When you look at Manobina Roy’s work, you cannot help wondering if there is the danger of a woman’s creativity being obscured by the success of her better-known spouse. For Manobina, along with her twin sister, Debalina Mazumder, were pioneering women photographers of India who have both left behind a large oeuvre. The former’s work, perhaps, stood a chance of being forgotten, had her son, Joy Bimal Roy, not organized a travelling exhibition of his mother’s work, titled A Woman and Her Camera, A Centenary Exhibition of Photographs by Manobina Roy (1919-2001). In Calcutta, the exhibition was held at the Harrington Street Arts Centre (February 1-14).
Manobina was the wife of the celebrated film-maker, Bimal Roy, and she and Debalina began shooting when their father gifted them Brownie cameras on their 12th birthday. They lived in Ramnagar, where their father, the headmaster of a school, tutored the son of the Banaras Maharaja. Both girls were given a good education till their marriages, by which time they were already members of the United Provinces Postal Portfolio Circle. Their upbringing was ahead of their time.
Manobina played domestic goddess, but, like her twin, continued to take black-and-white photographs, which made dramatic use of light and elongated shadows, even when she photographed simple scenes of everyday life, and those sharp, insightful portraits of people such as Nehru and her own offspring. This quality is noticeable when she photographed the various cities in the West she visited with her husband. Far be it from her to take touristy shots. Manobina was more interested in training her Rolliflex lens on people who gave an insight into life in a particular city, like the two old women having a chat in London in 1959, and the view of the shop window where several images overlap. Her eye for such slices of life was similar to that of the cartoonist and litterateur, Himanish Goswami, who had photographed London extensively around the same time in the 1950s. Manobina’s life was so close to high life and glamour, yet that never seemed to have tempted her. Simplicity was the keynote of her photographs.
