For the quiet photojournalist Santosh Verma, the rewards are in the stories he tells
Santosh Verma is one of those photojournalists who quietly goes about his work — for editorial clients such as The New York Times, and non-government organisations and charities (an area he is particuallarly keen to develop further) — shying away from publicity or praise, opting instead to find his rewards in the stories he tells. ‘My work is not a reaction, but a response. A cry. A protest, if you will,’ he says. ‘It is the face of the faceless stranger, the voice that has not been heard, the untold story that is aching to be told,’ all of which he finds in the everyday and the ordinary.
For the Pulitzer prize winning journalist David Rohde, Verma's photographs ‘bring to life an India that the traditional news media misses. Santosh's India is a world of searing colors and contrasts, as well as triumphs and tragedies. He brings dignity and grace to the daily struggles that are the hidden heart of India.’
In October at the invitation of Padmini Somani founder of the Salaam Bombay Children’s Fund, Verma staged Forgotten Diamonds at Christies in New York — his first exhibition in the city — and a fundraising event for the fund that has so far touched the lives of over three million children. For Somani, Verma stands as ‘one of India’s leading photographers of the human landscape,’ who takes ‘the viewer deep into the hearts of India’s underprivileged children.’ Revealing not the deprivation that many photographers focus upon, but instead the ‘great dignity, humanity and hope that we see.’
Verma is ‘not a wild-eyed visionary or an impractical radical, he is a crusader in the best sense of the word,’ writes David E Haberstich, curator of photography at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. ‘He knows that documentary photography, in the hands of concerned and committed craftsmen and artists, has the power to change the world. It has worked before, notably through the photographs of John Thomson (1837-1921) in England and such Americans as Lewis Hine (1874-1940), Jacob Riis (1849-1914), and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers, and dozens of others. Why not in India as well-and especially, why not through the eyes of an Indian photographer?’
To accompany each of the photographs that Verma exhibited in New York, he wrote a short text; below are seven of those images and their stories:
I was exploring the interiors of Tamil Nadu for an advertising campaign. My instructions to the driver befuddled him: take me to the places that tourists don’t visit. He was even more surprised when I walked out of the car towards a distant hill where I could see figures and trucks and activity. It was a well-hidden place: a stone quarry with skeletal men and women excavating and breaking hard rocks with nothing but hammers and large chisels. Their bodies were black under the South Indian sun. In all its rugged beauty, it was a merciless landscape. It began to grow dark. And deserted. I walked along the high rock wall between the two quarries towards my car. The labourers had left. And the landscape was barren of humans that had inhabited it. Suddenly, to my right I saw a tiny figure of a child, walking towards the labourers’ huts. When his parents had gone home, the barren, merciless, hard, unyielding quarry became his playground.
It was a chilly winter evening on the outskirts of Varanasi (Benares). The rail yard was deserted and dark. The coal trains halted here briefly. From the overhead railway bridge I saw three small, frail bodies running across the dark coal compound with baskets as large as themselves. They spotted me and fear filled their eyes. ‘Is he a Security Officer? Is he a new ‘sahib ? Is he going to ask us how we got in? Is he going to take us to the police? Even worse, is he going to take away the coal we collected?’ They were collecting the coal over which their evening meals would be cooked and their bath water warmed.
She was watching me for a long time
She had been watching me for a long time as I explored the Taj from a distance, from across the village and the river. Every day, she must have watched, in silence, hoards of photographers in search of their telling image of the Taj. Experience taught her to keep silent, to keep away, and to watch - in silence. And there it was, all before me: the little girl, graceful and silent, ‘only to be seen, and not heard’ come to life. And I knew that if I photographed the Taj, it would just be another photograph of the monument - elegant, silent, eloquent and impeccable in its marble-esque grandeur. But I had something else before me - a living story; a story told in flesh and blood; a story of an undiscovered diamond. Years later, I would stop to actually notice the details: the undirected posture, the graceful and artistic three-fourth angle of her posture, one hand on her shoulder, and the other wrapped around her waist…and her silent gaze at the photographer, for whom, she must think it was the Taj that was the focus, not herself…
In the interiors of Rajasthan, on the last day of my assignment, I strolled along a long line of hutments in a village. And for no real reason, walked into one of the potter’s houses where he sat at the potter’s wheel. Out of the blue, this little girl appeared, calling out to her mother. Before she could disappear into the house, I ‘caught’ her. Perhaps it was the suddenness of the moment. Perhaps it was the utter unexpectedness of being ‘seen’. Perhaps it was the inexpressible joy of being the centre of attention. Perhaps it was just a gift at the end of a long, tiring, solitary week of shooting. But yes — a gift, for certain.
The child of the wind and sea
Perhaps I’ve never seen a happier child. A face that melted my heart, with a story. That would make me hunch over in pain. At a very popular beach resort, where thousands of tourists come to enjoy their holidays and weekends, this girl moved around with lightness of feet and a face that glowed with innocence. The wind blew hard and strong and blew her dark skirt as she smiled, standing on the roots of the tree. When I asked her about her parents, she had a heartbreaking story to tell: she had lost her father when she was much younger. And her mother had passed away a few months ago. Her aged grandmother now looked after her. I met the grandmother, her face full of kindness, love, and concern. But also old, frail, and unable to do much. Where is this girl now? What does she do? How safe was she at the public, unattended beach? Is her grandmother alive?
True, perhaps the safest place to be is right in the arms of danger - or in the arms of a Lion, as The Chronicles of Narnia eloquently demonstrate. Kolkata, is by far my dream city to explore and photograph. If I only knew it better or got to travel there more often. During an early morning walk around the Victoria Memorial, as I looked at the lion guarding the gate, I was stunned when suddenly from within the arms of the majestic lion, a child emerged and jumped down onto the street! What safer place of refuge? What better camouflage? What better survival? What better comfort and warmth? What better ingenuity? And what better metaphor? Hats off to that child genius! Salaam!
I was wandering alone with my camera amongst the historic, abandoned ruins.The look of neglect did not take away the majesty from the dark, deserted, and empty ruins that lay before me. The large black stones,the strong majestic arches: their cornerstone where the two arches met, joining together and almost made the shape of two hands joining together in prayer. ‘Surely, this must have been a temple’, I thought.
And indeed, it was. In its day of glory. It was ‘ a temple of Justice’. The local man, who doubled up as the tourist guide, said,‘ It was once a ‘Durbar, Hall of Justice’ when he saw me linger and study its stone arches. Why must I roam amongst the ruins and the deserted places? And my eyes fell on the young lad. Just like David, the Sheperd boy, David the songwriter of the Psalm 23, this young lad was tending his goats amongst the ruins.
Who knows what poetry dwelt in his heart? Who knows what pain dwelt in his eyes? Who will ask what dreams he has? Who will tell him, that he is not ‘anonymous’? Who indeed, will bring the child the Good News? Why must I roam amongst the ruins and the deserted places indeed? Why must I be assaulted with all that is neglected and abandoned indeed? Why indeed must I cry alone, and raise my voice ‘in the desert’?
But this is not a complaint, but an acknowledgement: In places such as these, of darkness, desolation, neglect, I find my Gold. I find India’s precious Diamonds. These places of silence and abandonment, yield the most precious and priceless Gems that I could ever imagine or ever put a price on. It seems to me, ‘every stone tells a story. Every face is a story. Every moment is imbued with meaning, every detail significant. Nothing, absolutely nothing is wasted.’ Like the mystic says : ‘If you love enough, everything speaks.’ Indeed, if we keep silent long enough, ‘even the very stones will cry out.’