Chinar, the Kashmir storyteller

Delhi photographer Megha Sindwani trains her lens on everyday life in Kashmir through landscapes etched on water and the Chinar, and in memory

- PRIVAMVADA RANA

MEGHA'S photographs have the feel of paintings," says Bhavna Minocha, founder of The Art Hub. The kaleidoscope of colours that is Kashmir, in its breathtaking beauty, is presented through seasons, its people and landscape in the ongoing photography exhibition 'Chinar: Through Time, Through Seasons' by Delhi-based photographer Megha Sindwani at The Art Hub.

The photographs have a striking quality they are bursting with colour, making it hard for us to believe that they were phone clicks and not paintings.

A silhouette of a shikara in Dal Lake looks striking against a tangerine sunset-the soft glow of the light accentuating the shimmer effect on the water. In another frame, a solitary yurt looks captivating against a lush landscape. "It stands against an open sky, which is proof that belonging has nothing to do with permanence. Even the smallest space can be home," says Sindwani, who has a penchant to poetically describe her photographs. The colours in many of the photographs take the palmate shape of the Chinar tree's leaves. Sindwani captures them in hues of amber, green, sienna, crimson and pale copper, reflecting the change of seasons over which she shot them, over many winters and summers from 2009 to 2023.