This is a nice photograph, I cannot deny. I can see that it has probably been taken in the courtyard of a house, perhaps it is T.S Satyan’s own? He is a young man, and it is one of the few photographs in the MAP collection that depict the photographers responsible for the work in the museum’s archive.

But, the first thing I noticed in this photograph was not Satyan’s camera, but his Janeu, the sacred thread draped across his left shoulder, symbolising his Brahmin identity. And something shifts once I know this.