ONE STEP IN THEIR SHOES

THE PASSERBY, A PHOTO EXHIBITION OF INDIAN STREET SCENES, SHOWS US THE WORLDS WE ARE WALKING PAST

- Trisha Gupta

The 23 still images on display in PhotoInk’s garden-set gallery space in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj are a balm for tired eyes. The black and white—and certainly over fifty shades of grey—help recuperate from the nonstop ocular assault of lives lived on multicolored moving screens. But the healing and stillness The Passerby offers come from something more than form. Street scenes picked from the archives of Raghu Rai, Sooni Taraporevala, Ketaki Sheth and Pablo Bartholomew, these formally stunning photographs paint a portrait of an urban India that’s swiftly passing (if not already past). They range from 1970 to the early 2000s, but the pre-liberalization era dominates, letting a quiet nostalgia wash over us.