AUGUST 4, 2019 • THE WEEK 73CONTRIBUTOR: NEERU BHATIA & HEERA PARESH
COMPILED BY ANJULY MATHAIFINE-TUNING
In the last 100 years, every
child in the village of Sri Bhaini
Sahib in Punjab has learnt
Hindustani classical music,
and continues to do so, largely
due to the influence of Satguru
Jagjit Singh. Many music maes-
tros like Ustads Zakir Hussain,
Vilayat Khan and Amjad Ali
Khan have visited the village
to teach the children. Now,
filmmaker Taranjiet Singh
Namdhari is making a docu-
mentary, Sangeet-Saroop-Sat-
gur, on this tradition. “I wanted
to know more, I wanted to go
back to my roots and extract all
I could about this astounding
tradition that is almost un-
heard of,” says Namdhari.CHECKMATE
On July 18, 15-year-old Prithu Gupta got his third grandmaster
norm to become the 64th chess grandmaster from India. India’s
chess journey started in 1987, when Viswanathan Anand became
its first grandmaster. Gupta got his first and second grandmaster
norms last year at the Gibraltar Masters and the Biel Masters. He
got the final one at the Porticcio Open this year. Considering that
he has been playing only a few chess tournaments to concentrate
on his studies, his achievement is indeed admirable.bias. Conflict photography is intense,
and it should be used with more care
than simply splashing [photographs]
across front pages over and over
again.Which has been your most challeng-
ing project so far in Kashmir?
The one that I did with a child rights
organisation left a big impact on me.
I documented lives of ten children
who were growing up in very remote
areas, often near the LoC
in Kashmir. Most of them
were orphans, some with
families divided by the
line, and very often, just
cut off from the rest of the
world. It is experiences
like these that really over-
whelm you. You almost
feel helpless about how
you can make the world a
little better for them.When it comes to travel
and tourism photogra-
phy, what are some of
the cliches about the
Kashmiri landscape you
are careful to avoid?
The beauty of Kashmir
is not just in its post-
card vista. It is in our
traditional architecture,
market places, arts....What are some of the disturbing
trends when it comes to conflict
photography in Kashmir?
I feel that constant images of bleed-
ing protesters and youth in balacla-
vas with stones in their hands are
really dangerous in this day and age.
Yes, I understand that these images
are needed for a certain level of re-
porting, but if that is almost all that is
shown, it has two effects—it numbs
us and it creates an unconscious