Bangladesh : a brutal birth
Kishor Parekh
Born on Dec. 23rd, 1930, Kishor Parekh took his Masters in cinema from the University of Southern California. While there he was awarded six of the seven prizes in an international contest sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association and Life Magazine.
Returning to India in 1961, Parekh joined the Delhi-based Hindustan Times as the chief photographer. He immediately made his mark, covering the Indo-Sino war of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. His coverage from India found acceptance in a wide range of international publications, including National Geographic, Paris Match, London Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Stern, Popular Photography and Asahi Graphic.
Covering the Tashkent summit talks that resolved the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, Parekh was awarded a gold medal and cash prize by Soviet Land. In 1967 Parekh joined the Asia Magazine, doing extensive photo essays. He then joined Pacific Magazines Ltd. as photo-editor.
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He was considered one of the pioneers of photojournalism in India, and was responsible for completely changing the face of reportage photography there and raising levels to contemporary international standards. India provided Parekh with the opportunity for some tremendously creative work. His coverage of the famine in Bihar state was exhibited in the United States to raise funds for the victims. Parekh held major one-man shows in Bombay and Los Angeles. His important exhibition on Jawarlal Nehru in Delhi after his death became a site of pilgrimage for people.
While covering the war in East Pakistan he succeeded in penetrating the exodus from the area and jumped to the head of the queue of soldiers, liberators and newsmen. In a matter of days he was able to record the agonizing birth of a new nation: Bangladesh.
"...Kishor Parekh went to Bangladesh with no presumption that he would annotate the genocide, or explain the exodus, or show the spirit of a people, or record the hallelujah of the homecoming, he went to find out why it happened, how it happened and, above all, to see for himself what strange hope drove a hopeless people on. The Pakistani soldiers have made sure that every street corner and every swamp in Bangladesh will bear its own memorial; that every family for generations will have its own tale to tell of a sacrificial offering to freedom. What comes out in these pictures is the utter meaninglessness of it all. We have seen before pictures of a raped woman - but the face of the Bengali woman that Parekh shot is the face of one who now lives in a world where neither forgiveness nor pain, nor memory can ever enter. It is a face at the very edge of suffering - a suffering denied its own understanding...
These photographs describe the shudder of nine months lived at zero level for these people." For a decade prior to his death in 1982 at 52 years of age, Kishor Parekh worked as a freelance photographer and creative consultant and did path-breaking work in fashion and commercial photography.