Reminiscence, a body of work Debsuddha began under the aegis of the 2022 Arttaca Grant for Photography, was where our conversation began. It holds photographs Debsuddha made of himself at the beach, but they hold none of the golden light and warmth that a beach generally brings to mind. Instead, this is a mysterious, twilight landscape, and it feels like a cold, wet and somewhat disconcerting dream. These are photographs that are working through something, and you feel it. Debsuddha’s father passed away from Covid -19 last year. They shared a difficult and complicated relationship with each other. ‘In fact, the last couple of years had been better; we were coming to understand one another somewhat, and slowly shedding some of the ‘dad ego’ and the ‘son ego’, after many years of pain. But then, everything changed, dramatically’. Debsuddha says that he had been attempting to run from the confusion and the pain, but that eventually, it was the struggle that led him into this work.

The sea here is formless, endless, horizonless. Debsuddha can be seen changeably as running headlong into it, trying to escape the incoming rush of waves, floating in a soothing calm or seeming to drown in the frothy, watery expanse. There is no way to know time; in fact, there is no time here. But you can almost taste the salt in the air. ‘I am psychologically very tired’, says Debsuddha, and a dull ache of exhaustion is palpable in Reminiscience. Photographs are slices hewn off real, moving time, but each photograph is also a fount from which time is constantly pouring, providing a space to feel. And yet, despite its weight, these images do not sink you. You manage to come up for air, as you would when swimming against the current of grief. And there is space for rest and silence, amidst the slow ebb and flow of the tide.

Debsuddha likes to say ‘life is predestined’. He aspired to be an artist when he was young, and even got into the prestigious Government College of Art, Kolkata, right after school. He even knew he wanted to study photography there, opting for it rather than more traditional disciplines like painting. But circumstances in his family made him drop out of the program and opt for a more ‘sensible’ degree in engineering instead. Post this he tried working at an IT company, and later gave tuitions in maths and science for students in his neighbourhood, but eventually, photography found its way back to him. Gradually, Debsuddha started taking up assignments as a photojournalist, and in the midst of working on short term stories, began to study the work of other photographers.

As is the case for many of us in the global south, his study took the well-traversed journey of moving from an appreciation of photojournalism made from a distinctively Western perspective, towards a growing appreciation of work made in South Asia, particularly Bangladesh and Nepal along with India. According to Debsuddha, it was the work of contemporary photographers from this region that really expanded what photography could be for him, and in a way, gave him permission to take his work beyond immediate journalistic impulses into a far deeper plane.

Debsuddha’s first body of work to gain critical acclaim has been the ongoing series titled Belonging. Through it, we gain a glimpse into the lives of his aunts, Gayatri and Swati Goswami, who are albino, and live a life largely of seclusion in their ancestral home in north Kolkata. Debsuddha began photographing his aunts during India’s first full-scale Covid-19 lockdown in early 2020. It was a time when over 1.5 billion people were facing some of the most stringent quarantine measures in the world, but for the Goswami sisters, isolation and seclusion were nothing new. All their lives, they have faced intense scrutiny followed by discrimination and even fear from people around them due to their condition. As they grew up and aged, the sisters retreated further into the confines of their home, where they could be safe from prying eyes and judgement.

Intriguingly, although photography by its very nature is a medium that opens up lives to both prying eyes as well as judgement, we find neither in Debsuddha’s photographs of his aunts. Rather, these images feel like an oasis. Cool-toned and quiet, they are meditative, even in their moments of playfulness. The sisters' comfort and familiarity with Debsuddha and his camera is lovingly evident. They care for him, as he for them, and the photographs are a distilled essence of this care.

Life is predestined, and photography found its way back to Debsuddha, as it was meant to be. But for Debsuddha, it is not simply a medium or a tool to depict the world, or explain its issues. Rather, it seems that for him, the making of images is a way to truly be alive – to be open and vulnerable, to be willing to feel pain, loss and grief, feelings almost too much to bear in ordinary life. But also, crucially, to accept and celebrate deep love, care and affection, to engage in play and laughter, and to celebrate what it feels like to live. So, his work does not ever explain what it means to suffer or to burst with joy, but when you encounter it, you cannot help but feel it.

Debsuddha’s ongoing project Reminiscence is currently showing at RDX Offsite, Bangkok, as part of the Arttaca Group Exhibition, from October 1st to the 31st, 2022.