PHOTOGRAPHY
A Vexed Identity
21 Mar 2008
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A Portrait Of Time: Christine
Fernandes is a proud Anglo-Indian |
She is wrinkled with age and her house is not a pretty sight for lack of upkeep. But Christine Fernandes still holds that stiff upper lip in place and dresses up to be photographed. Post-colonial India has been a confusing place for the Anglo-Indians as they belonged to Indian soil and English spirit in equal measure. By language, manners and customs, they have been the foreigner-natives of India. Many have migrated to Europe and Australia since the British retreat from India. But many remain, trying to hold on to a lineage that started in the local dalliances of the East India Company’s expats, but grew into a regular social segment as Anglo-Indians bred among themselves and many Britons chose to marry locals and stayed on in India. Irwine Allan Sealy, an Anglo-Indian writer, characterises the community as the first modern westernised Indians “who will speak the father’s tongue and yet eat the mother’s salt”.
Dileep Prakash, formerly the head of the photo depart-ment at BW, has captured the changing face of the Anglo-Indian community through a set of eloquent portraits as it is getting assimilated into the India’s larger communities and struggles to retain its legacy and identity.
Having showcased his pictures of Anglo-Indians at Goethe Institute in Frankfurt, Prakash is now exhibiting these pictures at PhotoInk Gallery in Delhi.
(Businessworld issue 25 - 31 March 2008)
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EASTER ART: A display of eggs
painted with colour wax technique
in Lehde, Germany. Germans have
a tradition of eating painted eggs
on Easter day (Reuters)
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Sensex rises 61 points in opening trade 
