BENGALURU: Forty-two rare photographs taken by Kanu Gandhi, grand-nephew of Mahatma Gandhi, are on display at National Gallery of Modern Art. The exhibition titled Kanu’s Gandhi, and presented in association with the Naz Foundation, will be on till October 30. The photos are from the last ten years of Gandhi’s life.
Kanu Gandhi, the son of Gandhi’s nephew Naradas and his wife Jamuna, lived in Sabarmati Ashram from when he was a toddler and gained an interest in photography there.
He was nicknamed as Bapu’s Hanuman because of the closeness he shared with the leader. Kanu was the only one allowed to click his photographs, though he had to follow three dictums -- do not use flash, never ask Gandhi to pose and no expenses will be met by the ashram. He didn’t have money to buy photography equipment and when Gandhi refused to help him, industrialist GD Birla gifted Kanu a rolleiflex camera worth Rs 100.
In one frame, we see Gandhi and Kasturbai sitting at the wedding of a Christian woman with an untouchable man.
Another, taken from the platform of a station, is of Gandhi collecting funds for the Harijans while on a train journey to West Bengal and Assam. In this, only his head and hands are visible and they are out of focus.
Being an untrained photographer, Kanu Gandhi easily broke rules such as of composition and focus. This only made the photographs more lucid and natural.
Kanu photographed Gandhi along with legends such as Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru as well. This photo too is a candid shot with none of the subjects looking into the camera, busy talking to each other. The most intimate moment is of Gandhi with Kasturba in his lap, during her last moments. Kanu had been forbidden from taking this photo.
The curator of the exhibition, Prasanth Panjiar, is a professional photographer and finds Kanu’s photographs of Gandhi “beautiful and intimate”. “They capture Gandhi’s life and reveals the nature of the photographer,” says Panjiar, “who has kept himself at a respectful distance”. Panjiar says that the photographer-artiste was never given his due credit and that motivated him to publish his forgotten photos of Mahatma Gandhi.
Kanu Gandhi died at the age of 69 from a heart attack while on a pilgrimage in Madhya Pradesh. All his photographs of Gandhi were handed over to his daughter Geetha Mehta who now lives in Rajkot.