)
India has a uniquely pleasant and cultured tradition. Along with Singapore, it is perhaps the only country in the world that prefers to recall only the nicer memories of its conquerors, rather than the nastier ones that surely outnumber the former.
Even when the memory is nasty, as it was for Indians not allowed to enter white areas, there is usually no venom in the recounting of the exclusion. This is as it should be because nothing is gained by dwelling on the atrocities these empires commissioned and committed.
So we think back fondly of the alta cultura of the Moghul Empire - fine silks, fine cuisine and all that - and the greater accomplishments of the British one that followed it. There is, of course, an unmistakable sentimentality about it all.
The only vehicle of the perpetuation these fond memories are books, with and without pictures in them. This one is with pictures, some good some not so good.
Malavika Karlekar has been writing passionately and, some would say, non-stop about the pictures of the British Empire - whether hand-drawn or photographed. She has now drawn it all together in this neat little book.
Many will find its three sections whimsical. No matter, because the book does not pretend anywhere to be the work of a historian.
Even so, it is not everyone's cup of tea. Its somewhat baroque style (the opening line reads "It is not unusual for serendipity to help imaginations and activate creative spaces") could deter the casual reader and its nostalgic content could offend some others.
But for those who like this sort of thing, which I suppose would be the aged and aging baba logs born between 1930 and 1960, it is a good buy for the price. It opens up a dimension that has not been examined much by academic historians.
The first train on the Dapoorie Viaduct
Karlekar's view is that "By the middle of the 19th century, visual representation as a source of information became important component of the colonial enterprise in India." Women, for the most part, she says were missing from these visuals.
To begin with, things were drawn by hand - lithographs, charcoals, water colours and so on. Much of it was amateur work but pleasing nonetheless. These impressionists left behind a permanent record of the time. We are the richer for it.
Then in mid-19th century the camera came along and everything changed after that, says Karlekar. A mythical world was created as everyone got the photographs to depict a picture that could differ very considerably from the reality.
To quote: "The ability of the photographic establishment to facilitate, if not encourage, a world of make-believe and role-playing within the studio brings up questions of fantasy on the one hand and of verisimilitude, on the other."
That means people were leaving behind a false picture of themselves and other things. Natural, one supposes, for a people who knew they were the underclass of Empire.
Interestingly, if this is how the natives used photography, their rulers did the opposite: they took pictures of themselves, but of course, but they also took pictures also of things to help them in their endeavour to collect facts. It became an aid to science, botanical, geographical, geological and sociological.
MEMORIES OF BELONGING
IMAGES FROM THE COLONY AND BEYOND
Author: Malavika Karlekar
Publisher: Niyogi Books
Pages: 228
Price: Rs 795
