This photo series is part of my course work at SID, Pune. My project explores photography and writing to delve into stories behind the forgotten objects in my family home revealing the emotions and history embedded in seemingly mundane objects.
Obsolete
Like most other Indian parents, my parents as well, are hoarders. Every nook and corner of my little house is filled with antiquated items no longer in use. Broken chairs now repurposed to pile unfolded laundry, a telephone with no connection perhaps kept as a reminder and a symbol of the past -of simpler times, a bicycle whose basket is being used to keep spare cloth bags. Over the past year of me living here, my relationship with these items have gone through many phases. First, a phase of burning annoyance, where I saw them as menace. Garbage collecting dust for years in the house. Then, a phase of resolution, where I took upon the task to discard them myself but my plans of doing so were interrupted by my parents even before they began. For my parents, even after all these years of unuse, these items still hold some meaning and importance. They had an attachment with them, in forms of a pleasant memory, an important milestone, an overwhelming emotion, a story. For them they are pieces of their lives that they have carried along with them for years. And now, finally, a phase of acceptance, a realization that these items help make a home. To any new eye, they might seem like normal everyday items - broken, ancient, obsolete. But with this project I would like to capture atleastsome of the story and the emotions that these items hold. A rich history captured with some nuance.
This water jug is perhaps as old as me, if not more. I have vague memory of my little self one day deciding that our house plants needed some “fancy water” from this “fancy jug”, of course, inevitably breaking the jug in the process.
I learnt cycling very late in life, this is my very first bicycle. Currently occupying a major corner of my room, whose basket my mother cunningly repurposed to store cloth bags.
A broken computer chair laysstill in another corner of my room, whose presence is only evident if isn’t completely covered in laundry, which it hardly ever is.
My memory of this globe goes as long back as my childhood. I remember learning countries and different oceans and playing a game of Atlas on it with my brother.
Now, it sits quietly at the edge of my desk, hardly ever looked at or used.
Now, it sits quietly at the edge of my desk, hardly ever looked at or used.
This is one of the most cherished accessory in the house. A completely mechanical watch bought by my father with his very first salary. Over the course of years, my father has had this watch repaired multiple times and it still works!
Thanks for watching!
