A Documentary Filmmaker’s Odyssey
A Unique Commemorative Calendar
I was saddened by the black and white images of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s
last living picture after his death on January 11, 1966. Millions of Indian
newspaper readers saw the pictures later. Like these readers, I too did not
know the name of the photographer then. Years later, I came to know the name of
Prem Vaidya(February
26, 1927 – July 10, 2014) from his son Abhay who was
a student of the Department of Communication and Journalism in Pune. I was his
teacher in the department and became his colleague as a newspaper journalist.
Later, I frequented his house in Navi Peth to see his parents, Pramila and Prem
while Abhay worked for newspapers like The Times of India, DNA and recently,
Hindustan Times.
Like Abhay, his father was also a man of few words. He had settled in
Pune after retirement from the central government’s Films Division where
he had worked as a documentary filmmaker and captured so many great events in post-independence
Indian history. Their cosy little apartment was a storehouse of a rich treasure
of documentaries, photographs, clippings and books. Abhay and his mother
obviously knew the value of the treasure. After the death of the parents,
Abhay, his journalist wife Geeta Nair, and sisters Meghana Sane and Anuradhaa Shastri,
along with their husbands Vivek and Veer bhaskar, set up the Pramila & Prem
Vaidya Archive.
The family has occasionally organised some activities to let the people
have a peek into the treasure. Abhay, now Associate Director at the policy
research think tank, Pune International Centre, and has brought out something
that is path-breaking.
This 10th January, we were delighted to see that
historic photograph of Lal Bahadur Shastri, in an innovative format
conceptualized by Abhay: It is precious memorabilia, a commemorative calendar
for the year 2021,with 20 black and white photographs of great personalities
and historic events of the 19th century. His concept centres around a theme ‘I
for India: Strong, Resilient and Compassionate.’
And what a selection of the events documented by Prem Vaidya!
This collection includes the birth of a new nation called Bangladesh in 1971
and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s speech in Dacca (now Dakha) after the
surrender of Pakistan. Prem Vaidya had filmed the historic 1971 war for the
Government of India, just as he had covered the 1965 war in the western sector.
The collection of rare, historic photographs in the commemorative
calendar, includes Bharat Ratnas and Prime Ministers, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,
Indira Gandhi, LalBahadur Shastri, and great newsmakers of Prem's time, JRD
Tata, Veer Savarkar, PuLaDeshpande, Sir Edmund Hillary, Yuri Gagarin, Acharya
Vinoba Bhave, Sir M Vishveswaraya and Jaya Prakash Narayan.
Prem
was a member of Prime Minister Shastri’s delegation to Tashkent for the
India-Pakistan Peace Talks and the historic photograph was taken on the night
of January 10, 1966 when Shastriji was taking his after-dinner paces inside his
dacha (villa).
A photojournalist or a documentary filmmaker generally tries to avoid
getting photographed. Prem Vaidya, who was in this profession for over 31
years must have had scores of occasions to get into the camera frames. But at
times he was also a part of history
.
Among them was this one, that Prem happily allowed himself to be
clicked. Abhay was justified to include it in this commemorative calendar. In
this photograph, Prem is seen wearing a belt of live machine-gun cartridges from
a captured Pakistani tank. The victorious Indian soldiers garlanded him thus
because, as they said, “they had nothing else to offer at that point of time!”
That was the epic tank battle of Phillora in the Sialkot sector. It was the second
biggest tank battle since World War II. More than 60 Pakistani tanks were
destroyed by the Indian forces. Here he was to record that stunning victory of
the Indian armed forces.
My compliments to Abhay’s team who contributed to the novel memorabilia.
Designer Prof Dr Nachiket Thakur and Pandurang Khutwad (Design Execution) and
Vilas Avachat (Photo reproduction). The calendar also features Jagasha (www.jagasha.com ), a startup enterprise that seeks to empower rural women through the
sale of their hand-crafted products; www.BluplantIndia.com , a multimedia convergence startup and www.Inkinmyveins.com
, a
content development startup.
The calendar is available in two formats: An A3 size collector’s edition
on textured matt paper, priced at Rs 300/- and a foldable art paper edition
priced at Rs. 160/-. Printed by Krishna Printers, Aundh Road, Pune it is
available for sale at the stationery superstore, Venus Traders on FC Road and
at Express Book Service, Pune’s oldest bookshop on East Street, Camp.
Abhay and his family members are keen to make this inspiring calendar
available to the young people of India and are taking efforts to reach out to
students in higher secondary classes and junior colleges. They feel that this
calendar with inspiring images from Indian history should be there in their
classrooms and the library as they learn history from the textbooks.
The commemorative calendar will be a unique gift to friends and
relatives interested in memorabilia that can adorn walls at homes, classrooms,
and offices. It is available at the retail outlets mentioned above, or you may
write directly to Abhay at abhayvaidya.ht@gmail.com
--
Kiran Thakur
Professor Emeritus
Vishwakarma University Centre of Communication for Development
drkiranthakur@gmail.com
