Photographer Karam K Puri is currently showing some unconventional photographs at Gallery Espace in New Delhi. The exhibition tells stories of an opulent lifestyle lost to time, but one which retains the dignity and splendor of a bygone era. Puri has captured these intriguing images in a series of twenty four images shot both on film and in digital format.
For the series, Puri spent innumerable hours in old havelis, palaces and royal mansions across the country that long to be filled as they once were, but where time is now suspended and moves only in slow circles. These spaces, homes of the Nawabs and Rajas, now find themselves victims of their own lust for an opulence that once existed. They are now time capsules, suspended in a world that changes rapidly around them. Much like a movie set waits for actors to breathe life into the illusion, these houses wait to be satisfied once again by the stories that they long to be home to. The rooms yearn for people to come back, for the music to play, for the scandals to unfold, for courtesans to dance and for the finest wines to be uncorked again.
In every photograph repetition gives the illusion of forward momentum where only stillness is left. Tea is served the way it has been for centuries, faces of the past adorn the walls, plaster peels off lime-washed walls, discarded furniture lies on one side – in fact, Puri hasn’t touched or redone any of the setting in the spaces.
He says, “Through my photographs, I aimed to capture, explore and expose this sense of lost grandeur but not through the stories of the people but through the stories the rooms tell by themselves. Shot over a period of six years across the Indian subcontinent, these majestic homes of Maharajas and Nawabs have lost many of their privileges and their power. They are still given the utmost respect by their subjects but can no longer afford the lives they once did.”
With a decade of experience behind him, Puri’s strong character portraits are built around travel photography and draw inspiration from early techni-colour films. Puri was born in India and has lived worldwide, including in New York, Shanghai, Paris and Seoul. He studied at the Doon School in India, Ithaca College in New York, and the International Center of Photography in New York City.
His work on the Mozambique Civil War in 2005-06 has been widely published and exhibited. His work extends to editorial, documentary and street photography. Recently his work was shown in Mumbai by The Fine Art Company along with that of Vivan Sundaram, T S Satyan, Meera Devidayal and Samar Jodha Singh as part of a tribute to famed author Khushwant Singh.