William Dalrymple, the writer is a familiar name. In a career spanning three decades, he has produced a dozen books, each a bestseller. He is known as one of the founders of the Jaipur Literary festival as well. But not many know that this Anglophile Scotsman who loves Delhi is a passionate photographer. It started as a childhood hobby when Dalrymple’s father presented him with a camera when he was only seven. Later, he received a small legacy from his grand-aunt. “It was a modest amount, but a windfall for a 15-year-old,” says the writer-historian.
Unlike most other teenagers, he immediately put in the money into his first SLR. “And soon began my love affair with photography, which took a backseat when I turned to writing full-time,” says Dalrymple.
After his well-received debut exhibition in 2016 titled the Writer’s Eye, Vadehra Art Gallery has returned with Historian’s Eye an exhibition of the author’s photographs, chronicling people and places he saw over the past two years spent researching his new book The Anarchy. Its images merge the art and history of the 18th and 19th centuries. The show also includes a small selection of photographs from his travels through modern-day Pakistan.
Unlike his books, which paint vivid images of the times, Dalrymple’s photographs capture the stark, raw beauty that is hidden in the mundane. True to instinct, they are black and white. During the many journeys which became a travelogue titled In Xanadu, Dalrymple would capture his surroundings in his camera. These were later put together for a small exhibition.
By then, the writing bug had bitten him. Photography remained in the dark room, until interest developed again in 2006. His muse? “Delhi, of course. Kolkata, Lucknow, Srirangapatnam, Murshidabad, Hyderabad are always on my mind, but Delhi surpasses them all,” he says. No surprise here, given the fact that Dalrymple, who first set foot in India in 1984, has made Delhi his home.
Each image in Historian’s Eye possesses a surreal stillness—from the Jama Masjid’s panoramic and timeless view to the Jantar Mantar’s gravitas, from the Safdarjung Tomb’s evocative nostalgia to Rajon ki baoli’s aura of antiquity, Dalrymple captures his Delhi well. Here is a passionate historian with an equally detail obsessed eye. Funnily enough, Dalrymple who started his photographic journey with an SLR as a teen, uses his smartphone camera on the go today.
“It is convenient to use. Earlier, I would often miss out on great photographic moments because I didn’t have my camera with me. By the time I got it, the moment would have passed. Now all I have to do is whip out my phone and I’m good to go,” he laughs, adding that hence, the images become more intuitive and instinctive. “Photography is always about the eye, not the equipment,” he says.
While Dalrymple has taken to exhibiting his recent photos, the records of his previous travels and travails with the camera remain at home in Scotland. As you wonder what a young historian’s eye might have captured then and ask the wordsmith whether he will bring them out sometime in the future, Dalrymple smiles mysteriously, “Oh, I might do that someday. It is a good idea actually. For now, they are safely locked away.” Until then, it is the city of djinns.