Waypoint on southern Kolkata’s Sarat Bose Road, a café that is increasingly becoming popular among the city’s coffee aficionados and for those with a literary bent was recently the venue for an impressive photo exhibition. Titled Street Smart – the exhibition of photographs by Sonal Jindal is showcasing a selection of street life in Europe along with a series of the Mumbai sea link. Inaugurated on the May 8, the photographs can be viewed till the 31st of the month.
Sonal Jindal, managing director of Machino Techno Pvt Ltd, is a self-taught photographer and artist with a practice of over a decade. Photography has been a passion all her life and in course of her many travels across the globe, while walking in the streets of the new places she has unhesitatingly captured amazing fleeting moments through her lenses. Over the last decade or so it has been her passion to find something out of the ordinary within things eminently ordinary. Never the one to be without her camera and also aided by her unobtrusive presence on the streets, her keen eye and quick decisive use of her lens have enabled her to embellish her photographs with a special edge.
Debanjan Chakrabarti, director, British Council east and northeast India was the special guest for the evening and he, while inaugurating the event said, “There’s something unique about this exhibition as it is bringing together cafés and culture. Photography is a very important part of modern culture and in a way which is very unique to Kolkata. Many around the world are unequivocally stating that the café culture here is immensely comparable to that of similar establishments all across the globe. As is obvious – there has been a brilliant explosion of commendable cafés in Kolkata and Waypoint is a commendable addition to the list”. He added, “The photographs that I have seen have created quite a stir within. There is something about street photography which is very particular in that it is very 21st century because of the growing impact of social media. The means of photography has become a lot easier and today photography is as transformative in modern culture as cinema was in the last century”.
With particular reference to this exhibition Chakrabarti stated that some of the photographs here were absolutely riveting and that they were mostly like short stories in themselves, momentary but of course, narrating a human story at the same time.
Speaking about her photographs Sonal Jindal hoped that the photographs would speak for themselves as they all had their own story to tell. She echoed Chakrabarti’s observations that Waypoint café revolved around the theme of travel and the photographs shown were actually bringing out the thrill of travel and the charm of street photography in a wonderful admixture of sorts.
Among those at the inauguration of the exhibition was Rupa Halim who expressed her amazement at the mastery of Jindal for, “having captured so much emotions, so much of reality in the photographs”. “I confess that I am now all the more eager as I await her brilliance to come forth even more strongly in her journey forward”.
Former airline pilot and a self-confessed coffee aficionado and also one of the owners of Waypoint, Karan Malhotra drew attention to the efforts of the café to promote such events on a regular basis. Designed on an airline theme and making every effort to promote Indian speciality coffee – Malhotra said he hoped that the city’s literary cum culinary-minded would be able to satiate their cravings at his café.
Sharing his thoughts with My Kolkata, Debanjan Chakrabarti said, “Cafes, wherever they thrive, are not just places where people will come to have a quick bite or a coffee or a beverage but they are also sites where cultures collide and a lot of collaboration and conversations take place. He added, “What I think is unique about the café culture in Kolkata – is that they are becoming spaces where very exciting interesting and innovative conversations take place. This particular exhibition is an example of that. Coupled with that the photographs exhibited are wonderful, they are luminous and quite unique in their perspective in capturing these vignettes of street life across the world”. He felt that, “they are also conversation starters for contemporary culture”.