A heap of tomatoes gleams in the light as do the tub of chillis beside it, while the shop’s proprietor, wearing a shirt that nearly matches the colour of the tomatoes, looks sagely on. It feels like an idyllic scene out of small-town India, a pictorial representation of a ubiquitous kirana store, the mainstay of local inhabitants. And yet, the story behind the photograph, one of the many currently being exhibited at Chitrakala Parishat, is so much more.
“That picture is of a man whose farming had failed,” points out documentary photographer and filmmaker, Arjun Swaminathan, who has captured this image. “His natural adaptation to this was to keep a grocery store,” adds Mr. Swaminathan, the director of Native Picture, an organisation that focuses on documenting the lives and issues faced by common people.
