My dream of buying a camera could only come true after I began teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University of Baroda, in the early sixties. Using the camera instead of a sketch-book, I realised that it was not merely a fast means of documentation, but also one that maintained a higher degree of objective fidelity.

In the summer of 1967 the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan organised a seminar in Bombay on the folk arts of Gujarat, and along with it an exhibition. My involvement in this enabled me to travel in Gujarat, visiting villages and tribal regions I had never seen before. The photographs I produced then and exhibited during the seminar depicted artifacts in their proper context and environment; memorial stone carvings, shrines of gods and goddesses on the outskirts of a village or deep in the jungle, the decoration of houses and animals on ceremonial occasions; wall-paintings in temples and havelis; embroidery and bead work; tattoo marks on bodies, and so on. I could not cover much as there was not enough time. But this task had taken a special place in my heart, and the desire to continue the work whenever the opportunity arose was kindled.

Luckily, I did not have to wait for long. Bhupendra Karia, an artist-photographer friend of mine from the U.S.A., came to India towards the end of the sixties and started working on his project to document through photographs the folk culture of Gujarat. I travelled frequently with him to various parts of the State, and in the course of three years of wandering I learnt the technique of photography, and the unique discipline of that pictorial language which sets it apart from painting. I came to recognise the importance of the camera as a means of documentation, and as a tool in sociological investigation, as well as the artist’s responsibility in the handling of it. These were aspects I had not bothered about much earlier. I became aware of the changes taking place in the homes, costumes and art forms of rural. people, as well as in their values and norms- quite different from my memory of them from my childhood days. Some skills seemed no longer relevant; other had been forgotten or wiped out. Much of the finest specimens of crafts had found its way into private or public collections abroad.

In 1969, we were joined by our sculptor friend Raghav Kaneria who during his four-year stay in England had also become a skilled photographer. Since then Kaneria and I have worked together most of the time.

Many of the folk arts and crafts were slowly dying out or had disappeared altogether. The clothes people wore, their homes and occupations were gradually undergoing a metamorphosis, along with their attendant values and norms. It was vital to record what remained before it got completely obliterated. It was also absorbing to see how the abberations in lifestyle were coming about, to try to comprehend the causes, and to come to terms with their consequences.

The superb bead-embroidery of the women of Kutch and Saurashtra was a case in point. Their extraordinary skill, was matched by their imagination in conceiving intricate patterns and designs for every purpose. They learnt the art from their mothers in early childhood. Their garments were heavily embroidered, as were those of other family members, male and female, young and old. Beadwork and embroideries enhanced the walls and even bedcovers, pillow-cases and cushions. Special items were worked on for their bullocks and camels, and for fairs and festivals.

When a girl got married, her embroidery formed part of her dowry, and she in turn would hand this skill down to her daughters, as their heritage. Developing the character as an industrious, diligent and cultured member of the community was considered an essential part of education.

Now very few women make or wear embroidered clothes. They prefer instead the flamboyant synthetic materials mass produced by mills and garment factories. So they consider anything like bead-embroidery a useless occupation, and such pieces that have been made or been left over find their way into tourist markets. It is ironic that while formerly only the severest financial hardship would have compelled them to submit to the humiliation of selling off their exquisite handiwork, today that craft counts for nothing and is nonchalantly cast aside.

The rural male population have gravitated towards urban centres to work as labourers, or in factories, or in the now-booming diamond-polishing industry. Large numbers had also been drawn to the Middle East, lured by higher wages. In the countryside, bullocks and camels are getting replaced by tractors, scooters and motorbikes. Women of the sheep-herding Rabari community used to wear jewellery made of ivory, while their children wore small glass beads and bangles. Not to conform to this custom was to be ostracized, but today, the observance of once-hallowed customs would invite the stigma of being regarded as ‘backward’.

It is growing difficult for even remote villages to remain untouched by such wholesale urbanisation. Even the peasant is losing feeling for the soil. Change is inevitably brought about by economic and social pressures in a time of political and industrial development. But it is a pity that the old should be stigmatised for the wrong reasons as being primitive, and that social status should depend on the destruction of what was beautiful and precious. Havelies exquisitely decorated with wall paintings are being pulled down, and their delicately carved wooden doors, windows and balconies dismantled to find their way into antique bazaars. These cultural and even historic treasures are replaced by hideous concrete structures, while stately temples and mural paintings are painted over with garish enamel paints.

On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that some changes that are overtaking village and urban communities at an astounding pace are not only unavoidable, but indeed necessary. I have no pretensions or fixed aspiration with regard to the significance of my work from the sociological or anthropological point of view, or in the complex issues of preservation, conservation, or revival of once flourishing art and cultural traditions. All that I have tried to do in the last twentyfive years has been to document as much as I could through still-photography within the limits of available resources. Photography has been used as a creative art form and a means of self-expression. We, however, have deliberately restricted ourselves to adopting it as a tool for recording the life and material culture of a largely rural and tribal societies chiefly out of a sense of urgency: they can be preserved, at least in the form of photographs, before they change beyond recognition or, sadly, even disappear altogether.

What is unique about photography is the ability of the camera to freeze a decisive moment, or even the fraction of a moment. I am only too aware of the fact that, owing to the limitations of my own understanding of the medium, I have not been able to portray all that I have seen and experienced. Despite this, I have ventured to exhibit these photographs in the hope that they will convince the viewer of the importance of documenting a living culture of the people e this vast sub-continent. The territory is so extensive, and the cul~.ure in such imminent danger, that many more people are required who are impassioned with the same obsession. In this context the weaver-poet Kabir’s words ring even truer

“kal kare so aaj kar/ Aaj kare so ab.”

Do not put off till tomorrow, that which can be done today; that which you can do today, do it now.