The Hindu Business Line : An officer and a lensman

My greatest fear,” says G.B. Mukherji, a Secretary to the Government of India, “is being labelled the ‘bureaucrat who shoots’, you know, like the ‘phantom who walks’.”

Mukherji often makes official visits to far-off places in the country unannounced, and accompanied only by a local guide. “Many a time, I have had greater inclusion in conversations and discussions when the people took me to be a photographer, n ot a Government servant. I get a better understanding of their basic needs, as against the ‘omnibus needs’ they normally project in formal gatherings,” he says.

As a bureaucrat he may have been told only about roads and hospitals, but as a photographer and guest they share more immediate and personal problems, like a broken roof. His documentation has also proved handy in adding urgency to welfare programmes.

At his recent photo-exhibition at the Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, the posters featured the portrait of a young girl, a hint of smile on her face, one hand fiddling with a string of white beads. She could be Mukherji’s Mona Lisa. He’s named the photograph ‘Dark Beauty’. That didn’t go down well with one of the visitors. “Why dark when you wouldn’t specify fair beauty?”

But it’s the cinnamon complexion that highlights the clear almond eyes and the lustre of the plastic pearls at her neck. Mukherji is keen on feedback for his first solo show, but says that at the end of the day he shoots for himself.

Where others may have jumped at the opportunity to collect the clichés and freaks that India offers, Mukherji has chosen to focus more on the humane side of things. The close-up of a face in feverish meditation could have been taken at a Durga Pooja ceremony but was actually taken during the Khumb Mela.

“The Nysa tribe leader smoking a pipe had the skulls of a leopard and a bear hanging at his waist,” says Mukherji. But he shot only the proud face.

He has travelled from Nuapada in Orissa to the beaches of the Andaman Islands. But his eye for the beautiful in form and soul isn’t dependent on the exotic. He is also willing to wait for two hours to shoot a soggy rope washed ashore, till the sun’s rays have turned the wet sand into molten gold.

Old age is a recurrent theme. “There are policies for the youth and for lactating mothers, but none for the old. It’s not just about taking them and putting them in homes; it is also about their emotional needs. Old people have no voice,” he says.

“I take photos of persons, especially their expressions and style of living, essentially to record, in as much an artistic manner as possible, their emotions and feelings at that moment,” says Mukherji, who likes to re-live these glimpses and share them with family and friends. “With my camera, I feel like a ‘discoverer’ — discovering the extraordinary in the routine of life,” he says.

But on a trip to the South Pole in the mid-1980s, he also shot penguins. That collection has not been published.

Mukherji belongs to the 1973 batch of the IAS, but his first love is photography. He’s currently filming India’s colourful village markets, which are fast disappearing. “Especially in tribal areas, they are the only avenues available for social interaction too. It is in such places that ladies wore their finery; men and women exchanged news; matrimonial alliances were negotiated; market information was gathered; and people were entertained with food and cultural programmes,” he says. He calls the project ‘Fading Colours’, the possible title of his proposed book.

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