singh added.