To tell a story in India is to tell the story of a family, as in all traditional society the individual only exist as a member of a family, a village a caste.
To enter the intimacy of an Indian is to enter his family circle.
This is what Zishaan Akbar Latif makes us discover when he photographed the daily life of his grand father 89 year old patriarchal and authoritative figure.
The Grand Father Dhanji Aklesaria is farsi ( a religious community originally from Persia that emigrated to India in the 8th century) The famous Tata family is Farsi as are many artists, lawyers, and doctors in India) , he lives recluse in a big house in Jhansi a town from Uttar Pradesh a state in the north of the country.
Throughout strongly contrasted images we discover the life of this dry inflexible man who first rejected his eldest son , the father of the photographer who married a muslim woman, and than estranged himself from his second son who wanted to marry a divorced woman.
Zishaan Akbar Latif describes with great sensitivity the loneliness of the old man, his austerity and also his taste for life with simple pleasures, a nap in the sun, his 88th birthday, the sweet note he wrote his grand son subtle and touching.
These images show us an Indian way of life with a mix of rigorous principles and the solitude that it creates and the vital necessity not to break the links for Dhanji Aklesaria with what is dearest to him; his family.
Zishaan Akbar Latif was born in India in 1984, he is a photographer in Mumbai
Sybile Girault
Zishaan Akbar Latif
Solitary Splendour
