Some more musings from Nairobi . . .

One thing a photographer likes to be able to count on is the presence of his subjects in public spaces: streets, parks, shopping malls, out in front of their homes, etc. In other countries where I have worked, Indian people are out in the open, going about their lives, so photographing has been relatively easy. I meet people, we chat, drink tea, I take some pictures, maybe I come back again the next day, etc. I don’t really like photographing strangers, so getting to know people is essential to the way I work.

In Nairoboi, where the Indian community is fairly small, it’s harder to find people. Since security is the ever-present issue, city dwellers here avoid public spaces. This is not a city of walkers [edit: except by necessity]. People drive or are driven. Houses are gated and guarded. This is true for everyone who can afford the trappings of security, which includes the vast majority of the Indian community.

So I am concentrating on taking portraits of people in their homes.

Photography is all about space–in both the metaphysical and the physical senses. Space defines the subject in the frame. What’s included vs. what’s omitted are important questions the shooter has to ask himself before he trips the shutter.

So the matter for discussion here is, What does it say about community when its cultural expression occurs outside the public sphere? Does the space help define the culture?

Indian culture as I have witnessed it in India and elsewhere is all about the public space: parades, wedding processions, music, long-winded speakers at the public address system, big family events that draw in a larger community.

Granted, in Nairobi, the fact that much of the community here is Muslim has something to do with the reticence of expression, as do the obvious facts of minority status and the presence of crime.

Things are different here. Being Indian is different here from the way it is in other parts of the world, including other countries in Africa. There is no sense that Indian culture has to be hidden or subdued–just that it doesn’t seem to fit comfortably in the public realm.

Your thoughts? (I’ll post some portraits in the next few days). Continue reading →

Greetings from Nairobi. Many thanks to Abhi and the gang for letting me guest-blog, so here begins a short series (illustrated!) about Indo-Africa.

Amardeep’s recent post about Indo-African writers brought up the big question about Indians (East Asians, as they are called here) and the other communities:

And indeed, anecdotally, one hears that the Asians in Africa tended to hold themselves aloof from “native” Africans, at least before Idi Amin.

That question is a good place for me to start since, quite coincidentally, it’s where I started.

Visiting a place for the first time, especially one defined by a confluence of cultures, requires peeling back the layers of the onion, at least rhetorically. What is said or not said, and how it’s said, can reveal a great deal about a place, and it’s important for a journalist to get a handle on the terms of the discussion if he wants to engage it in any meaningful way.

Best way to orient yourself to the local situation? Ask a cab driver.

Daniel, a black cabbie in his forties attached to my hotel, took me to Diamond Plaza, a shopping center in Parklands, the Indian section of Nairobi. He said he had grown up nearby. I told him why I wanted to go there.

“”Indians are rich,”” he said. “”They don’t come from farms. They are in business.”” It’s always a little dicey when a person of one race makes comments about another to someone who belongs to neither. But I thought he sounded admiring. “”They are good employers,” he said. “”They hire cooks, housekeepers, drivers, guards, lots of staff.””

And then we reached something close to the center of the onion: ““They don’t hire their own people. They hire Kenyans.”” Continue reading →