An online exhibition of black and white photographs of the 1950s and 1960s by Vinoo Bhagat, Kishan S. Rana and Deb Mukharji

The display includes short podcast walkthrough of the exhibition by each of the photographers

THE THREE AMIGOS
Vinoo Bhagat, Kishan S. Rana and Deb Mukharji met as under-graduates at St Stephen’s College, Delhi (Classes of 1957 & 1961). As keen amateurs, handicapped with limited resources but driven by a shared passion, in days of no hobby instruction, they learnt from one another, capturing their world in black-and-white images. They beavered away in the Photo Society darkroom, often in sweltering heat (no air-conditioning in colleges!), improvising with basic equipment. 

Each pursued his vision. Vinoo and Deb, avid trekkers, wandered widely in the Himalayan mountains and meadows, unspoilt as they then were. Further, Vinoo, Kishan and Deb traipsed through the streets of Old and New Delhi, searching for the photogenic. Some captured images are of documentary value. Historic events and personalities also feature in their eclectic collections.  And the photos reflect the exuberance of teenage amateurs. 
 
About the photographers

 Vinoo Bhagat 

My first nine years were lived in Lahore, with summer holidays spent in beautiful Kashmir. I studied in Aitchison college for a year in 1946 (stood first in class). The next year when riots began we were sent to Kashmir and spent almost six months there. We were flown out to Delhi on 27 Oc-tober 1947 in Dakota aircraft that were returning after dropping off Indi-an troops at Srinagar airport. The troops went to fight off the Razakars, who were very near the airport, as soon as they landed; some people at the airport heard popping noises of guns nearby.

I joined Modern School in Delhi in November 1947, and started two hob-bies: playing the sitar (music class was compulsory), and photography, both hobbies have stayed with me all along.

In 1948 in summer holidays in Kasauli, a Kodak box camera appeared from somewhere. I took my first photographs, unremarkable and un-traceable later. But having seen developed films hanging to dry outside the photographer’s shop, I decided to develop the film myself; chemicals were procured from the shop and poured into soup bowls in which the film was seesawed after having placed red paper over the light bulb in the bathroom – and voila it was done. This continued.

1951 was a defining year, three of us cousins spent two amazing months in Kashmir, trekking in high mountains full of snow, coming down to Srinagar and in between treks staying in Nedous hotel, enjoying comfort and excellent food (the plum fool was remarkably good). Apart from us and our support staff, and gujjars pasturing their livestock, we did not see anyone else on our treks.

Mr M.N. Kapur the much admired and respected school Principal started a photography club and had a proper darkroom set up in the early 1950s. I was often to be found there. Once, I asked the chemistry teacher for potassium cyanide to lighten an over-darkened print. He gave me a large brown jar filled with cigarette like sticks of cyanide; I dissolved a stick and treated the print in the tray with bare hands.

At the same time, I started representing the school in inter-school music competitions by playing the sitar; stood first every time as far as I recall.

School trips were started, in 1952 some twenty of us students and two teachers went to Bombay, Elephanta caves, a film studio (where a starlet plonked herself on the director’s lap while we were there). Goa then ruled by the Portugese was next, the towns were small and undistin-guished, but the lush green countryside was beautiful, our ancient bus would cross rivers on a raft. We saw the embalmed body of St. Xavier. Heard the priest playing the Nadaswaram in the temple in Mangeshkar village. The trip was rounded off by a visit to Aurangabad seeing the Bibi-ka-maqbara, a poor imitation of the Taj, and then to the Ajanta caves.

Drawings had a crucial function in the realization of Raphael's art. They were not only the patterns for final works, but the means of their development; they shaped the creative process at the same time as they documented it. And, considering the vast projects executed collaboratively, they were the guarantee of the identification of the final product with the master who conceived the design.

   Kishan S. Rana

Kishan S. Rana MA economics, St Stephen’s College, Delhi. Indian Foreign Service (1960-95); Ambassador/High Commissioner: Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Kenya, Mauritius, & Germany. Emeritus Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi; Professor Emeritus, DiploFoundation; Archives By-Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge. Authored and edited eleven books on diplomatic studies; 150 articles in journals and newspaper columns.
Began photography while at school, with an Agfa folding camera; his father gifted a Rolleicord twin-lens reflex camera in 1954, which remained with him till 1961, when he left for Hong Kong as a Chinese language IFS probationer; he then bought a first Cannon 35 mm camera with interchangeable lenses, and shifted to colour film slide photography. A collection of China slides (Beijing, 1963-65 and 1970-72), awaits, to be scanned with modern technology. Photo exhibitions held: Berlin, June 1995; IIC, New Delhi, 2003. Frontline magazine carried three of his photo essays in in 1995-98.
The black & white photos in this collection are all based on original negatives from 1954-59, scanned in 2020 with an Epson V600 photo scanner, producing large file images (1 to 4 MB range), then processed with Adobe Photoshop. The images in the virtual exhibition are in the range of 400 to 700 kb file sizes; the large file images (1 to 8 MB) are available with the photographer. The images are available for sale.
Email: kishanrana@gmail.com
     

Deb Mukharji

Deb Mukharji was a career diplomat in his professional life and retired as India's ambassador to Nepal in 2001. Solo exhibitions of his photographs have been held at the India International Centre, Delhi, in 1994, 2002 and 2019, at the Drik gallery in Dhaka in 2000 and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata in 2004. His photography was described as "...poetry through lens" by late Mrinal Sen. He is the author of Magic of Nepal (Rupa: 2005), Visions of the Infinite (Nepalaya: 2009) and A Quest Beyond the Himalaya (Niyogi: 2013)     

Deb Mukharji curated the Himalaya project of the India International Centre in 2014-2015   

Email: deb.mukharji@gmail.com