You've got to lick it, before we kick it!
 Tapulicious is the most gorgeous book from one of the gorgeous
men in the fashion industry. Tapu Javeri, the one women swoon over,
who has featured as a poster boy for designer Deepak Perwani and
MNC brands. And who has graced the catwalk umpteen time as
a celebrity model. With his tall frame, easy going attitude and
firangi looks, Tapu is eye candy, but he is always uncomfortable
on the catwalk, smiling shyly, walking very fast, a man obviously
dying to get the hell off the stage. His place is in the photographer's
pit at the end of the runway, armed with a camera, shooting till
the show stops. He is a voracious voyeur, hungry to catch anything
and everything – back stage, front row, in the aisles.
Tapu Javeri has chronicled all three fashion weeks for posterity
alongside his other colleagues. He is not a celebrity fashion photographer
sitting in the front row. He does not have a team of kids working
for him. He is a one man show, painstakingly clicking each and
every collection, even though at the moment most of those collections
aren't important enough to be archived. Documenting is so very
important. And that is what Tapu's archives are – visual
documents - of people and moments in time captured in a freeze
frame forever.
Anyone can click a photo, but photographers are those who lift
the image to the realm of art. Browse though Tapulicious and you
will see a master at work, and not of the pompous, artsy, holier
than thou variety. When it comes to photography in Pakistan, Tapu
is the Grand Priest of irreverence. This comes through clearly
in Tapulicious, the first photo in which is of the voyeur himself,
taken by Nubain Ali, a budding photographer with Tapu lying on
the ground surrounded by cameras. The tag line is tongue-in-cheek
arrogance personified "I click, therefore you are."
Talking pictures
 It's as if the people in Tapulicious didn't exist before he saw
them – browsing through the book you realize that they had
never before existed as he saw them through his lens, freezing
them in a series of moments in time out of which that one magical
moment jumps out at you when the subject's expression, the background,
the light, the timing of the click conspire to give that one shot
that jumps out at you amongst fifty others. This book, with just
names and no explanations whatsoever is full of them. Each page
is fabulous, flipping through it you get a similar sense of thrill
that you do browsing through those magnificent coffee table books
by legendary photographers like Herb Ritts and Richard Avedon.
Tapulicious has something extra that pulls at your heart strings – it
is us - Pakistan - as a cultural nation.
The cover is a shot of Iraj in a white wig and pale lips posing
as 'Marium Antoinette' as Tapu likes to put it. One of his favourite
girls (supermodels are Tapu's girls), the other being Aaminah Haq,
it's a striking picture. When Tapu bought that white wig in Paris
for Iraj to pose in, he knew what he was aiming for. The image
is weird, yet beautiful, and Iraj has it in her to carry it off.
That's the wonderful thing about models, they converse with the
camera. And it is the fashion shots that make the book truly Tapulicious,
and no model features more than Aaminah Haq, who ruled print till
she left modeling. It is her face that jumps out at you fringe
and tanned, lips slightly parted. It is Aaminah who swam for Tapu's
unforgettable underwater shoot and the crazy shoot for Ammar Belal
where she posed as Madonna in Who's That Girl? Gene Simmons from
KISS and Marilyn Mason, carrying every look off. Bibi, Aliya Zaidi,
Sadaf Malaterre – the golden girls are all there.
A dedicated follower of fashion, it is Tapu's images of oomph amplified
to the max that make the book truly Tapulicious. Browsing through
the pages, letting the pictures soak in, you will sense that Tapulicious
is actually a flavour. Tapu chooses action and props a lot, Aaminah
swimming or dancing, Deepak Perwani with the red angel from the
'Na Ray Na' Video, Abida Parween in the throes of ecstasy at an
Urs, Reshma staring at you with a piercing intensity with those
brilliant blue eyes – the pictures he chooses are unusual,
whether intentionally created or spontaneously captured, they are
theatrical, lively or make a statement that screams out loud.
Reading visuals
 The book is also brilliantly laid out thanks to Kiran Aman and
her team at Still Waters Publishing, merging fashion seamlessly
with the music personalities Tapu has shot for publications and
album covers and the politicians and artists he shot for posterity.
So in this book, you will find Sherry Rehman looking to her right
towards a shot of Meera, wild Ali Azmat looking through a fishbowl
right opposite picture perfect Vaneeza Ahmed. Icons like Iqbal
Bano and Noor Jehan get a page to themselves with contact sheets.
Naheed Siddiqi stands with arms outstretched opposite the late
Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his face fold out into two pages
featuring Naheed's close up and her ghungroo clad feet that hold
you in thrall. You come across Nazia Hasan, Vital Signs, Junoon
and everyone who came after them in a single shot Tapu had shot
for the cover of a news monthly. He's photoshopped newer stars
like Zeb and Haniya into that picture, back then Hadiqa was the
only girl. And years before the pop music industry flourished the
way it eventaually did, there is a shot of Anita Ayub in a burqa,
from her glorious hey days as the first Pakistani sex symbol in
India, that lasted till Dev Anand's flop was released.
That was way before Meera arrived on the Indian screen and therefore
more prominently than ours. Her border crossing smooch with Ashmit
Patel launched a thousand headlines and almost as many fatwas.
Media had bloomed and that blitz remained unforgettable. As unsavoury
as it may have been it elevated Meera to superstar status, but
even Mahesh Bhatt couldn't have projected her with the sensuality
Tapu Javeri did in a shoot for X-tra. In Tapulicious, you can see
Meera's gorgeous face, hair done up Grecian style, her chin on
a man's bare shoulder, a bitten apple in one hand. It's a striking
image of the maiden and the forbidden fruit – the story of
Meera foretold. It shows an incisive perception (coming from both
Tapu and Fifi Haroon who styled that shoot), and says it all without
making Meera look tacky or judging her, as filmmakers and television
programs often do.
More than words
For those who understand why a picture is worth a thousand words,
Tapulicious has much to read into. Otherwise, there is no reading
matter, apart from the Introduction, written by Samina Ibrahim,
the preface written by Fifi Haroon and the Foreword written by
Fareshteh Aslam. It comes across as strange that a book has all
three, but that is made up for by the fact that all three women
are legendary editors and worked with Tapu for shoots in Newsline,
X-Tra and Instep respectively. Other than this, the pictures do
all the talking. What is subtly and rather cleverly employed is
the signage the book employs. As a record of Pakistani icons, it
uses the iconography of recording and playing devices next to the
name. The Pause icon is used for music bands that have broken up,
Play for personalities who are living, Stop for personalities who
have passed away, Record for all musicians and singers and the
power symbol has been assigned to all of Tapu's unusually artistic
work. It's a great effort, made possible by Pond's as a part of
their Brand Council which Tapu is a part of.
While some people one spoke to felt the absence of text, I would
rather go with the theory that these pictures don't need words.
None of the great photography books have them, for the simple reason
that they don't need them. A great photographer's eye suffices,
revealing so much without saying a word - that's how Tapulicious
tantalizes.
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