NPR: The Grand Trunk Road

The Grand Trunk Road played an important role in India's history at every step of its way. Some 3500 years ago, with the Aryan invasion of the subcontinent, it served as a corridor starting at the Khyber Pass winding eastward between the Himalayas and the Thar Desert onto the Gangetic plain. Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism spread through it, and Muslim proselytizers traveled on it. Since 1947, Pakistan controls the 300-mile segment between Peshawar and Lahore, while the remaining 1,250 miles link six Indian states, making it lifeline of northern India.

Nowadays, the road used by Alexander the Great, Ibn Battutah, Mughals invaders and other conquerors and the just curious, is ruled by truck drivers roaring through countless tiny villages.

NPR features a hybrid multimedia project in which its journalists travel the route and tell the stories of young people living there, who make up the majority of the populations in India and Pakistan.

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Marc Wattrelot: Balochistan

Photo © Marc Wattrelot-All Rights Reserved
Here's a timely feature brought to us by Foto8 showcasing the work of photojournalist Marc Wattrelot titled Divided Desert: Balochistan.

The blurb that accompanies the slideshow informs us that Balochistan extends over 350,000 square kms (approximately the size of Germany) and is the largest province in the Pakistan Federation. About 7 million people live in Balochistan; a mixture of consists Iranians, Pakistanis and Afghanis.

It's the often-heard story: a region rich in natural resources, its people among the poorest, the Punjabi central government rife with corruption and nepotism, give rise to a resistance movement striving for autonomy.

It's timely because the remnants of Al-Qaida may well migrate to the hinterlands of either Pashtunistan and Balochistan. All the ingredients for major trouble exist in this region in the coming months and years to come, so as I said, a timely feature. I don't always agree with Robert D. Kaplan's political slant, but he has penned a thought-provoking article on the Baluchi issue in the May 2009 issue of The Atlantic, which explains the volatility of this region.

Interesting photographs, but irritatingly repetitive audio...!!!

Foto8 describes itself a space to share, comment and debate photography.

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LENS: Tyler Hicks & The Tabligh

Photo © Tyler Hicks/NYT-All Rights Reserved
It's been a while since I featured a war-related photojournalism piece, so I thought The New York Times LENS blog brought us a couple of days ago an interesting On Assignment gallery from Tyler Hicks on the Tabligh Jamaat.

I like the clever way the photographer framed the above image, as he had to photograph surreptitiously and very quickly because photography was banned from the Tabligh gathering for religious reasons.

Wikipedia describes the Tabligh (which means "conveying of message") movement as an apolitical religious movement, whose principal aim is reformation of Muslims, and was founded in India by Muhammad Ilyas as a voluntary, pacifist and independent movement.

The New York Times reports that it's "a missionary movement that spreads revivalist Islam through its followers, who travel the world on preaching missions. The movement convenes in Raiwind, Pakistan, once a year. Attended by as many as 1.5 million people, it is the largest gathering of Muslims outside the annual pilgrimage to Mecca."

American authorities believe the movement incubates "jihadists".

For further reading, The New York Times has a 2007 article here.

Note: For stereotype busting, have a look at Matthieu Paley's fascinating coverage of the annual Lal Shabaz festival when over one million Sufis, devotees and onlookers, join this chaotic pilgrimage which cannot be more different than the austere Tablighi gathering.

Yes, folks...one person's Islam is not another's, even within neighboring countries.

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WIRED: Kanepari & Ferguson

Photos © Adam Ferguson (L)/Zackary Canepari (R)-Courtesy WIRED

"The photojournalist has long been known as the lone wolf, traveling solo to the far-flung corners of the world to document experiences few are capable of seeing. By function, it’s often a solitary quest, lonely and alienating; rarely as romantic as the photographs make it appear."

What a great start for the Raw File article written for WIRED by Bryan Derballa!

The article deals with the friendship and healthy competition between Adam Ferguson and Zackary Canepari, two immensely gifted photojournalists working in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. It appears that they helped each other, and edited one another’s work, always hoping to improve its quality.

WIRED's Raw File's article is in essence two interviews: Ferguson giving his views on Canepari's work, and vice-versa. Quite an interesting read...naturally, they pat each other on the back, but that's what friends do, especially those whose camaraderie withstood difficult circumstances.

Both photojournalists are content to be doing what they want to do at this time. Canepari is back in California pursuing personal projects, while Ferguson is still shooting in Afghanistan.

Zackary Canepari was featured on TTP a few times, and Adam Ferguson's work in Orissa was featured here.

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Tyler Hicks: The Battle For Pakistan

Photo © Tyler Hicks/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
A superb photojournalism feature published by The New York Times of photographs by Tyler Hicks appeared on its website late last night.

The title of the multimedia feature is The Battle For Pakistan; a title which I find rather exaggerated, as it really is about South Waziristan. Having said that, the area which may well be the toughest challenge for the Pakistani military in its war against an insurgency.

South Waziristan is home to Baitullah Mehsud, who -according to the accompanying article, leads the Taliban in the area and has engineered many suicide bombings in recent years.

The article by Sabrina Tavernise (and Ismail Khan) ends with an ominous quote by a top bureaucrat for the tribal areas, who says: “Militancy is like a monster. Even if only the tail is left, it will grow again from there.”

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Pakistani Cinema: Zackary Canepari

Photo © Zackary Canepari -All Rights Reserved
TIME Magazine features a photo essay by Zackary Canepari titled The Last Days of Pakistani Cinema.

It's a welcome change from the current run of the mill photojournalism which we normally see in the mainstream media. I've had enough of seeing photographs of frightfully scary Islamic mullahs, with black beards and betel-stained teeth, which seem to delight photo editors, and are standard fare in our newspapers. So I cheer when I see diverse photo reports such as this one.

It seems that in its heyday years, during the 1970s, the movie studios of Pakistan churned out around 200 movies a year, but that has dwindled to a fraction because of the growing accessibility of Hollywood and Bollywood films. It is also threatened by the increasing potency of the Taliban in the northern parts of the country.

Zackary Canepari's toned photographs are always interesting, and he has done it again with this collection. I found some of the actors' photographs hilarious.

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Jodi Hilton: Pakistan's Kalash People

With all the news of Pakistan these days, I thought I'd feature the work of a talented freelance photographer which documents the life of the Kalash people.

Jodi Hilton is a freelance photojournalist based in Cambridge, MA. She works for newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, People, TIME, The Guardian and others. In 2002, her Master's project Return To Eboli was published in the National Geographic Italy.

Jodi has a number of galleries on her website, but the one that attracted my attention is the one of the Kalash culture. The Kalash are an ethnic group of the Hindu Kush mountain range, residing in the Chitral district of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. They speak the Kalash language, a member of the Dardic family of Indo-Aryan. Non-Muslims, the Kalash adhere to their own religion, whose mythology and ritual strongly resemble those of the Vedic (Hindu) Indo-Aryans and the pre-Zoroastrian Iranians.

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Alixandra Fazzina: TIME's Pakistan Essay

Photograph © Alixandra Fazzina-All Rights Reserved
A paragraph in the TIME magazine article titled How Pakistan Failed Itself starts off with this:

Pakistan is a complicated country, one of religious and political diversity, fractured by class and ethnicity. Pakistanis like to quip that they have a population of 170 million — and as many different opinions.

It is accompanied by Pakistan Under The Surface, a slideshow of photographs by Alixandra Fazzina. The thrust of the article and photographs deals with the notion that in reality there are two Pakistans; one that is secular and "Westernized" while the other is under the growing influence of the Taliban or local Islamic orthodoxy.

Alixandra Fazzina's photograph of an Afghan woman nursing her child, not only won The Travel Photographer's Photo of the Year, but won innumerable other (and more important) awards. However, this photo essay gave me the impression that the photographs were chosen haphazardly with no logical sequencing, and thus trivialized the issue. All I really saw was images of young women clubbing in Karachi and others of chador-clad women living in squalid conditions (as the one above)...the work of a photo editor whose knowledge of Pakistan and its issues is superficial at best.

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Zackary Canepari: Turning To Madrasas

©Zackary Canepari/NY Times-All Rights Reserved
I like Zackary Canepari's photographic style. Here's a gallery of his photographs documenting for The New York Times a few of Pakistan's madrasas, or traditional Islamic schools, that teach, feed and occasionally house children of the poorest familiest. Whether in Pakistan or elsewhere, some also teach a militant brand of Islam, offering no instruction beyond the memorizing of the Qur'an.

The article written by Sabrina Tavernise is interesting because it provided the background and the root causes for the growing popularity of madrasas in Pakistan; these can be applied to virtually everywhere else where there are such schools. Here's a quote from the article which is illuminating:

"Though madrasas make up only about 7 percent of primary schools in Pakistan, their influence is amplified by the inadequacy of public education and the innate religiosity of the countryside, where two-thirds of people live."

To that, I'd add the condition of extreme poverty of the families and communities that live in the areas where such schools exist. It is therefore right for the Obama administration to address the Pakistani government's inability to deliver basic services such as schools, health care, rule of law, etc. The Pakistani government has left a dangerous void, and politico-religious elements have been quick and adept in filling it.


Posted by TTP's non-robot from London

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Zackary Canepari: The Heart of Punjab

©Zackary Canepari/The New York Times
The New York Times featured the work of photographer Zackary Canepari in a slideshow titled The Heart of Punjab. His above photograph is of young students at a seminary school in Dera Ghazi Khan, a gateway both to Taliban-controlled areas and the heart of Punjab.

One of the key captions in the slideshow comes from the accompanying article:

"The Taliban in south and west Punjab exploit many of the same weaknesses that have allowed them to expand in other areas: an absent or intimidated police force; a lack of attention from national and provincial leaders; a population steadily cowed by threats, or won over by hard-line mullahs who usurp authority by playing on government neglect and poverty."

The accompanying article is by Sabrina Tavernise, Richard A. Oppel Jr.and Eric Schmitt.

In the same vein, PBS featured Children of the Taliban on its FRONTLINE/WORLD program on April 14, 2009.

More photography from Zackary Canepari on TTP (LINK)

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Matthieu Paley: Lal Shabaz Qalander Festival

Here's a multimedia feature by Matthieu Paley titled Pakistan's Love Parade. I initially thought it dealt with a Pakistani gay parade of some sort, but it turned out to be a remarkable (and lengthy, at almost 12 minutes) reportage on the annual festival of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar when, as writes Matthieu:

"For three days and nights, over one million Sufi pilgrims, devotees and onlookers join an infectious chaos of swirling and dancing; a firework of emotions and sensations; non-stop rhythmic drumbeats echoing through a heady hashish haze."

What an incredible way to describe it! I certainly wouldn't need the hashish to be exhilarated by the sound, sights and smells!

A bit of background: Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (1177-1274) was a Sufi saint, philosopher, and a poet, born in Afghanistan and who settled in Sindh (Pakistan). He preached religious tolerance among Muslims and Hindus, and is buried in the dusty desert town of Sehwan Sharif, where thousands of pilgrims visit his shrine every year. Hindus and Muslims alike express their devotion through trance dances and devotion for Lal Shabaz Qalander, who is considered as one of Sufism’s most venerated saint, whose message of love and tolerance some 800 years ago still powerfully resonate with his followers.

Matthieu Paley is an Asia-based (living in Hong Kong) photographer specializing in editorial and documentary photography. His work appeared in Geo, National Geographic, Newsweek, Time, Outside, Discovery and various others.

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The Big Picture: Scenes From Pakistan

Photo © AP/Emilio Morenatti-All Rights Reserved
The Boston Globe's The Big Picture is consistent in bringing remarkable photographs from various sources and covering interesting current events. It recently featured Scenes From Pakistan following the country's announcement that it would accept Islamic Sharia Law to be implemented in its Swat Valley region, as part of a truce with local Taliban leaders. In this particular feature, it acknowledges the artistry of AP photographer Emilio Morenatti. Emilio was named Newspaper Photographer of the Year by Missouri School of Journalism for its Pictures of the Year International competition.

The above photograph is of a Sh'ia Muslim worshiper receiving medical care in a clinic, after flagellating himself with knives in a procession in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

While in Kochi a few days ago, I met a young shopkeeper who had participated in a Ashura procession in Bangalore. He showed me a short video clip recorded on his cell phone of his bleeding profusely from the head, and he solemnly assured me that his wounds healed miraculously within two hours.

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New York Times: Talibanistan

Photograph Lynsey Addario-Courtesy NY Times
It's been a long while since I've seen an intelligent and interesting article published in the New York Times' Sunday magazine, but Talibanistan (Right At The Edge) by Dexter Filkins (accompanied by the black & white photographs of Lynsey Addario) in this week's magazine is really a chilling read. Naturally, I would've liked to see more of Addario's intense photographs (perhaps also in larger format), but this article competes with the best of the British or French photo journalistic magazines.

It's quite a lengthy article, which goes into details of the situation in Pakistan and its borders with Afghanistan, and sheds light on the double-play by Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies that are simultaneously helping the Taliban, and taking money and aid from the United States. In other words, we're being played for suckers.

In summary, the reasons for Pakistan's double-play are: (i) it sees Afghanistan as an area of competition against India, its main rival-adversary and sees the Taliban as a counterweight to Indian influence, (ii) the growing popular hatred of the United States, and (iii) the Pakistani army is really incapable (and unwilling) to fight an insurgency in the tribal areas. Why should Pakistan extinguish the Taliban factions in their northern provinces if their very strengthening presence keep United States money flowing in the country's coffers?

Now what I'd like to see is a similarly candid article on the situation in Iraq, where we're paying millions of dollars on a monthly basis to the Sunni tribes so they don't kill our troops. Shining a light on the pervading corruption in Iraq would also be welcome. Next week...Sunday Times Magazine?

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Kate Orne: Pakistan Brothels

Photograph © Kate Orne-All Rights Reserved
To highlight the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop starting in Mexico City this coming Monday, I will focus this week's The Travel Photographer blog posts on various photojournalists and their work. This is the second in the series.

Kate Orne is a New York-based photographer who worked amongst the neediest people in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past seven years. Her mission was to use her craft to fight against indentured slavery and to support the wellbeing of women, children and animals. She worked on several essays on indentured laborers in South East Asia, on victims of domestic abuse, on Kabul orphanages where children lack basic facilities, maternity wards without basic care and imprisoned women.

Her website has a number of galleries, documenting the brothels in Pakistan, the maternity hospital and orphanage in Kabul, refugee camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the red light district in Mumbai.

I thought her work on the brothels in Pakistan as her most powerful and thought-provoking, as it highlights the paradox that exists between the sex industry and Muslim fundamentalism in this part of the world.

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WP: Pakistan On The Brink

Here's an interesting video compilation by The Washington Post's Travis Fox on the current situation; political, religious and military in Pakistan...a country that is critical and vital to the national interests of the United States.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the upcoming elections, and our media's recent reports on the "Talibanization" of the country, make it a timely feature to watch. Particularly interesting is the chapter on the Pakistani military, and how it controls much of the country's industrial and financial infrastructure.

The Washington Post's Pakistan on the Brink

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Fazal Sheikh: The Victor Weeps

I won't describe Fazal Sheikh as documentary photographer because he's much more than that. His subjects include Indian widows, Sudanese and Somali refugees at camps in Kenya, survivors of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the indigenous people of Pantanal, Brazil, and immigrants from Mexico.

He makes formal portraits of his subjects; he interviews them and tells their life stories...he lives among them and lives like them. His are portraits of human dignity. Nothing else I can write will adequately describe his craft and his humanity.

In a previous post on Fazal, I wrote: "Here's the work of a photographer who, by any definition, is the pride of this profession; Fazal Sheikh not only makes pictures, he presents us an unblinking, but immensely compassionate view of the poor and disenfranchised...he doesn't only photograph, but interviews his subjects about their lives, he adds his own commentary on the people, their country, and the situation in which he finds them."

Fazal starts The Victor Weeps with this: "To Sheikh Fazal Ilahi, the grandfather I never met but for whom I am named." I, too, was named after my grandfather and never met him...and my father was named after his grandfather and he never met him. Perhaps that's one of the many reasons I found this photo essay so compelling.

Here's the agonizingly beautiful The Victor Weeps...it's an incomparable photo essay that must be savored over time...slowly viewed and read. The prose is as beautiful as the photographs, and give them texture and meaning.

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The New York Times : Peshawar

Image © The New York Times-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times brings us a slideshow feature on Peshawar, the frontier town in Pakistan, legendary for its gun markets and home to a community of gunsmiths proud of their ability to make exact copies of weaponry. Peshawar literally means 'High Fort' in Persian, and is known as Pekhawar in Pashto. It's a major Pashtun city.

Interestingly, the photographs are not credited to a photographer, but the newspaper has confirmed that the photographer's name was withheld for safety reasons.

The accompanying article describes how the Taliban and its cohorts are now concentrating efforts to take the city and extend their militant influence in the area, and have selected the Pakistani police and its army as particular targets.

The black & white photographs suit the gritty subject matter very well.

PS: Call me a skeptic and a cynic if you like, but something's unusual here. The feature doesn't name its producer as well...so it's a totally anonymous production. I'm not clear as to the reason for this total anonymity. Aren't there any photojournalists working in Peshawar...was that photojournalist disguised in a burka? It doesn't look it. I have no answers...just skepticism vis-a-vis something that isn't clear.



Have a look: Peshawar Under Siege

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WPost: Praying for Benazir

The Washington Post has featured a short video by Travis Fox on the gatherings following Benazir Bhutto's assassination in December.

Her assassination hasn't only caused enormous havoc on internal Pakistani politics, but it also created considerable resentment between the dominant Punjabis and the remaining tribal and ethnic minorities. Many Sindhis (like Benazir) believe that she wasn't assassinated because she opposed extremism and advocated democracy, but that she was killed because she was a Sindhi.

According to the Washington Post: "Few believe the country is in imminent danger of fracturing again. But Bhutto's death has exacerbated ethnic tension in at least two ways: It has angered non-Punjabis because of her status as a member of a minority, and it has eliminated one of the few Pakistani politicians whose reputation transcended ethnicity."

As Gust Avrakotos (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the excellent movie Charlie Wilson's War) says: "We shall see".

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NY Times: Karachi After Bhutto

Image © Tyler Hicks/New York Times-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times brings us this slideshow of Karachi street scenes from one of my favorite photojournalists, Tyler Hicks. The title, Karachi After Bhutto is self-explanatory, and portends an major political upheaval in this critically important country.

It's been reconfirmed this morning that our mass media hasn't lost its timidity in reporting on the current political theater in Pakistan.

Here's an article in the NY Times reporting on yesterday's meeting of journalists with Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, who rejected any suggestion that he or any members of the Pakistani military or intelligence agencies played a role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

This sets the tone of the article:

" In a televised question and answer session that lasted more than 90 minutes, Mr. Musharraf appeared relaxed and confident, telling journalists that they often got their facts wrong and that they did not understand the situation in Pakistan."

On the same event, here's the final paragraph from an article from the British newspaper, The Independent :

"Instead one was left wondering why Mr Musharraf appeared so desperate to explain himself to the world? Does he genuinely believe he is badly misunderstood? A clue, perhaps, came in his final exhortation to the media – words that were cut from the television broadcast. "Please," he said. "I am not a fraud, I am not a liar."

I know from where I'll continue to get my international news, and you can tell it's not from the New York Times.

For some levity: I've chosen the above photograph because of the white cat meandering among the stains of betel juice and the other detritus. Isn't it amazing that it manages to remain spotless?

Karachi After Bhutto

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Benazir Bhutto's Assassination

Image © John Moore/Getty Images-All Rights Reserved
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has very serious implications and consequences for Pakistan and for the United States' national interests in this region. Pakistan's stability is at risk, and the whole region may face chaos and turmoil.

Naturally, our supine and discredited mainstream media is now lionizing Bhutto (or "Buddo" as our illiterate anchors and clownish talking heads pronounce her name) as the beacon of democracy for Pakistan, unwilling to remember that she was dismissed from office for corruption and incompetence..not once, but twice.

Notwithstanding, Bhutto's death is the worst possible outcome, as the Bush administration had been relying on her pro-western leanings to keep Pakistan on its side, and help to reduce the degree of Islamic militancy in that country.

Back to photography: I think that this photograph by John Moore (he seemed to be one of the few photographers to be close to the scene) is just remarkable. This unfortunate man, his trouser legs shredded by the explosion...possibly badly hurt, and certainly in a horrible daze, is still very elegantly attired with his coat still buttoned, shirt and tie undisturbed. His hair is well combed and he seems to be checking if he's unhurt. Yet a few feet away, men lay dying. Incredible.

According to CNN, John Moore said he was about 20 yards away from Bhutto's vehicle when he took his photographs.

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