Every good mutiny needs a photographer or two associated with it. Someone needs to document the “grand struggle,” just as Henri Cartier-Bresson documented some of Gandhi’s. To start off 2007 we have a little treat for you. Preston Merchant, the photographer shooting away at many of our NYC meet-ups, is traveling in Kenya right now and will be training his eye and camera on the Indian diaspora there. Before he proceeds we should clear up a few questions you might have:
Statement: Oh, Merchant! Way to represent the Parsees. Finally, some more diversity on SM.
Response: Nope. Preston is white. He is not Parsi (not that you can’t have a white Parsi).
Statement: Whoa. What’s up with letting a colonialist in the house?
Response: Remember the movie Lagaan? How all the villagers banded together to play cricket and won over the hearts of their colonialist oppressors, and how Amir Khan even won the eye of that one white British lady? It is the same thing. SM is like that cricket team but Preston thankfully doesn’t sing.
Preston isn’t just over there taking pictures for no reason. He is working on a book titled IndiaWorld about the Indian diaspora and has already visited South Africa, Dubai, Trinidad, and Guyana, in addition to his work here in the States. In Kenya he will be focusing especially on the Ismaili Muslim community. I’ll let him explain to us about that though. Get ready for a good flogging.
