A STATE OF QUARANTINE
by Susmit Sarkar
The following pictures are part of a documentation that I was working on since the pandemic hit our country and the world. The mental state of a person is extremely important, while the first four pictures were taken at my home and consists of my family members, the rest of the pictures I took in a remote village in Sunderban where due to lack of work, there's a struggle for livelihood. There's a striking contrast in the urban and rural mind space of people in this pandemic. While my family members became anxious and restless resembling the nature of the lockdown, the rural villagers lined up in desperation to receive some aid as they thrived to live on due to lack of their work.
To start with I have an avid interest in documenting street life, it could be anything, a normal day activity or any festivities, capturing the raw images brings out the true nature of the event and it always helps me to express myself through those images. But few months ago everything came to standstill and our world suddenly froze due to the pandemic. It was at this time I understood the challenge of creating in toughest condition. As time progressed I slowly started observing my family members and their changing moods. This is when I decided to start this project “A Quarantine State”. So I started capturing their daily lives whenever I could.
A few weeks later I was fortunate enough to travel to a remote village in Sunderban, West Bengal with an NGO for aiding the poor villagers who were hit by the cyclone as well. There I noticed the struggle of rural mass. The people there depended on daily work for their survival and their family also lived on this small income. But with Pandemic, all their work was suspended and many of them barely had anything to eat. Many of them lined up to seek some aid and it was sad to see that most of them did not have a mask to wear. I managed to capture some of the images where even women carried their children along because of the unfortunate situation.
I realised it's sad yet surprising how little we know of people and their struggle. While documenting the series I felt a strong urge to show their plight to the world and I hope to continue documenting more such scenarios, so that the message reaches to anyone who is willing to stand by the needy.
My name is Susmit Sarkar, I am based in Kolkata. Photography has been part of my life for a long time. I started off with my father's Kodak reel camera followed by a point and shoot camera and around 15 months back I could afford my own by saving. I am a fresh graduate and I have a keen interest in documenting through my lens, so that I can tell stories with my lens.
