The girl’s face is covered by shoulder-length hair. Her gait is awkward, her fist clenched. The violet floral dress and short hair mean she is young and urban. There are notebooks stacked on a shelf behind her. A black notice board is painted on the wall, but you can’t read what’s written on it. The dirty white wall seems to have encroached on it. It could be a lowly government office or a small-town courtroom. Then you see a sign that says it is the kacheri (court) of a pir (Muslim saint). A few cheap carpets with religious motifs hang in a corner. This is the Mira Datar Dargah in Gujarat, and the girl has been possessed (by a djinn?). There’s a grille on which rests a man’s hand — he is here to watch the tamasha and won’t leave in a hurry.
A good work of art is one that surprises you every time you see it. It must have multiple meanings, multiple mysteries. Violet Dreams will grab your attention. The snapshot captures the essence of religion as practised in India, a mix of unquestioning belief and hallucination. Yet, it’s detached — it doesn’t miss the point that for some it is just a show.
Shivani Dass, the young photographer who shot the picture, doesn’t believe in “being possessed”, and knows that it is a disorder. She found it so overpowering that though she had gone to Ahmedabad for a whole week, she left after a few days. Still, her two dozen or so pictures, taken across dargahs of sufi saints across the country, take you right inside that world. She held an exhibition of these in Delhi recently, and plans to put them up on her website (www.shivanii-photography.com) soon.
Not all pictures are as multi-faceted as Violet Dreams. One, shot in Ajmer Sharif, shows a qawwali in full swing. The lead singer’s hand is on his heart. It’s an all-male congregation. There are two women and a little girl seated right at the end of the hall. A man is taking their picture on a cellphone. Or is he checking his phone for SMSs? Is he a doting family man or an outraged chauvinist? Another photograph, this one taken near the shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin in Delhi, shows a dilapidated mausoleum, dwarfed by houses behind it. It may be in need of repair, but the elegance is unmistakable (like religion?). The sweeper of the area is sleeping close by, under a green blanket and over a plastic sheet. It might spook many, but diehard devotees of sufi saints often sleep next to their graves —closeness to the patron-saint is enough to keep them warm.
Dass is the granddaughter of industrialist Deepak Shriram. She studied business administration from Lausanne and worked with several companies, including Accenture, till 2007 when she took up photography as a career. Her first exhibition, “Sanjeevani in a Spectrum”, which she describes as a photographic journey across cities like Agra, Banaras, Ladakh, Mysore and Madurai, happened in April 2010. For the recent exhibition, Dass took pictures over seven months. Some places she visited on her own, on others she was accompanied by friends and local experts. In at least at one place (Hyderabad), the custodian of the shrine was hostile. Yet, she pressed on, lugging her camera, lenses and lights.
In between, Dass shot small enterprises in Turkey. An exhibition of those pictures will happen next in Coimbatore. After that, Dass wants to take pictures of dancers across the country — tribes, lost forms, mujra girls et cetera. Though a diehard Nikon user, Dass plans to use a movie camera for this assignment. On her radar are documentary films.