Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Pride and Identity

I read somewhere that if one doesn't rebel at 20 and conform at 30, ones grey matter is absent. Over the past few weeks, a cascade of events have left me pondering about my identity, and I have been making a concious effort at discovering it, now that my age is midway between that of a rebel and a conformist. A part of this process has been digging up works of near and dear ones, when I stumbled across art work of Dr D Venkat Rao, who as a Samaritan, professional and artist, was way ahead of his time, especially by Indian (well mostly Bangalore since Bombay had a lot more exposure in the modern arts) standards.

I have been living with his daughter and grand-daughter (who is now my sister in law) for the past week and have come to learn a lot about Dr D V Rao. He was a medical doctor by profession, once he retired from it, actively pursued literature and photography. He has published 15 novels in Kannada and 6 popular science/medicine books with the intention of bringing medical awareness to the layman. He started a magazine on Home Science (cannot recall the exact title) and actively pursued photography. I intend to write about him on wikipedia, but am in the process of collecting and verifying information. Until that time, enjoy his futuristic photography.

Some of these snaps are close to 5 decades old. Judge them with that in mind. And yes, presently his family (whom I'm now a proud member of) owns the copyrights :-).

His daughter, Anuradha Rao



His Daughter again.
His grandchildren, the one the left is now my sis-in-law

Sis-in-law in Algeria. Photo not by Dr D V Rao though.
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