Settling Influences

Kaka Phobo and Ma

Both my grandfathers were passionate about photography but had different ways of getting inspired. My kaka Tete (maternal grandfather) saw inspiration in his family and his passion  for photography came from the inner need to document each member of his family. He used to develop his own photographs delicately mixing chemicals.

While all his 6 kids were asleep at night he would go to the dark corner of the room and switch on his red light and work the whole night, developing numerous pictures he had clicked. My mom tells me- sometimes my Kaka Phobo(Maternal grandmother) would deliberately open the small shutter of the door to see what’s going on inside his little room, which often overexposed the photographs. It was sort of a romantic, fun game they used to play like young lovers do, teasing each other. The photographs which got destroyed in this process also have a story to tell. A story of the love, respect and relationship they share till date.

My mother’s family shifted to Ranchi (Jharkhand) from Calcutta (West Bengal) after the Indo- China war in the 1960’s. They still talk about curfews and hiding themselves from Chinese personals who were collecting Chinese nationals to transport them back to China. I guess by hiding they made a choice to stay back in India. They chose a life which would affect the lives of generations to come.

My kaka tete is 90yrs old now and has Alzheimer’s. But even now, there is one person he can’t live without and can’t let go off even for a second. One person he remembers every second of the day even after his mental condition, one person whose hands he still kisses when she asks him if he is hungry-My KaKaPhobo.