Steeped in memory

In the hands of Goa-based photographer Ali Monis Naqvi, simple pictures come alive with meaning and intention, almost like a soothing antidote to the fraught times we live in.

-  SADAF SHAIKH

A FAMILY OF four unwinds on a charpoy on the rooftop of a bricked building in Punjab, a young boy’s arm wrapped affectionately around the shoulder of the girl seated beside him. At a short distance, a man dressed in a pyjama suit stretches languorously upon awakening, rousing his sleepy muscles from inertia. Elsewhere, two girls in matching uniforms stand on a couple of platforms of varying heights on a terrace in a mesmerising reproduction of the viral equality meme. Captured through an assiduous lens that seeks to cast a spotlight on the unseen in our daily lives, it’s evident that the roof is a recurring motif in Ali Monis Naqvi’s oeuvre. “Most of my childhood was enriched by the ancestral knowledge that I gained talking to my