Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 9 (IANS) A group of Indian travellers has captured the cultural, religious and political ties between India and Central Asia on photographs — and they will be on display here June 17-23.

An exhibition of the photographs, “Quest on Wings”, is named after an eponymous organisation founded by veteran photojournalist Dilip Banerjee to promote arts, friendship and global travel.

Besides Banerjee, one of the main contributors to the exhibition, the team includes history scholar Purenndu Sekhar Mitra, mountaineer-adventurer Kallol Das, traveller Sekhar Basu Mallick, doctor Ashish Kumar Kundu and zoology professor Dipankar Sengupta, a statement issued by ICCR said.

The focus of the exhibition is on the legacy of the Silk route, Banerjee said.

“Merchants, ascetics, explorers and scholars travelled extensively through the Silk route and influenced the art and culture of both regions,” he said.

“It is in many ways surprising that the Central Asian countries with their spectacular and bountiful nature, their beautiful people and their poets like Navoi, Rudaki, Bozor Sobir and Saridan Ayni should have faded from our minds.

“At the same time Omar Khayaam, Rumi, Nizami, Firdowsi and Sufi music remain popular among a large section of the population in India,” Banerjee said, enumerating the essence of the exposition.

Banerjee said: “Quest on Wings went on a friendship tour to Central Asia in an effort to rejuvenate the old ties at the micro level, exploring the lives of the common people.

“Like all travellers, we shared friendship and the spirit of adventure with a philosophy that political borders are artificial and temporary and people everywhere feel a kinship with one another,” he said.