Srikanth Kolari’s photographs seem to offer an unsettling walk through the passages of pain. They convey a moment of truth, which refuses to fade away from memory, long after one has caught the last glimpse of There After. Srikanth says the title is a reflection of the subject matter.
“It’s about life after what has happened or despite what has happened — thus There After. Here, I am talking about my travel, the people I met and it is all about their stories,” the artist explains. Noticeably, a narrative accompanies each of the photographs.
If There After revolves around grief and portrays a persistent struggle for survival, the reasons can be traced to the terrain it covers, not just geographically, but also on an emotional level. Quite appropriately, the collection also carries the name, Hues of Pain: Journeys in Kashmir, Jharkand and Tamil Nadu. His camera may aptly portray the tragedy of human misery, but Srikanth prefers to call himself a messenger, instead of a photographer. He reasons, “I seldom display my camera. I actually don’t use it until I have heard the story. If I genuinely feel a story requires a messenger to carry it forward, only then I concentrate and focus on the people concerned. This usually takes a long time; some times it is weeks and months, before I pull out my camera and use it.”
The stories that pour out of his lens raise a lot of pertinent and perhaps unnerving questions. From Kashmir it conveys tales of woes and despair, the price people from the valley have been paying for living and dying under the shadow of the gun. It is hard to ignore the grief-stricken faces of parents who have lost their sons to the militants and the military, of daughters raped and disabled.
The photographs talk about their angst, and they reveal the physical and psychological scars that the locals suffer for living in a conflict zone. “It all started in January 2009, when I spent five months in Kashmir. Not a single picture was clicked for the first four months, I was just listening to the locals, who after their initial hesitance, gradually opened up and shared their wounds,” he recalls, before halting at the photograph of an elderly couple, with grief written large on their wrinkled faces.
“This is Ghulam Nabi Khan and his wife. Their son had left home and become a militant. The family wasn’t aware of this. One day in 1997, suddenly the security forces barged into their home in Asham village of the Gandarbal district and started beating up and torturing Khan and his wife. They were seeking information, which the couple obviously didn’t have. It was also revealed to them that their son had just been killed in an encounter. Khan was shot in his leg and his wife was given electric shocks in the eye. As a result she lost vision in her right eye. Now 75-year-old Khan lives with his four daughters in abject poverty. Whenever the couple sees men in uniform they involuntarily start shivering,” Srikant explains.
Moving on to Jharia, a coalmining region of Jharkand, Srikanth’s camera captures the hardship of coalfield, workers who work under dangerous conditions. “The Jharia coalfield is an exclusive storehouse of prime coke coal in the country. The mining activities in these coalfields started in 1894, and had really intensified in 1925. The history of coalmine fires in Jharia coalfield can be traced back to 1916, when the first fire was detected. At present, more than 70 mine fires are reported from this region,” Srikant says.
“The fire in the Jharia coalfield is mainly caused due to unscientific mining. Besides, burning away of an important energy resource, it creates problems for exploitation of coal, poses danger to humankind, raises the temperature of the area, and when present underground, can cause land to subside,” he explains.
“The measures taken for controlling fires include bull dozing, levelling and covering with soil to prevent the entry of oxygen and to stabilise the land for vegetation. Firefighting in this area requires relocation of a large population, which poses to be a bigger problem than the actual fire fighting operations,” he informs. The photograph of a coalmine worker’s charred hands is a grim reminder of the risks people take to earn their livelihood.
Srikanth’s journey finally culminates in the tsunami-affected areas of Tamil Nadu’s Kadalur district and Chennai’s Marina Beach. The tsunami did hit the headlines and grabbed all the attention. However, with time the survivors were abandoned to their fate. “The tribunal, organised by a coalition of local groups and people’s movements, examined the Indian government’s performance with respect to providing housing, land and livelihoods in the tsunami affected regions. The tribunal asserted that both Central and the state governments have failed in their legal and moral responsibility to provide adequate rehabilitation, and have violated both their national and international legal commitments,” he points out. Srikanth’s photographs bear testimony to this stark truth. This summer, There After was showcased at Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre, in Kolkata, in association with Tasveer.