Keeping memories and history in focus

BANGALORE: Widowed women sit in white saris with their heads covered in Mathura, Uttar Padesh; the nuns in Kerala teach children their everyday lessons; while a woman gives an offering at the Shravanabelagola in Karnataka and takes blessings, a Sikh takes a dip at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, two men in Afghanistan sip tea over a chat while a lady in her late seventies looks outside the window of her house. Simple yet intricate and meaningful, his favourite ‘subjects’ could be me and you or anyone amongst us. His work is a reflection of people and their daily life — a dairy of their happiness, their grief, celebrations, their house, their village, poverty, and riches. His pictures in black and white, emote different colours of life. Maybe that is one of the most striking features about his photographs. They speak yet they are silent, they are content yet resilient. Tambrahalli Subramanya Satyanarayana Iyer popularly known as T S Satyan once wrote, “My people are not the rich and the famous. They are the simple, ordinary folk. They do not hit the headlines, yet my people are people who matter.”He started his career with Deccan Herald in 1948. He moved to Bombay to work for the Illustrated Weekly of India and later joined the Photo Division of the Government of India. This position gave him the opportunity to travel and he made the most of it. As a photojournalist, he travelled for nearly 50 years around the country and has documented different people and varied emotions. His pictures speak to you and are gullible. It largely reflects subjects that he appreciated in his day-to-day life, children being his favourite.“I first met him in 1998. I was 40 and he was 75. Still he was younger than me. He was never anyone’s ‘anna’ or a Satyan sir. He always remained younger than everybody else and that was his special quality. He was a child, maybe one from swami and his friends,” said Ramchandra Guha, at the preview of an exhibition of T S Satyan’s photography organised by Tasveer - Recorder of Life Beauty and Truth. “Diversity of India, the linguistic, religious, cultural, culinary, sporting, aesthetic, the ecological aspects are all captured effortlessly by him,” Guha further added.For his long-time friend, former development commissioner Chiranjeevi Singh, Satyan was a family man, who’d always talk about his daughter, his sons, his wife and his friends. “Satyan would drop by at my office frequently but he never spoke about his photography, the kind of lens he used or his assignments. He would talk about his daughter Kalpana, his sons and his wife. He was a family man and that reflected in his personality which made him take the pictures we see today. One unique quality that you see in his pictures is that he was at ease and hence were his subjects,” said Singh. Born and educated in Mysore, T S Satyan took his first photographs as a high school student. His published books include Exploring Karnataka, Hampi-the Fabled Capital of the Vijaynagar Empire, In Love with Life, Kalakke Kannada, his memoirs in Kannada, and Alive and Clicking. Awarded the Padma Shri by the government of India, Satyan was conferred an honorary Doctor of Literature by the University of Mysore. Recorder of Life, Beauty and Truth, an exhibition of the works of late T S Satyan, will be held from July 15 to August 5, 10 am to 7 pm at Tasveer, The Gallery at SUA House, Kasturba cross road.