120 YEARS OLD PHOTO STUDIO MAHATA KASHMIR | MuneerSpeaks

Owned by the Mahatta family since its establishment in 1905, Mahatta & Co is a photography studio that has had branches in cities including Rawalpindi, Murree, Srinagar and New Delhi, where it is currently located. Apart from its famous clientele, the studio is also known for its long history, spanning the decades before and after India’s independence. Over the years, Mahatta & Co has undertaken traditional studio services such as portraiture for institutions and individuals, wedding photography and the development of photographic film. It previously provided services for hand-colouring monochrome photographs, and used to retail camera equipment and photographs of historic events and people. #Kashmir #history #mahatastudiokashmir The first of its studios was established at the Bund, Srinagar, then a popular commercial part of the city by Amar Nath (AN) Mehta, who allegedly modified the spelling of “Mehta” when naming the studio to fit the way it was pronounced by British clients. Briefly, the studio also operated from a houseboat on the Jhelum river that flows through Jammu and Kashmir, possibly to better cater to the area’s many tourists, who might have been attracted to the novelty of a houseboat studio making simple portraits or selling idyllic prints of the landscape and lifestyle of the locals. In its early years, the studio — essentially AN Mehta — was also commissioned by the British military to document their troops in Kashmir. The next branch was opened in Gulmarg in 1921 but was destroyed in a fire in 1930. After this, two studios were set up at Rawalpindi and Murree in present-day Pakistan, but these were closed down after the Partition separated the establishments and the Mahatta family on either side of the new Indo-Pakistan border. The New Delhi branch was established in 1948 and continues to run as the main studio under AN Mehta’s grandsons Pavan and Pankaj, alongside the first branch in Srinagar. Madan Mahatta, the most well known member of the family, is considered to have introduced colour photography in commercial studios in India in 1954 when he returned to the country after completing his studies at Guilford School of Arts and Crafts, Surrey.