Impermanence of life is focus of Kishore Thukral’s Jan 14-20 show
New Delhi, Jan 15: An off-beat visual narrative of places and people ranging from Far-east Asia to coastal Africa linked by obvious or subtle threads of Buddhist ethos is on in the capital, as writer-lensman Kishore Thukral has come up with a week-long photography exhibition that focuses on the transient nature of life.
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| Lighting of the Lamp at ephemera... |
The January 14-20 show ‘ephemera…’ at India Habitat Centre was inaugurated late Wednesday by celebrated music composer Shantanu Moitra after the exhibition’s curator Alka Pande gave a broad introduction to her selection of the 73 photos from a stock of “thousands and thousands” of images Thukral had shot over genres, textures and colours from across Japan to Mauritius.
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| ephemera... book release by Deepti Naval and Shantanu Moitra |
The wintry evening here also turned out to be a confluence of art with literature and the world of cinema, when renowned actress Deepti Naval released Thukral’s latest book in the presence of a host of painters, writers, scholars and aesthetes besides Buddhist monks from upper Himalayas.
The 198-page work, again titled ‘ephemera…’ to which Naval—also a photographer and artist—has written a foreword, came in for praise from the actress, who said Thukral’s images and poems in the book were equally evocative. The sensitivity he possesses as a human being mirrored in his photos and words, she added.
The exhibition will be on view from 11 am to 8 pm till next Tuesday.
Earlier, Moitra, who is a school-mate of Delhiite Thukral, sang a couple of his hit songs while playing the guitar and regaling the gathering with stories related to their making in recent times.
“Saari umar hum mar mar ke jee liye,” he belted out, plucking on the stringed instrument, as the crowd at the Visual Art Gallery cheered amid his rendition of the popular ditty from 3 Idiots. The 48-year-old composer also sang ‘Behti hawa sa tha woh’ from the same 2009 Hindi blockbuster and ‘Piyu bole piya bole’ from Parineeta (2005).
Pande, who is primarily an art historian and cultural theorist, said Thukral’s visual sense excelled to the level that he merited the tag of an artist than a photographer. “His works have a value far beyond documentation. That is why I chose to exclude his images of Buddhist Thangkas (traditional paintings on cloth),” she said.
Segmented into 17 sections based on various yardsticks, ‘ephemera…’ seeks to reiterate the “timeless bond of man, mountain, water and beyond”, according to Thukral, 53. It has been a result of his decade-long travel—particularly trekking along the western Himalayas that are integral to his areas of obsession, said the photographer, who has earlier written a book named ‘Spiti through Legend and Lore’ that documents the legends of the scenic Himachal Pradesh valley.
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| Actress Deepti Naval and Music Director Shantanu Moitra at the inauguration |
The pictures focus on the entrancing nature on the one hand and the toil and turmoil of human beings in an urban milieu — with an underlying message that they are all ‘ephemera’. “…In this Cosmos of Eternity, what am I but mere EPHEMERA!” observes the poet-artist.
Also a song-writer and heritage conservationist now working on a handbook on the Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist iconography, Thukral is the executive director (communications) of the International Buddhist Confederation, an umbrella world Buddhist body headquartered in Delhi.
Thukral has to his credit a number of photography exhibitions and illustrated lectures on Spiti, Dangkhar and Vajrayana Buddhist art. His photographs have appeared in books, magazines and calendars, including the 2011 calendar on Buddha brought out by India Post, Government of India.
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| Actress Deepti Naval at ephemera... a solo photo exhibition by Kishore Thakural |
He has also the credit of compiling and editing Sharanam Gachhami: an Album of Awakening(Full Circle) in 2011, a coffee-table book of photographic interpretation on Buddhist principles, shot by 20 photographers from different parts of the world, including Richard Gere, Steve McCurry, Raghu Rai and Deepti Naval. His other works include The Chronicler’s Daughter (2002), a novel. He is currently working on a handbook on Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist iconography. He has also translated and written several songs, including the theme song for the award winning film I am Kalam.
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