The Social Communications Media Department (SCMSophia) at Sophia Polytechnic has returned with its annual event Media Mirror, to be held later this week. Acclaimed writer Jerry Pinto and photographer Chirodeep Chaudhuri, who are also visiting faculty at the institution, are slated to conduct talks and masterclasses at the event. Media Mirror 2017 focuses on the evolution of media into the digital age, with speakers presenting their perspectives to undergraduate students.
Changing media
Chaudhuri, who will be talking about Instagram at SCMSophia, says, “I think photography is a way of archiving. A picture suddenly focuses your attention. The object, the situation, demands attention. It becomes like a great documentation that I’m engaged in constantly. You can think of it as a frivolous waste of time, but it’s also a tool which can be used seriously.”
Similar to this line of thought, and yet drastically different in its setting, is Chaudhari and Pinto’s current project. The writer and photographer have collaborated on a number of journalistic articles in the past. This time, the duo have embarked upon a project that looks at the books of the People’s Free Reading Room and Library in Mumbai, of which Pinto is a trustee. While stories about libraries have gone hand-in-hand with themes of memories innumerable times, what makes this project unique is the duo’s approach to it.
Archiving memory
The project is part of the third edition of Focus Photography Festival Mumbai, and will explore that quality of the medium that makes it document the entire world around us, fluidly turning images into stories, and hence, memories. Launched in 2013, the festival celebrates the democratic nature of photography every two years with shows all over the city. In this year’s edition, Pinto and Chaudhuri will come together for an exhibition on their perspective on the given theme of ‘memory’.
“I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try telling the story of this place only through its books rather than pictures of the place,” says Chaudhuri. “The place is dramatic, sure, but I think the real drama is in the books and in their physical condition.” The photographs of the frail books indeed knit as intense a tale about their history for any onlooker as any words might. Some contain relics such as postcards and tram tickets, while others bear holes from having been eaten away by rats. In this maze of accounts of lives, the library became a way to metaphorically photograph memory, according to Chaudhuri.
“Chirodeep was struck by the fact that a library is a repository of memory, but is so fragile; time can do immense damage to it,” says Pinto. “So, in a way, this collaboration became about how libraries fight to preserve human memory. I keep talking about amnesia in my work. The projects I do with my students at SCMSophia about lives of women, or asking my students to interview their mothers and write essays about them, is all about fighting amnesia, fighting our habit of forgetfulness. This project is also another little battle in my war against amnesia, that we should not forget that there are libraries that need our help,” emphasises Pinto.
Vital spaces
Libraries have long retained a romantic image, even as they went out of use. This sentiment comes across in the story of People’s Free Reading Room and Library as well. Although its hall remains filled with people, the books remain in the shelves.
Kandivali resident Giddappa P., 57, has been a visitor of the library for the past 27 years. “I have been coming here since 1990 and feel amazed about how the building has remained unchanged. Over the years, though, kids seem to have lost interest in reading books, with the coming of mobile phones and tablets. There are so many books here, and they remain untouched,” he said.
“The library is still being used, that’s the silver lining,” says Chaudhuri. “However, the larger reserves of the space and the books still don’t matter to the readers here. I would be standing on the table, photographing a book, and no one ever came to ask what it was about.”
It’s an observation that’s echoed by Chaudhari’s assistant on the project, Vedika Singhania, “We were literally all over the library, even using people’s phones for more light during the shoot, but no one was even curious,” says Singhania who is a student of SCMSophia.
Ann Mohan, 21, who visits the library on a daily basis to study for her final CA exams isn’t aware that the books in the library could be used by visitors. “I have only ever seen people studying here. During the past few weeks, I remember seeing maybe one person reading a novel here,” Mohan says.
Saving tomes
The photography exhibit planned by Chaudhuri and Pinto, then, seems to hit the nail on the head, as it speaks of the obsolescence of books.
“For me, the narrative is about the time and the book, as if time is the greatest enemy of the book. There are some pictures where it’s literally as if a tide of time has come in and washed over books that seem to be made out of sand. You’ve even got this ripple edge,” says Pinto. “And the beauty of that image was then reined by a great sorrow. This book may not have been important, but it had suffered the degradations of time.”
As lovers of books, this project has great significance for Chaudhuri and Pinto. Many of the books they came across were crumbling, already on their way to being forgotten completely. The quintessential human dilemma, according to Pinto, presented itself.
“Every book should be worth saving, but how can you pay for them all? It’s like being an army doctor, walking down a line of civilians and soldiers, going ‘save him’, ‘let him go’, ‘treat him’. You’re actually making those decisions and you’re never sure if they are the right decisions,” says the writer.
Chaudhuri agrees. “Theoretically, no book should ever be thrown out of a library because by saying, ‘Let’s chuck this out,’ I’m being an arbitrator. Who made me that?”
After all the trials of selection and rejection, and the dilemmas that the writer and photographer have experienced, there is little doubt left as to their expertise on the subject.
Media Mirror, organised by the Sophia Polytechnic’s Social Communications Media Department, will take place on January 20. The line-up includes Chirodeep Chaudhuri, who will speak at 11.30 a.m. and Jerry Pinto at 2 p.m. For details on other speakers and the event, look for the group scmsophia on Facebook.
