With rare Gandhi photos, Metro resurrects lensman

NEW DELHI: As you descend into the cool embrace of the Delhi Metro's underground station at Jor Bagh, you are greeted by the familiar visage of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It's almost as if you have stepped into a time capsule. And you could be right, for the photographs exhibited at 'Gandhi in the Metro', a show organised by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation in association with the India Habitat Centre, presents a truly insider view of Indian politics of a certain era.
The photographs were created by Kulwant Roy (1914-1984), who enjoyed a close rapport with the leading figures of Indian politics straddling the years leading up to Independence. His black and white pictures catch Gandhi in candid poses while in conversation with leaders such as the viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Maulana Azad and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Wrinkled foreheads together, the heads cocked in contemplation, the Father of the Nation smiles warmly from the photos, and the bonhomie he shared with friends and strangers alike shines through even today.
One shows Gandhi during his visit to the North-West Frontier Province in 1938 sharing a joke with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan as they walk side by side, a gentle but instant reminder of the commitment to non-violence that the two men shared.
The Gandhi photographs proves how important the grand old man of India politics was to Roy, who had begun life as an air force photographer. After his discharge from the air force, he began the visual chronicling of Independence era politics, tailing Gandhi on his train journeys across the country. It is because of Roy's camera that many people can today re-explore the steps taken by an old man, who travelled only by third class, always used a postcard for communicating, and who ensured that brute force was unnecessary to win India her freedom.
These precious mementoes of history were almost lost when the original prints and negatives degraded over time, but photographer Aditya Arya, co-curator of this exhibit and legatee of Roy's work, has digitally restored them. The founder of the India Photo Archive Foundation says, "My interest in photo archiving and visual histories has been inspired by the priceless collection bequeathed to me by Kulwant Roy."
Thanks to Arya, today's generation will see Roy's work, though many of the photographer's images taken during a three-year journey across the globe have been lost forever. Roy used to mail these back to India, but was devastated to find on return that none of his despatches had reached home, having got stolen en route.
Metro passengers can take a slice of history home. Over 1,000 free postcards of Roy's photos will be distributed at a stall at the station. The exhibit will remain open from 8am to 8pm on all days for the next two months. The curators will be giving out three copies of Arya's coffee table book titled 'History in the Making - The Visual Archives of Kulwant Roy' to the winner of an online contest related to the exhibition.