It is difficult for Salim Pushpanath to pick out anecdotes from his many journeys. It is because travel is part of his life, he says, sitting at his house in Kottayam.
The same evening he is starting another one, to Bali in Indonesia. Photographs from that trip will go into his newest book, the 25th, which has the working title Hundred must-see destinations across the world. He has already been to most of the European countries — Britain, France, Italy, Scotland, a few Asian countries, Burma, Sri Lanka, and now Indonesia. It will take two to three years more to finish what he began but Salim has been doing this for 22 years now, travelling to places to click the less seen part of the most seen spots. That's what he is attempting in his world trip too.
“You will find that most of the famous spots across the world are usually photographed from the same few angles. Repetitive photos, put in books, published online. My idea is to take another angle,” he says. When he went to the Taj Mahal for his previous project -—Unseen India — he too had at first taken the same photo that every tourist did, the front view with the little fountain in front of the massive beautiful structure. But coming back, he felt unsatisfied and went back again with his camera. But this time he went to the other side, the back of the Taj Mahal where few went to. He found there, poor families living in their small huts, farmers farming and that became his frame, with the mighty Taj in the background.
In Kolkata, where the Victorian buildings became the pictures everyone snapped, Salim found for his frames, rickshaw pullers, manually pulling passengers across the roads. He would use the same methods to click his 100 photos around the world. “How many you click, only one or two from a place could go into a book,” says Salim.
He had a special place for Portugal where he went to click the spot that Vasco De Gama began his journey from in the 15th century, one that would bring him to Kerala. In Cape Town, where he found the famous spot, a beautiful one near the sea, he again tried to make it a different picture putting the churches in the background to add to the beauty.
Photography had come into his life when he began travelling. Nobody taught him to use a camera. He learnt with his film camera–Nikon F90. “The very first travel book I wrote on Kerala had been only text in black and white. I showed it to George Dominic of the Casino Group, he advised me to make it pictorial, that's what appeals to people. So I picked up the camera myself and never stopped clicking.” All his 24 books — beginning with ones on Kerala, then India, and now the world — have photographs taken by him, while writing could be done on specific areas by others. His book called Spectacular Homes in Kerala, for instance, was authored by Kuruvila Chacko. Books on Ayurveda, Yoga, spices, cook books have all come out in the past two decades.
“It started with my interest to travel across Kerala and then write about it. Since my dad Kottayam Pushpanath is a detective novelist, I have publishing background. Once I travelled all over Kerala, I wanted to write more and more books. There must be some 12 books on Kerala alone. Then I was inspired to travel the length of India.” He particularly enjoys meeting people in these journeys. “One of the best experiences was going to the Rann of Kutch, where we spent the night with a family. There were many flamingos in the white desert full of sea salt and we rode on elephants.”
Calling himself basically a photographer, Salim is also a publisher and runs a resort in Idukki. There, he has kept a museum for cameras he has collected during his many trips and those contributed by visiting tourists — cameras dating back to 1939. “I also want to run a gallery with Faces of India — portraits from every state. Culturally and physically we all are so different from each other.”
