Topic: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Demand for restoration of pictures is reasonable,the conspiracy theory is problematic. The writer as an anglophile seems a victim of the stickholm syndrome.There is repeated reverential reference to the foriegn photographer,the vestigial representative of the Raj ,the mountbattens and then the well meaning pampered brat of the last phase of freedom struggle who decided to speak to his countrymen in the greatest hour of joy (tryst with destiny) and greatest hour of loss( light has gone out of our lives) in a language which only the masters and their henchmen understood. To imagine that missing photos in a museum will remove what is etched through living memory and testimonies of thousands is exaggerated. As for the genetic testimonial for authentication of the author I may submit that my mother too was amongst the million of faceless foot soldiers of the great Mahatma and was present in the prarthna Sabha a day before he was assassinated. . People who shamelessly allowed big institutions bof learning to be named after poorly educated grandchildren of a prime minister and constantly underplayed the fact that many people who left Congress to form other vparties were not necessarily religious bigots but people who resented undemocratic dynastic feudal culture taking over the broad based feature of the Congress up to the 30’s.