Chronicles of a Past Life – Bombay

Intrinsic to my growing up, Bombay offered me and thousands of others like me who arrived before and those who followed as economic refugees the opportunity to be cradled and mentored professionally. It gave friendship, food and shelter and the chance to be discovered, the chance to become someone.

Having escaped bureaucratic Delhi, leaving behind my troubled teenage life, I found acceptance in this city not for whose son I was but for my skills and talents and of what use they could be to others. This propelled me to try to find myself both economically and in my work.

I look back with warmth and gratitude at what the city offered me. It was with a grudging reluctance that I left the city in the mid ’80s; the death of my father and trouble brewing in the north of the country beckoned me as I entered the world of journalism. Unfortunately, this marked the end of the documentary phase of my work as I started to work as a journalist and had to turn to colour, abandoning the world of black and white.

The "Chronicles" are connected to "Outside In: A Tale of 3 Cities", my body of work that consisted of my inner world of friends and family. It roughly spans the same years—the ’70s and ’80s—but is more a manifestation of my outer world; my associations with the city and its people, known and unknown.

This exhibition is a way of paying my dues to this city and its people. Often I’d wander aimlessly through the streets hoping to discover its many parts, bit by bit, day by day, month by month, always amazed by the infinite visual joy in each discovery of this place that came to be called home.

Pablo Bartholomew
New Delhi - 31 January 2011

Related Exhibitions  "Outside In: 70's & 80's, a Tale of 3 Cities"    •    "A Critic's Eye"

At Agkor Photo Festival, Siem Reap, Cambodia, Ecole Francaise d´Extreme–Orient
24 November to 16 December, 2012

At Photoink, New Delhi
17 January to 31 March, 2012

At Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai
19 February to 07 March, 2011

Select Works from "Chronicles of a Past Life – Bombay"

At the Energy Plus, Mumbai Pavilion, 9th Shanghai Biennale
02 October, 2012 to 31 March, 2013