In this, the first in our series of photographs from the F.E. Chaudhry Collection, we want to feature this remarkable photograph taken on a Lahore street-side, probably in the 1950s.
A group of four young women unabashedly sitting in a row on a road side in Lahore, picking each other’s heads for lice and so very focussed on the task at hand that they are oblivious to the passersby. The children (probably their own) squatting around and hiding in their laps, captures an age old family ritual that is no longer to be seen, even in the private, lost forever to the glamorous new world of branded soaps and shampoos.
The photograph shows F. E. Choudhry’s penchant for novel sights. The public performance of personal hygiene was not an uncommon sight, even amongst the more affluent. But usually not so for picking lice. Although it was a common practice for women (sometimes men too!) to pick head lice for each other, especially in summer, when head lice breed in great number, it was usually done in the privacy of home. This is clearly an example of poverty forcing people to “live” in the public space and conduct what would otherwise be private acts, in public. This, as we shall later see, was a recurrent theme in F.E. Choudhry’s portfolio.
There is so much that is striking and worth thinking about in this photograph. Do tell us what caught your eye and attention.
Click here for the evolving F.E. Choudhry Gallery at ATP.
Joo ba joo phail gayee baat shanasaee ki!
Bugs bunny, I think there is a certain rotation in placement that happens eventually, so no one gets a free lunch - or, in this case, a free lice checkup!
This is an amazing photograph. One of those shots which just happen. you cannot script such scenes. have to be present there at the right moment.
Well I was thinking of the order in which these four women are placed.The last one is wearing a dupatta.Perhaps she does not need any lice picking.But she is carrying out the job without being repaid.The middle two women are being served n they r serving as well so that balances out.What about the first one.No work n all play?
It is the innocence of the phto and the times that is striking
Jauq dar jauq, juoon ki talash
Wonderful find. What a great picture. How uninhibited and how engrossed in their work they are.
Look forward to more photographs from the Master.
Once classic photograph.