Mahesh Shantaram has been shooting for years but never had a solo show. This is because a lot of his projects like “Matrimania”, “The Last days of Manmohan”, have not come to a conclusion. Not has “The African Portraits” either - Mahesh is working on it in Delhi - but the Bengaluru-based photographer has decided to exhibit this work for his first solo. Tender portraits of Africans living in Bengaluru, Delhi, Jaipur hang in Tasveer. A lot of them from the city were invited for the opening of the show on August 26.
We may have forgotten the attack on a 21 year-old Tanzanian woman by a mob following the mowing down of a local resident by a Sudanese student. But in Mahesh’s mind the incident has remained etched forever. “It was a moment of African Nirbhaya for us. All these years, we never considered attacks on Africans as racial. They were seen as isolated incidents but this episode did start a debate. It is my response to that,” says the lensman.
When Mahesh began the project, he didn’t know that so many of African live in Soladevanahalli. One contact led him to another and that is how it all came together. The result is a collection of portraits which weave a sombre narrative of the issue. Their surroundings of a bright wallpaper, sparse rooms, a parking lot with an elephant for company, are integral to the story.
Prosper, Charity, Michel, Wando, Abdul Kareem, Zahruddin...they opened their homes to Mahesh. “Because I think I was open. First thing I told them was not ‘I want to take your photos, but I want to talk to you. Most of them don't have Indian friends. So they live with each other, make friends with each other. But they were excited that an Indian was so interested in their lives."
Most of them happen to be students studying computers, pharmacy, radiology. "They opt for courses which will get them jobs immediately. But it is a myth that a majority come from financially weaker backgrounds.” The image of Prosper, the son of the governor of a province in Tanzania, is one of the several in his collection, which puncture our notion.
Sitting on the parapet of his terrace, he looks at the viewer with a gaze that is questioning and curious at once. Michel's is a grave gaze. He is the brother of Olivia, the young Congolese who was beaten to death following an altercation with locals in Kishangarh, Delhi.
Wando is not a student but someone who has made India his home despite an attack in 2013. He lies in bed with his two kids.
Portraiture is the most difficult style, according to Mahesh. "Who is looking at whom and how. Who has the right to do so? But I have tried it for the first time. The viewer thinks he/she is looking at us but they are also looking at us. You may think that this is about African people but actually, it is about us, our concerns as a society."
(The exhibition "The African Portraits" is on at Tasveer, Sua House, till September 23)
