The best of Mukesh Parpiani's images generally speak of the confrontation
between the common man and the structures of power with which
he is surrounded.
Embedded in our collective memory is his award-winning shot of
a frail old man watching in some trepidation as an army officer
walks past.
His images confront the alienation of the human being from the
city around him and from the movers and the shakers who
move in
a different world from her or him. It is this sense of the off-beat
which earned him a reputation first at the The Daily and
then at The Indian Express. A strong sense of the frame informs
his work so that one is never sure where the centre of the picture.
Is it in the incidental and serendipitous details that populate
his frames or is it in the human dramas that are being enacted
in the forefront? These questions remain vital both for the viewer
and the photographer himself.
Jerry Pinto.