In this time of sorrow and mourning some images have acquired symbolic status. They force us to collectively take stock of the loss, and acknowledge the core values that keep us together.
In this time of sorrow and mourning some images have acquired symbolic status. They force us to collectively take stock of the loss, and acknowledge the core values that keep us together.
On 7 February, as India mourns the passing of one of its greatest singers, Lata MangeshkariA picture from the funeral went viral. Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan stood in the background of a skyscraper in Mumbai, his eyes covered with sunglasses and his hands raised up. Supplication, His manager Pooja Dadlani stood next to him, his eyes closed and his hands folded in prayer. The picture immediately created a buzz. Many on social media said that it inspired them, provided them with a ray of hope, captured the country’s diversity in one frame and went back to times of greater tolerance.
In this picture shared on Twitter, actor Shah Rukh Khan and his manager Pooja Dadlani pray in front of the mortal remains of veteran playback singer Lata Mangeshkar. , photo credit: special arrangement
At a time when politics of polarization is in the limelight and puts countless Indians in a state of fear and uncertainty, and opposition parties think twice before defending pluralism and secularism, a simple picture, which at another time may be considered ‘normal’. ‘ is seen as. Or really came to be seen as ordinary, extraordinary.
A similar touching picture grabbed our attention this month. Tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain stood alone, arms crossed and bent backwards, beside the great musician and his friend. Pandit Shivkumar SharmaThe pyre Minutes earlier, Ustad Zakir was among the pallbearers. Another image showed him carrying a body draped in the Indian tricolour, as his sorrowful eyes stared from afar.
J had two curly haired geniuses Created magic together. Ustad Zakir’s relationship with Pandit Shivakumar goes back decades and his father used to play with Shivkumar earlier. His performances on Santoor and Tabla – soothing melody and frenetic rhythm – enthralled audiences across the world. Funeral photos remind us again that only through collaboration can you create a conjugation; Collaborations that go beyond territory, beyond religion, beyond difference.
power to inform
Images like these always have the power to move us. They also have the right to be informed. In 1955, when a black teenager from Chicago, Emmett Till, was murdered by two white men, the picture of his emotional mother staring at her son’s mutilated body in an open coffin shook the nation. Published widely in newspapers, the image mobilized blacks across America and was seen as heralding the next phase of the civil rights movement. In 2017, disturbing photos of people foaming at the mouth suggested Use of chemical weapons under Bashar al-Assadi-led regimeIncluding the banned nerve agent sarin. He helped many people understand the terrible effects of chemical weapons.
sadness, grief, data
Closer to home, in 2021, when COVID-19 claimed countless lives and pushed the healthcare system to its limits, the government, unprepared for another wave, was busy trying to manage its image. A series of photographs that emerged at the time quickly traveled to mobile phones, social media and newspapers around the world. A photo taken using a drone by Reuters photographer Danish Siddiqui in Delhi is shown Burning pyres in the crematorium at night Next to a dark, quiet neighborhood. The scale of the damage became immediately apparent. The viral series forced the government to react. That image echoed what many commentators and observers had been saying for days: the government, like the neighbourhood, was sleeping when the pandemic began to ravage India.
Another image drawn by Siddiqui, of a woman who had lost her husband to COVID-19, sitting on a sidewalk and being consoled by her two working children, stayed exclusively with me. A few days later, when I Naipaul read an essay on bereavement the new Yorker, I thought of that image again. He wrote: “We never end with sorrow. It is part of the fabric of living. It’s always waiting to happen. Love makes memories and life precious; The suffering that comes to us is proportionate to that love and is inevitable.
In the form of today Indian officials pulled up the World Health Organization over its estimates On the high death rate due to COVID-19 in India, and defending the country’s data collection, Siddiqui’s investigative images serve as a reminder that deaths are not just statistics. It cannot be denied that data is important and it is the habit of the government to deny inconvenient data. But by focusing only on the numbers, sometimes we forget that behind every death is a story of love and life goes on; Our collective grief then becomes part of the fabric of society’s life.
Siddiqui’s pictures carry weight for another reason as well. Over the years, many photographers have feared the death of photojournalism. In today’s world, Gen Z often consumes news through images; Yet too many newsrooms pink slip photographers, budget tighter for equipment, and provide less room for images in newspapers. In 2013, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that the ranks of photographers, artists and videographers had been halved from 2000 to 2012. It is safe to assume that the situation today is much different, if not worse.
an emotional connection
And yet, photos stick with us in ways that sometimes stories don’t. Unlike factual and candid news reports, photos provide us with an emotional connect to the story. And although we are accustomed to living in the small world of images, that is, the world of social media platforms, some pictures have the ability to expel us from our complacency and excite us and push the authorities into action.
This does not mean that photographs can irreversibly change the world. Communal tensions often spread to different corners in India; Shah Rukh Khan faced as much hatred as he did for that gesture; Blacks continue to be fired in America despite protests; Syrians are still suffering the consequences of the war; And we will probably never know how many people died due to COVID-19 in India. But pictures evoke compassion, empathy, grief, love and sometimes stir our collective consciousness. And while we are often stunned by the atrocities around us, it is remarkable for a gut-wrenching or moving image to inspire us to continue caring and not disappearing into our own safe bubble.