Visualising hope

There is an open door, shut by a closed mind….” This is the line that grabbed me when I opened Asha Thadani’s catalogue, Broken—Dalit Lives, which introduced viewers to her just concluded exhibition of photographs in Delhi.

- SHOBHAA DE

Asha has been chronicling the lives of the most marginalised citizens of India, and reminding us powerfully that, “The human spirit is never in chains, imagination is never in shackles and creative expression through art, song, verse and dance, allows them freedom of the mind, in a defiance of the caste cabal.’’ Asha’s searing series of photographs, visualises the lives of 10 such dalit communities, in the fervent hope that at least a single door for a closed mind opens.