Many lives : 150 years of being Indian in South Africa / Goolam Vahed, Ashwin Desai, Thembisa Waetjen.
The stories of heritage affect the senses and emotions as much as the intellect. They combine to make up a shared memory that gives meaning to identity in the present.
The importance of individual stories is also in their power to surprise and contradict, as much as to affirm, what we have been taught about the past. The images presented here invite the opportunity to look into faces, to see gestures, poses, movement and expressions of people who have been captured by the camera and held fast in time.
These faces challenge us to meet them on their own terms, to try and imagine social conditions different from our own. They challenge us to see them in three dimensions.
Where there is a tendency to imagine the past as mired in hardship and struggle against the liberated present, these visual stories insist that the past held its joys and creativity and that the challenges of poverty and inequality continue in the present.
This book, spanning the 150 years since the arrival of the first Indian indentured labourers in Natal, illustrates the power of photographs. Its lens is wide as it captures the social, the economic, the political, and the religious. It invites readers to see beyond images to the human experience in the photographs.
While the focus is broad, this collection of over 700 photographs does not ignore life's minutiae. The strength of the book lies in the interweaving of big events with the everyday as the photographs are brought to life with well researched vignettes that provide context and meaning. As it explores the many lives of Indian South Africans, this collection challenges the partitioning of identity, while acknowledging its pull and protective presence.
The story is a beguiling one that will provoke feelings of nostalgia, dissonance and intrigue, anger and hilarity, as the pages peel back history to reveal stories of passion and pain, the ordinary and the courageous
The stories of heritage affect the senses and emotions as much as the intellect. They combine to make up a shared memory that gives meaning to identity in the present.
The importance of individual stories is also in their power to surprise and contradict, as much as to affirm, what we have been taught about the past. The images presented here invite the opportunity to look into faces, to see gestures, poses, movement and expressions of people who have been captured by the camera and held fast in time.
These faces challenge us to meet them on their own terms, to try and imagine social conditions different from our own. They challenge us to see them in three dimensions.
Where there is a tendency to imagine the past as mired in hardship and struggle against the liberated present, these visual stories insist that the past held its joys and creativity and that the challenges of poverty and inequality continue in the present.
This book, spanning the 150 years since the arrival of the first Indian indentured labourers in Natal, illustrates the power of photographs. Its lens is wide as it captures the social, the economic, the political, and the religious. It invites readers to see beyond images to the human experience in the photographs.
While the focus is broad, this collection of over 700 photographs does not ignore life's minutiae. The strength of the book lies in the interweaving of big events with the everyday as the photographs are brought to life with well researched vignettes that provide context and meaning. As it explores the many lives of Indian South Africans, this collection challenges the partitioning of identity, while acknowledging its pull and protective presence.
The story is a beguiling one that will provoke feelings of nostalgia, dissonance and intrigue, anger and hilarity, as the pages peel back history to reveal stories of passion and pain, the ordinary and the courageous
Source : Many lives : 150 years of being Indian in South Africa / Goolam Vahed, Ashwin Desai, Thembisa Waetjen.
