KOCHI: Nick Ut has probably narrated this story a few thousand times since June 8, 1972. Each time he tells the story, one feels as though it happened yesterday. After the inauguration of the photo exhibition 'Pause' - also the first such event in Kerala which saw Nick put his best photos on display - at Mocha Art Cafe in Mattanchery on Thursday, the international photographer sat down with Express to narrate the story of the Napalm Girl one more time.
"It was early in the morning. I saw a Napalm bomb being dropped on the village of Trang Bang. There was a huge cloud of smoke rising from the site. I saw people running towards us. There were people carrying the dead bodies of children. And then I saw her. She was just nine at the time. I looked through my camera and saw that she wasn't wearing anything. And she was crying in pain.
Only after taking some more pictures did I realise that her hands and back had sustained severe burns. And she had stripped all her clothing because of it. I thought she would die any minute. I stopped clicking pictures. I poured water on her. I picked her and other children and drove them to the nearest hospital. Because of her injuries, she sat on the floor of the car and kept on crying that she would die soon. On reaching the hospital, the doctors refused to look at her as her injuries were severe.
They asked me to take her to a hospital in Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh City] which was far away and the girl wouldn't survive the journey. I told them she had to be treated as the girl and the others have been photographed and would be published in all major newspapers," says Nick. According to him, the 'Napalm Girl' portrayed the pain an innocent child had to face at war. "It wouldn't make much difference to photograph dead bodies. But this photo was all about pain," he says.
This is the first time the Associated Press' retired photojournalist is conducting a photo exhibition in the state. Over 20 photos - ranging from those taken during the Vietnam War and of important personalities - taken by Nick have been displayed at the exhibition. Along with Nick, photographs by Mark Harris, Boris Eldagsen, Giles Clarke, Melissa Golden, Vineet Vohra and James Wellford have been displayed.