A retired professor capturing Punjabi rural life on film

Chandigarh, May 27: Dev Inder Singh has been capturing changes in Punjab's rural life on an old-fashioned film camera.

For over two decades now, Singh, a retired professor from the Punjab University in Chandigarh, has been capturing images that may not exist in the future. It could be human beings, animals, houses and farm machinery.

"My interest is the change – change in the social life, change in dresses and household things that is reflected in the villages. In cities, it is very difficult to get these changes because the cities are already a changed phenomenon," said Singh.

Living a retired life, Singh devotes most of his time to roaming the villages. His pictures he says will help future generations to be acquainted with this change.

"My total volume of work, which I did, I did out of passion and that passion was just to give creative expression, which I felt that way. There was a kind of feeling that I must capture certain things, which I feel very important. Otherwise there are other ways, livelihood, for the photographers to do. So, I decided to not to do that and decided to do certain things, which have a certain importance in a historical point of view," he added.

The mud cottages, now almost replaced by brick mansions in Punjab, were captured by Singh decades back.

His photographs, when on display in New Delhi, made the visitors speechless with wonder.

Reflecting the Punjab of a bygone era, his pictures are invaluable. They will remain so as modernization continues to kill the simplicity and ethnicity of rural life. (ANI)

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