Precious archive.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The iron trunk had been lying unopened in their attic for decades, hidden amid suitcases and bags, when Arshad and Sheeba accidentally stumbled upon it last week. Inside were old photographs, some fading, a few slightly torn around the edges.

It is a discovery within a home, but of some significance to the wider city outside. For the couple belong to Old Delhi’s Fehmi family, which used to publish the legendary journal Din Duniya. The photographs show people connected to the family, with the collection reaching back to Delhi’s early twentieth century. One photo bears the handwritten date “30-12-1937.”

Among these many dozens of photographs, one shows a boy wearing a striped sherwani over wide-bottomed pyjamas, and a dark topi. His unsmiling face gives him something of an adult’s seriousness. The umbrella, too, seems part of being properly dressed for the portrait.

Truth be told, there are so many ways of looking at these photographs. Though essentially a stack of a family’s private memories, they offer a rare glimpse of a Delhi of long-ago time, beyond its monuments and then newsmakers, through the dresses and bearing of the society people who lived through that era. The photographs also show how the portraits were then arranged, with people sitting, standing together or gathering around a chair, as though being photographed called for ceremony.

In another sepia-toned photograph, a man stands beside a board bearing the words “District Jail Delhi”. His carefully wound turban, long coat and shoes with pointed, upturned toes suggest a man of some standing. A patch of the print is missing near the centre, exposing the mounting board beneath.

One portrait is profoundly poetic (seen in the picture above). A bearded man sits before a closed wooden door, his hands loosely clasped in his lap, his gaze lowered to one side. A checked shawl falls from his turban to the carpeted floor. Around him, the mount’s elaborate green border is adorned with flowers and leaves. So much ornament surrounding an austere man who isn’t even looking at the camera!

The photographers remain unseen, but their studios’ names survive on the cardboard mounts. One reads “Photo Service Company, Delhi”.

What is to become of these photographs?

The couple—she’s a well-known podcaster, he’s a businessman—hope to preserve the photographs both in an album and digitally, but wonder whether the next generation will recognise their value. They graciously agree to pose with the treasure trunk. See photo.