Chandigarh Newsline- Indian Express
04/21/1999 , By Jatin Gandhi
Showcasing the ‘Soul of Punjab’
It is a celebration of purity. Beginning Friday, over 220 photographs of folk artists of Punjab – the custodians of culture and tradition – will be put on display in a weeklong exhibition in the city, as a part of the ongoing Tercentenary celebrations of the Khalsa.
The exhibition which is the culmination of an ethnographic study on various folk artists, conceived by Alka Pande and captured through the lens with sensitivity by Diwan Manna is slated to travel to different parts of the country.
Ever since I came to Chandigarh 18 years ago, I have been hearing that Punjab has no culture and only agriculture, this study is an assertion that Punjab has an extremely rich heritage that exists beyond Giddha and Bhangra,” says Pande.
“I chose folk musicians and instrument-makers to assert the fact because they are the culture bearers of the resplendent traditions of Punjab, and it’s these folk forms that represent the diverse influences derived from invasions from different conquerors through different times,’ she explains.
Manna’s photographs capture the artists not only in performance but also as they lead their lives, preserving and practicing their arts in purest form and passing it on to future generations. “I commissioned Diwan because I wanted to document art through an artist’s eye. He has captured the spirit,” says Pande.
Manna, on his part, is only too happy to have been a part of the project. “I owed it to Punjab. We grew up in a rural landscape and music was a part of our lives. Music changes my chemistry. Particularly our own music,” he explains.
He caught the artists in their various moods, in their homes, at the dargah, traveling over Punjab for over two months last year. “The very opportunity of meeting such artists, who had given their lives to art, people who I had revered as a child, was what drew me into it,” says Manna.
“It was an experience difficult to put into words, they were working, sleeping, off to work at the fields or even pulling carts but the moment they started playing the music, their faces changed. You could make out that they had established a connection with the spiritual world,” says Manna, whose pictures will be displayed in the city after seven years.
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