PILLION........India takes a ride.

Delhi.

Ambivalence.

Is it worth it....to live a life of sacrifice...
to not indulge,  to abstain, to refrain...
to shut yourself in your room,
when the world outside parties.

to reach nowhere, to yet keep walking,
to push, to pull, to fall, to rise...
only to fall , get up, and walk..
yet again.

is it worth it, to put on the blinkers...
when things so many, beckon you in your peripheral vision...
an Alladin...hunting for his magic lamp...
is it worth it, to toil...when the whole world sleeps cosily ensconced in it's cocoon...
in the quiet, wee hours of a winter morning.
when all seems lost, when the last flicker of light seems to be dying...
is it worth it to keep that hope lit...

is it worth it, to give, and not take...
to savor wantonly, to only window shop...
to stand watching the setting sun by the choppy waters of versova...
and tell that fireball slowly sinking into the Arabian waters...
"I do not know whether it's all worth it or not...
but untill I see you again tomorrow...
i'll keep thinking it is."

PILLION........India takes a ride.

Bhopal.


I have often wondered in amazement and amusement at the way people improvise the backsides of their vehicles to suit their travel needs. Marriage party...? Well, 10 people can easily squeeze in on the backside of an auto rickshaw. Commercial carrier...? The best place for a laborer to sleep is atop the iron rods, marble slabs, and concrete loaded on the truck. Gotta carry a huge barrel of water on a cycle...? No problem...will fit in creatively. Ganpati Visarjan....oh, oh...forget it...the sky's the limit...! With a highly co-operative traffic police by our sides, our population devices novel ways of using their vehicles' backsides.
I have been capturing these visuals for years now, armed with my faithful IXUS, and now, share some funny, some dangerous, and some outright bizzare ways that our country takes a ride in...!  

The Sun that shines within.

Got up in the morning to find the heaven's still crying...this morning...their eyes out. At 10 in the morning, the light outside was deceptively grim...it could well have been 6.30 in the evening, or 5.50 in the morning. Found the whole household pining for sunlight...their moods, as dark as the weather outside. And since I am somewhat of a (I feel) protagonist straight from out of a Patricia Highsmith novel....my mind lit up at the thought of sitting by my little balcony, and watching it pour, maybe, with a few mugs of beer post my morning coffee. With alacrity, I rushed to my music system, made it vomit out the dvd that I must have inserted a few nights back, and inserted a Zakir Hussain-Hariprasad Chaurasia marathon, that fills up the drawing room right now. A downpour outside, and music cascading down the system in my apartment.

 An Equal Music.

Some moments in life, are perfect. They are not necessarily moments when you have taken the last shot of a film, or got your fat paycheck, or got the news of you having been nominated for one of the umpteen awards floating around in the Industry....

Instead...these moments occur more when you can not describe why they occurred when they did. That perfect moment could happen while sipping a South-Indian filter coffee at Bru, it could occur while tapping your fingers on the steering wheel of your vehicle, waiting for the endless jam to begin crawling,  it could happen to you while aimlessly walking the corridors of an air-conditioned mall...or, like today...it could happen to you when you get up in the morning to realise that in this grim and wet day...you have the luxury of staying put inside the safety and warmth of your little apartment, your sanctum...and spending the day as you like...doing this, that...or best...nothing.

Yes...this IS a perfect moment. Thank you, God, for this gift of Life. 

A Thousand Words.

Divinity.

Some moments leave you speechless. This, was one of those. I was making my way up the cobbled,  winding lanes of the stunningly beautiful island in the Aegean...Mykonos, when, just to see how much I had climbed, I just turned my head back. And lo and behold....this is what I saw. My initial reaction was, not to shoot this moment. It was so beautiful, that even a Hassleblad could not do it justice. But then, I involuntarily picked up my semi professional camera...and took the shot...just one shot, before sinking the magical moment in, and continuing my ascent.
Moments like these,  cement your belief in God.


Shot on 50D, edited in Aperture.

A Thousand Words.

Language of Light.


Vaguely remember having taken this one. Three pegs down, this was my state of mind when I shot it, standing by a busy roadside somewhere in Bangalore. The random shake of the camera, coupled with a(around) five second exposure resulted in this formation of streaks of light...almost making it look like a freehand signature with an underline. Next morning, when I was going over the previous night's experiments...I was in for a decent surprise.


Shot on 50D, edited in Aperture.

A song that haunts.

The lyrics, the voice, the melody...everything aside..this song, for me, transcends the screen and straight enters my heart whenever I see or hear it. In fact, whenever I see or hear it...I FEEL this song.

That's it's raw power. Uff...! How much I would have loved to be 25 in the late 70's, early 80's....no cell phones, no Coffe Days, no comps, no Toyotas...only our home grown Ambasadors, Fiats, BEST buses....and handwritten letters.

A Thousand Words.

FAR(to)GO.


Stuck in a sudden blast of heavy snowfall with a film unit in Manali's Holiday Inn...I shot this one from the hotel's cozy bar. No, was not getting drunk, but was instead chalking out the strategy for an emergency exit from out of the Mousetrap that we had found ourselves in. Talking about Mousetraps...yes...now when I think of it...the setting was perfect for a juicy Agatha Christie to unfold in real life...a film unit stranded in a plush, warm hotel...inches and inches of snow blanketing the world outside....tempers flying high amongst the crew...the totally inaccessible hotel fast running out of diesel for it's generators...and a MURDER most foul.....!! Hmm....food for thought...


Shot on Canon IXUS, edited on Aperture.

Making it in Mumbai...

The moment I begin feeling that I have, kind of, "made it" here in Mumbai.....this amazingly impersonal city shows me the mirror, at once, putting me in my place. I agree that 'making it' is quite a relative term...and can not have any particular definition...but I also feel that, at least in our (film) industry...there are people who have 'made it'. Am I talking people like Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan...? Well...those are the kind of people who are beyond contentions and competitions of any sort and kind...instead, I talk about the more real ( I definitely think the lives of the kin of the above mentioned people are surreal) and flesh and blood people who constantly run neck and neck with each other to reach their respective El Dorados....people who comprise of the directors, cinematographers, editors, sound recordists...even aspiring and 'struggling' (why is term only restricted to actors, I often wonder...?! Is it too difficult to find a struggling DoP..?!) actors. When I talk about 'making it' here...I mean people of this clan and class. Of course, even here, there is a Hirani, there is a VVC, there are the Ravi Chandrans and Binod Pradhans....there is, of course, our very own Mr. Pokutty....but here...in this strata of professionals....I feel a palpable rat race of people who desperately want to 'make it' here in Mumbai.

Only...the moment one thinks he has made it...suddenly, a mirror pops up from nowhere to show him the reality.

No...at least I have not 'made it' here in Mumbai...yet.

A Thousand Words.

An Accident at Hill Road.


Took this one on a stunningly overcast day, somewhere near Panvel, where we were shooting a commercial for a particular brand of  tractors.  The turtled vehicle is, in fact, one of the convoy of tractors we were using. In his excitement of giving us the shot fast, the driver reversed the bulky tractor with such speed, that it spiralled right out of his control and into the lush field by the road.  The scarecrow on the left of frame made the whole scenario more ominous, making all the scenic beauty around the scenario, surreal and paradoxical.

Shot on Canon IXUS, edited on Aperture.

A Thousand Words.

A View to a Hill.

                                                             
I have already published this album of mine, one picture a day, on Facebook some months earlier. I do it here again on my blog, albeit, with some more details about each photograph.

This one, of the Acropolis in Athens, was taken from the rooftop bar of the hotel I was staying in. Needless to say, two beers down, the magical view appeared even more so. One of those moments which will remain etched in my mind...forever.

Shot on Canon 50D, edited in Aperture 3.

From personal diary to a web blog.

So there, my netizen friends....here I am too...arriving late..but arriving anyway. Do I hear trumpets, crackers, thunderous appalauses...? Well, all I can say is...I am touched.

Why am I finally retiring my old, worn diary and pen and flipping open the lid of my Mac to tap tap my thoughts and ideas to all the world...? Is it about seeking fame, or friends...? Appreciation, or understanding...?

As of now...I don't know. And maybe as I slowly sink deeper and deeper into my blogging life, I figure it all out, and in the process, begin to understand myself better....but as of now, I just don't know. What do I want to achieve with this blog? Why should I give it any time...? Why do people blog, and blog, and blog...? Well, I certainly have no experience right now about blogging myself, but having read umpteen blogs by now, I do feel that blogging is a damn good way of creating your own world...your own way. A little island of your own...a sanctum to which you can turn to anytime...and in this 3G era...anywhere. Yes...in a mad life in a mad city...maybe this sanctum is required.

Why have I titled it 'One Life at a Time..' ? Well, because the title just floated in, and then cemented itself  in my subconscious. Another question to which I do not have any answer. But then, like I said, maybe this exercise is all about finding all the answers..well...not all....but, you know...