JOIN USThough there are enough reasons to make them worry about their lives, yet a group of men take pains to dress up and participate in weddings wherever they are invited. The bandwallahs are a group of gifted musicians who make everyone dance to the tune of their instruments. “They mark the most joyous moments of our lives yet they live an unsung life,” says Aditya Arya, curator of the photography exhibition ‘Bajaatey Raho’.
Since quite some time, the deplorable living conditions of the bandwallahs have been in focus. The photographs on display take into account the same but also try to document what could be called a dwindling art form.
“With the coming of DJs, the bandwallahs will vanish one day. It is therefore important to us to create a visual archive. We therefore encouraged our photographers to capture the lives of not just one individual but a group of people. This helps create a story of how things happen during a time,” explains Arya who has curated this exhibition in collaboration with the India Photo Archive Foundation, Neel Dongre Awards and Grants for Excellence in Photography.
A photograph showing bandwallahs taking a joint (Marijuana leaves rolled into a cigarette for smoking) is a nuance of the same documentation. “People indulging in drugs is a very big problem in Punjab and this photograph takes into account the bandwallahs doing the same,” says the curator as the eyes absorb the work of Nirvair Singh Rai.
Rai shoots the bandwallahs from his native place Bathinda (Punjab) and shares through his photographs how farmers have taken up this profession to earn a living. On the contrary, Raj Lalwani’s photographs narrate the experiences of a Goan brass band. For this group from another part of the country, the word is “musician” and not “bandwallah”. But this doesn’t change the state of their songs of love and loss since it remains to be a dying art even in Goa.
In the capital city, the task to get friendly with this group was taken up by social documentary photographer Sujata Khanna. She sets out in the winter months or wedding months to follow the vibrant processions. Her shots take into account the everyday lives of bandwallahs, away from the bright lights of weddings.
In between her black and white frames, Khanna becomes friendly with her subject. “It just took me one wedding, to be attended with them, and they became comfortable with my presence among them,” she says when asked about her presence in a room full of bandwallahs changing into their uniforms. “I wanted to find a female bandwali, but couldn’t,” she tells with Metrolife.
For the other female photographer, Richa Bhavanam, the word ‘bandwallah’ meant the musicians at weddings – quite a contrast in South India as compared to the North. Referring to the lungi-clad men and young boys with sandalwood smeared foreheads in the temples, Arya says, “When she came to me when her initial draft, I could have asked her to look for more fancily-dressed people but I thought if this is how celebration takes place in South then it should be documented. At the end of the day, vision has to be theirs.”
Similarly, for Sujatro Ghosh and Vinit Gupta who through their work narrate the true picture of bandwallahs from Kolkata (where they were established during the British regime) and various parts of the country. While Gupta’s work in monochrome shows stark portraits of few individuals from bands, Ghosh focuses on few symbolic things (such as band, cap, dress) that define the ‘bandwallahs’, professionally!
‘Bajaatey Raho’ is ongoing at the Art Gallery in Kamladevi Block, India International Centre till March 26.