Nostalgia for those Dress Circle days

Shahid Datawala’s photography show captures the languor of decrepit cinema halls, says David de Souza

Photography is certainly coming of age in India. In recent weeks there has been a spate of high calibre fine art shows, and Dress Circle, a black-and-white photo essay at the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery, NCPA, is one more.

Shahid Datawala explores Delhi cinema houses where two-dimensional hoardings seem prophetic of the three-dimensional real world around them, themselves becoming animated in the process. A fallen cut-out of Ajay Devgan in Lonely Stars is aware of the presence of the intruding lens; when Urmila tries to cuddle up to him, the irony and truth are not lost on the viewer. 

A busty torso from one poster and voyeurs of Jism set up their own competitive, jealous conversation. On a rolling shutter, a job opportunity poster solicits: ‘Wanted: women with pleasing personality.’ All ambiguity of what that might constitute is diminished with the midriff-and-navel revealing nautch girl in the adjoining hoarding; the recruiting agency might never have anticipated such a slew of raunchy applicants. Purdah Ladies step past Bikini Island, but this kind of image has been seen and done before. Steve McCurry  and Pamela (Bordes) Singh did their own ‘me too’, with women in burqas marching past the Shiv Sena tiger hoardings at Churchgate. Juxtapositions offer a quick, immediate, all-in-one irony.

The photographer has to locate a catchy poster (not too uncommon with C-grade cinema houses showing A or XX-rated films) and then lie is ambush till the ‘appropriate’ quarry falls between his cross hairs. This is not to take away from the exquisite quality of Datawala’s beautifully composed, full-toned, rich, black-and-white, archival inkjets (which last about 100 years).

Interspersed are graphic architectural images of seedy, decrepit, art deco in low-esteem cinema houses. The three print sizes, too, break the visual geometry, creating interest and makes use of the gallery space intelligently. The show is well curated and tight, with not a single  careless image.

Datawala moves away from the crowded, does not show the predictable, instead chooses off hours, intermission, holidays or after shows. Most of the images are devoid of recognisable humans; they are mostly put through the meat grinder of camera obscura, appearing with their backs to the camera, or as blurs.

P.S. Also look up Bollywood Dreams by  Jonathan Torgovnik  (Phaidon, 2003).
Dress Circle, photographs by Shahid Datawala, Jehangir Nicholson  Gallery, NCPA, ongoing till Nov 23.