Gallery: Everyday life in India’s Northeast

The complex co-existence of modernity-tradition in Northeast India. Frame one: ‘Santa Claus’/ 'Father Christmas’ with Naga spear and necklace. Photograph by the author at the outskirts of Kohima, Nagaland, December 2017

These photographs taken by the author across different parts of India’s Northeast over a period of time attempts to sketch a visual vocabulary of the region that has been embracing as well as confronting the passage of a complex transition. Going by Susan Sontag’s exposition on ‘photography as a new grammar and ethics of seeing’, the author believes in the importance of the camera, specially in a region like India’s Northeast, where every mile can potentially throw up a new way of seeing and telling. As presented in pairs, the photographs presented here try to juxtapose the multiple strands of realities in the region. The idea is to show life as it exists in the region, portrayed through the dynamics of anxiety and aspirations that are in essence unleashed by the infrastructural flows in the region. Amidst these flux and fixities, a visual archive will serve as a repository of social memory and will also provide one with critical frames to engage with the ‘growth’ story of the region.

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