(India’s first Prime Minister ,Pandit Nehru besides a ‘Photography Strictly Prohibited by order’ signboard at Delhi’s Palam airport.-Photo by Homai Vyarawalla, one of India’s early women photo-journalists who has recently passed away at the ripe age of 98 )

The iconic photograph of India’s Prime Minister posing beside the “photography prohibited” signboard outside the Delhi airport is one of the finest examples of how the lady could make an amazing story out of a routine news item of the day.The Prime Minister getting in and out of the Airport is just a routine event for a photographer-journalist to cover. Photographing the Prime Minister was not prohibited but only photographing the airport. It is a masterstroke of the photographer to arouse interest of the viewers by making the Prime Minister pose beside the signboard.

I love the several delicious sarcasm possibilities present in this picture. Some captions that would come to mind are :

A) Sar”kozhy”ing to Angela in search for a solution to the Eurozone debt crisis
B) Madmoiselle, we are deeply indebted.
C)France and Germany are trying to solve their debt crisis under a common umbrella.
D)Sarkozhystically speaking, Angelas do not fear to tread where the French have rushed in.

Please think of other possibilities. Of course , in good-natured fun, not to cause hurt to the persons involved.

A stunning photo by T.S.Satyen of the Mathura widows.The women are destitute widows biding their time before death in Mathura ,the holy place of Krishna where a death is supposed to bring eternal salvation,freedom from re-birth.

There is no sadness in their eyes ,just a nonchalance , no loss of dignity,no photo-consciousness, no attempt to fit into photo-space. The starkness is aided by the dark background so beautifully used to define their figures in the foreground.

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-must-see-ordinary-indians-extraordinary-t-s-satyan/20111003.htm

September 16, 2011. A girl runs across a flooded road as water recedes in Puri district, about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneshwar. Aerial food drops were suspended after five days on Friday as flood waters began to recede in the Mahanadi Delta in Orissa state. At least 26 people died during the devastating floods which affected people in 19 districts of the state.

Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2011/09/23/the-best-pictures-of-the-week-september-16-september-23/#ixzz1Yrv9Nb9d
Picture by Biswaranjan Rout(A.P)

A picture of beauty in despair,the girl runs in the all-around waters as if the rushing waters do not impede her life but only strengthen her hope for the future.The flood waters seem to be receding and soon life will come back to normal. A picture of exquisite beauty.

This powerful image of a father visiting the grave-site of his son killed by the Gaddafi loyalists has been taken from the Time Photos.Two things have interested me about the composition of the image:

Firstly ,the somberness of the occasion is abetted beautifully by the gloom of the black clouds and the brown bleakness of the earth.Secondly the father seemed to say something as you can see the gestures of his hands which may merely be the invoking of God’s mercy for the spirit of the son. He is muttering something under his breath,unable to come to terms with the grief.The robe covering his head leaves us guessing as to what is going on in his mind at this moment.

“This is a photograph I shot in a restaurant in Mussoorie. A sign at Howard Hotel and Revolving Restaurant read: ‘No charges for revolving.’ I split my sides laughing!”

Photo as well as write-up by Mr.V.R.Ferose who is managing director of the German multinational SAP Labs India.(Rediff.com)
http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-india-independence-day-indians-have-a-sense-of-humour/20110805.htm

Although I enjoy the humor contained in the ways English is some times used in India, what has struck me here was the possibility of the hilarity being an intended one ,in which case the laughter is not about the English i.e.usage of the word “revolving” ,but something that at once conveys a robust joviality ,so common in India’s streets .The guy seems to be merely pulling your legs when he says he is giving you the facility of eating and revolving, without any charges for the latter facility -as if tempting you with free revolving .Come to think of it,that is the neat Indian way of conveying that eating comes here with extra value, the pleasure of eating in a revolving place,without paying extra for it.

One of the Reuters 2010 best pictures,what has caught my imagination is the way the photographer has captured the utter hopelessness of a human situation in which stranded people were holding on desperately to the bars of the helicopter.Here humans are reduced to a pile of bodies, in a pyramid of rising misery. An amorphous mass of humans in a desperate bid to rise from their misery- look at the man holding on to the bar with feet in the air,the faces of faceless people looking up to the sky in abject supplication. A truly moving picture.

Here is my poem :

The helicopter

This is Ranjan Basu’s national award-winning picture of a baby sleeping in a cradle in the remote jungles of the tribal belt,with the dog standing guard.

The beauty of the photo ,for me , is in the delightful perspective captured by the photographer in which you see the baby,the dog and the chicken in a row ,as if all the three share a common bond.It is as though all the three are caught up together in this situation which is not their making and none of them can escape it The sleeping baby is in the cradle hanging from a tree , gently swaying to the wind (probably the mother is nearby attending to some work).The dog may not be really standing guard but is bound to the baby in the photographer’s perspective and may therefore attend to its guarding duties! The chicken too is caught unawares in this whole scene and will better remain there doing its bit for the baby.

I have come across this picture on the internet and do not know the photographer. I am struck by the haunting lyrical quality of the picture, a picture of happiness. You may call it a happiness picture and may look at it whenever you are down in the dumps.

I have come across this extremely moving picture of a baby being rescued by the police/para-military officers in the floods of July 2009 .The rescue of the baby represents what remains of human hope, in a situation of utter hopelessness when ten of thousands were washed away in the worst floods Pakistan witnessed in several years and untold damage caused to human lives and property ,setting the clock back in the development efforts of the country by decades.