Delhi girl Deeksha Rathore had quite a lot to mull over while she was home on a break, nursing an ankle injury. This was when it struck her – while in conversation with her mother about the future – how we harbour and craft dreams as children. But how many of them are actualised?
If represented visually, what would the juxtaposition look like?
An air hostess who wanted to become a musician.
A doctor who wanted to become a cricketer.
A mochi who wanted to become a policeman.
Dreamcatcher is a photo project, with a series of 12 diptychs “highlighting the contrast between an individual's current and childhood dream job’’. As part of her 2nd year college project, Deeksha, a first-time photographer, decided to visually illustrate the contrast, and take an objective look at the stark distinction between the two.
Deeksha tells The Quint that she wanted to become an artist as a child, but is now pursuing filmmaking.
She tells us how the photo project has taken on a life of its own and lent itself to interpretations that are quite different from what she’d intended.
She didn’t mean for the photographs to be “heartbreaking’’. They do not speak of regret to her when she looks at them. She merely sees the variety and multiplicity of childhood dreams, and the stark realities of the present. Her lens was meant to be an objective pair of eyes, culling out the intangibles and laying it bare for her audience.
It is quite interesting to know how people are taking it. The different interpretations are surprising. I just wanted to highlight the contrast.
Her favourite photos, she tells us, are the ones with the doctor, the bai and the air hostess.
The seamless fusion of the elements in each set, and the surprising replacement of objects in each picture with other unlikely ones portrays the contrast poignantly. While a doctor is shown with a pair of cricketer’s gloves in the OT, an air hostess is shown carrying a suitcase with a keyboard sticking out of it.
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