“Life’s come full circle”

Photographer, screenplay writer and film maker Sooni Taraporevala’s pictorial book Parsis: The Zoroastrians of India, A Photographic Journey, a labor of love which encompasses 35 years’ work, is being exhibited at the Sert Gallery of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts of Harvard University between October 25 and December 20, 2012. A screening of her acclaimed film Little Zizou was also held on the occasion.
During the showing, Taraporevala was in conversation with another Bombay boy now a professor at Harvard, Homi Bhabha, director of the Humanities Center there and Sugata Bose a faculty member in the history department. She mused on her creative process and the meaning behind her images. "As a photographer, you take a photograph and hope that someone interprets it in a certain way… I rely on other people to provide the subtext,” she said. Bose and Bhabha offered cultural and historical insights into the Parsi community. Bhabha noted that Parsis "don’t have great, stylistic markers” of their community, so a heavy importance is placed on the domestic and quotidian life — a theme that Taraporevala captures in her photographs of Parsis at home and in town, reported The Harvard Crimson (THC), the University’s daily newspaper on October 30, 2012 which is available on the Internet.
The juxtaposition of Taraporevala’s earlier photographs with her later images allows viewers to trace the visible transition from more traditional Indian styles to contemporary life with its increasing Western influences. An audience member found Taraporevala’s work inspiring as photographs of "a culture that is not well-known,” and could appreciate their aesthetics as a young photographer herself, mentions THC.
Taraporevala, an alumna of Harvard told Malavika Sangghvi as reported in her column "Malavika’s Musings” in Mid Day dated October 5, 2012, "I feel lucky that life’s come full circle. I started film and photography at Carpenter Center so I am thrilled to be showing my photos and film there.”