It is half a building, a quaint old structure without a roof and missing a wall. What remains is charmingly old-world, stripped of the pale blue paint it was once coated with, cracks exposing the faded brick beneath. It is into this space, sitting opposite a Biennale venue in Kochi’s Mattancherry, that Zalman Farizy carried framed photographs, both in black and white and colour, and hung them all over the walls. This is the first photo exhibition of the courier delivery person who accidentally found his calling in photography.
“I call the exhibition Come What May, to show the attitude of the people here [in Kochi]. When they have a little [money] they live with it; when they don’t, they live with that. Come what may, they survive,” Zalman says.
The photos are of moments he captured while delivering courier orders. A colour picture shows four old men sitting on a pavement, laughing at a joke, while a black and white one has three boys sitting on the wheels of a machine, like a flashback of the first. Another photo in a small frame shows a woman at work, in contrast to a bigger photo of three men sitting relaxed inside a house.
“It was a German artist who discovered my eye for a good photo. I had gone to her to study art but within a week we both realised I am not so good at it. But she saw the photos I took from a bridge using my phone and said, ‘Zalman your hands are pretty useless, but your eyes are good’,” he says, laughing.
It was she who gifted him an Mi A1 phone, which he used to click the photos displayed at the venue. Zalman, who studied hospitality but found no interest in it, earns his living by delivering couriers. Even as we speak, he is in the midst of work, he says. An hour later, we see him on his motorbike with packages to deliver, temporarily leaving behind the charming old building.