Ceased with a lens

Mumbai, the city of dreams which never really sleeps and stops for anyone came to a halt when young students from Salaam Bombay Foundation took to streets with a camera in their hand and unique perspectives in their mind. Leaving no stone unturned, these twelve-year olds captured everything from a dusty vintage car to a staircase that looks like a labyrinth. In the narrow dark alley of 3rd Pasta Street in Colaba, an exhibition named ‘Street Kahani’ was set up by Shari Academy which had on display pure art work clicked by students of Salaam Bombay Foundation who belong to slum areas. After desperately waiting for a bus to Colaba, taking a wrong one then getting out and walking in a group of fifteen in scorching bright sun, the exhibition not just offered me an air-conditioned hall but sheer wonder in aesthetics put on display.

The initial few posters I came across were about the courses Shari Academy offered in Photography, which sort of set my expectations from the exhibition to be sort of a regular promotional event. However, as I took a few more steps, I encountered beautifully clicked portraits of children in grade 7 and 8, as the ones published on the cover of Times magazine and it didn’t hit me that they were self portraits until Mr. Girish Mistry, the dean, told us so. It amazed me, the idea of these kids clicking their self portraits as people they aspire to become, say a chef. I wondered how this assignment would have instilled certain ambitions in these kids.

Next in line were pictures with deeper meaning, and I being an amateur very shamelessly asked the little yet talented girls about what the photographs stood for. They told me about how certain pictures depicted childhood in its untainted form, shared stories of how they would hide and click pictures so that the innocence of the labourers isn’t lost, and at other times how their pictures were the only reason the workers would smile to get clicked.

That day, was one of the most fun days I’ve had in Mumbai. I sat in a local bus for the first time here, witnessed an exhibition and had the chance of meeting such young professionals.

Go ahead and support them!

Shari Academy- https://shariacademy.com/

Salaam Bombay- https://www.salaambombay.org/