Their jhappi of art

The museum has a double bed

The museum has a double bed. A cushiony gaontakiyan lies across it. On the walls are photographs by Nony Singh.

Their jhappi of art

This evening, three guests arrive at Nony’s Vasant Vihar apartment. Her daughter, photographer Dayanita Singh, had WhatsApped earlier in the day: “Nony Singh museum invites you for a special preview (with dal chawal) at 7 pm.”

Dayanita and her mother lead the guests into a bedroom. A handwritten note on the door announces “NONY SINGH MUSEUM.” Framed black-and-white photographs cover the walls. Most are Nony’s photographs of her family. One series shows Nony’s mother wearing Nony’s father’s clothes. Elsewhere, her sister sits on a chair, her sari regally spreading towards the floor.

Nony, who recently turned 90, is in a flowered dress. The evening is arranged formally. She and Dayanita sit around a round table with one of the guests, artist and curator Andrea Anastasio, also director of the Italian Cultural Centre. The other two guests, including the genial Biraj Patnaik, sit on the bed, facing the three speakers. Wine is poured. Conversation begins. On the side wall, the shiny glass over Nony’s framed portrait of young Dayanita, taken around 1981, reflects mother and daughter talking today.

One of the guests sitting on the bed acknowledges Nony’s influence on Dayanita’s art, then asks how the daughter has shaped the mother’s art. Nony ponders awhile. Watching Dayanita steer her work into the world, she says, she found her own art travelling too. Having once felt alone in her artistic pursuits, she now describes herself and Dayanita as “mother and daughter in a jhappi of art.”

Dayanita holds up a photograph Nony took of her as a baby, lying on a chaise longue. It made the cover of The Archivist, Nony’s book of photographs documenting her life. Nony’s archiving began in youth. Newly married, she made a “Girlfriends Album” from photographs discovered in a box, showing her husband with former girlfriends. She did make sure her own photograph occupied the album’s last page, captioned: “Hey, some respect for photography at least.”

Turning to Dayanita, Nony recalls hand-painting some of her daughter’s black-and-white photographs for a calendar. She felt they both had then merged into one artist.

The gathering finally moves to the living room for a meal of moong dal and aloo gobhi. The wall overlooking the dining table is covered with Nony’s oil paintings, a lifetime’s work.