photography...

photography (noun) the art and technology of producing images on photosensitive surfaces, and its digital counterpart.

Photography was a hallowed art once, with seasoned practitioners, who perfected their art over the years. Every town had one or two famous studios where one used to get their photos clicked. Ah! What an occasion that used to be! There would be a tinge of thrill in the air when the people got ready to go to the studio. Carefully selecting their attire, powdering their noses, meticulously parting their hair, adjusting bindis, oiling moustaches... And once at the studio, trying to strike the perfect pose, while the photographer adjusted the lights to bring out that perfect photograph, after umpteen looks at the studio mirror to ensure that no strand of hair stood out of place.

It was probably a curious art form earlier, when the photographer vanished behind a huge camera, under a blanket, to click those exceptional black and white photographs of yore. Stately princes with their kills, royals in all their jewelled splendour, temples and palaces which seem to be stuck in a black and white time though the world was as colourful as it is now. (Little secret: I find it hard to imagine my ancestors in colour till this day! They will always be the black and white image of themselves which I glanced upon sometime)

Then there was the era of the family hand-held camera. Those little gadgets which accompanied families on outings, wrapped in a soft cloth. It revolutionized photography, much like when the Indian economy was opened. It meant that anyone could be a photographer & you could treasure the memories of your trips forever in a hard bound album. But as rolls came with only 24 or 36 shots, it took careful consideration & calculation to ensure that you had a photo of the best moments of the trip. There was not a photo to waste!

And then came the digital cameras. Bulky apparitions to begin with, but they got sleeker with time, and bulky again - to support more features. They sounded the death knell for small photo studios & analog cameras. And now with cameras in every mobile, there is not an ounce of privacy left in anyone's life! You never know when someone will point a camera in your face & pop a picture! A candid moment...

But somehow instead of making photography enjoyable, digital cameras have taken the joy out of it. You don't treasure your photographs, you don't love your cameras - because you are too busy looking for upgrades, you don't remember your trip because you spent the whole time either taking pictures or posing for them!

The number of photos you can take in a digital camera is virtually infinite. As soon as your memory cards start getting loaded, all you got to do is transfer all the photos to some web album, and you are ready to start fresh again!

What has happened though now is when 10 people go on a trip, at least half the members carry a digital camera, and each one will upload 500 odd photos. Compare this with the times when a group had to adjust with just one analog camera and means only for 24/36 photos! So now at the end of our trip, we have 2500 odd photos & a mild headache going through them & no one really wants to see them again a few years down the line.

So has technology really improved our lives? Or are we just using things just because they are available to us, falling into a bottomless pit as we do so? Of course, all these advances in technology means that we get a lot better photographs than we used to, we have access to all our photos at any time, we don't have to wait for a week for the photos to be developed, we can reorganize albums as we wish...

At the end of it all, just one moment stands out in my mind. I was in a theatre in Pune, on screen a father and son were walking on the breakwater towards the sunset while the mother stood on the shore with a newborn. When they reach the end, the father realizes that he has forgotten to bring his camera along & now it’s too late to turn back and fetch it as they would miss the glorious sunset. So he kneels down next to his little son and tells him that they can’t photograph this moment, "Remember it always. Remember that you and I made this journey and went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go"

The photo was etched in our memory forever...

blast from the past...

Do you know the feeling when you have a song stuck in your head & just cant get it out? Well, I've had my fair share of absolutely ridiculous numbers playing on and on for days together in my mind, so much that every time I open my mouth to hum a song, I subconsciously sing that same irritating tune!

The last few days, I've been humming this song we wrote in the 7th standard! I have no idea how it found its way back to my conscious mind. Here is how it goes (Yes! I actually remember the lyrics from a song written for a school play over 13 years ago - though I cant go grocery shopping without a list!):

Trees, the beautiful trees,

they give us all that we shall need,

wood for furniture,

fruit for our dessert,

leaves for medicine,

& yet we're hard to please,

we cut them down without mercy,

as pretty as we please,

oh! what a beautiful world,

ours would have been,

if only each of us,

plant a tree within!

Maybe it's because of the Earth Hour this evening...

the end of an era...

It’s quite amazing how people & places become so intricately involved that it’s hard to imagine one without the other. The adaptability of living beings is unquestionable. In no time people adapt to their surroundings & acquire characteristics specific to particular places. But have you ever thought that places may be influenced by the people that live in them? That it could be hard to imagine a place as you knew it, once the person attached to that place moves somewhere else?

There is a great void in one area for me, now that my friend who used to live there has moved. On my way back, after seeing him off, I found myself involuntarily humming Md Rafi's "chale the saath milke, chalenge saath milkar, tumhe rukna padega meri aawaaz sunkar...". He had moved many times within that area, but this is different. All those eat outs, chai joints, the places we tramped about together will no longer be the same, & no one may ever know. But to me, it will all be as alien as it was before he introduced me to it. How can I forget the first time I parked my new bike, fresh out of the showroom, at his doorstep, the first time I saw the sunset from the temple hill, the first time I had that soup on the road corner...

Though he would spend more hours per week in my room than his, he still leaves an unforgettable imprint on his area. Of course, he influenced the colours of my walls too, there may be no more enthusiasts left for terrace cricket anymore nor anyone to accompany me to dabba movies with an unparalleled zest in the run down theatres of my locality, but now there will be no one to call for directions, the next time I'm lost in that jungle of an area of his, no one to tell me about the new places open there or unbelievable offers!

I'm sure as kids we all had favourite spots in our homes. Places where we could be happy, where we could be sad, where we could laugh & everyone would know, where we could cry & no one would know, where we hid things, where we curled up when we were scared, places which smelt good, places which let us stretch our hands to catch the drops of the first rains... All these places too acquire a distinct character. Yours. Your parents would probably look at these places when you are away from home, & try to imagine how it felt when you were there...

There is a joy in knowing a place, its lanes, its shortcuts, to be able to warn your friends about the speed breakers & potholes on the road in the dark, which tea stall will be open till what time, when the baker bakes his bread, which barber gives you value for money... When a person moves from a place, you lose a source of so much information! We also lost the ration point, where we stored all our eatables before a trek. There will be no more stops in front of that house. But every time I pass in front of those places, I will remember. I will remember the stars shining brightly in a dark, cloudless night sky, when us friends would try to point out constellations to each other on the terrace, I will remember the aroma of the dosas as they came out fresh from the kitchen of our local food joint, I will remember the comfortable silence as we killed time sipping tea on the steps of the tea stalls, I will remember the empty roads as I returned to my place late at night after dropping my friend to his room, I will remember his eccentricities & his stubbornness & I will miss the love we had for laziness typified by our dishevelled looks & unkempt hair!

Change is good & change is necessary, I can understand his pursuit of happiness. Maybe I'm a little sorry that I'm still in this hole, sad that I have not managed to chase the dreams of change which I cherished. I am now reminded of a time, which seems so long ago, when someone said to me "There is nothing in Goa, make your life elsewhere" & me thinking "Everything is in Goa"...

the joy of walking...

Don't worry, I've not begun liking my bike any less! Your first bike always feels like your first love. Better, actually! The understanding between you always grows & there are a whole lot more people involved in your 'kodak' moments! But coming back, when was the last time you actually took a long walk by yourself? No cellphone, no ipod, no conversations, no camera, no destination. Just you...

I'd quite forgotten how a nice walk feels, until I had an opportunity recently to bury my worries for some time. And I'm not talking about a exercise kind of walk, nor a gruelling trek, but just a simple leisurely stroll on the streets. An aimless wander really.

You'd be amazed at the million things you miss when you zoom by on an automobile, things which can be noticed when you have no other thoughts in your head, no agenda for the journey. There is a strange joy in getting lost without knowing where you were headed in the first place!

Leaving your phone, watch & cash behind before you set off not only means you cant be mugged, but also that you will learn to appreciate these things more when you have them! Maybe you could carry some cash for a cup of tea on the way somewhere, that would be royal!

The footpaths & lanes in our country are about as colourful as they come. The wares, hoardings, signs, wild flowers all create a riot of colours along your way.

And noisy too! Hawkers peddlings their goods, mehanics busy with their racket, carpenters sawing away at huge logs of wood, marble and granite slabs being polished.

Old Hindi songs waft on the cool breeze to my ears. I can picture Dev Anand crooning "Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya...". I hum the eeriely melodious tune as I skip onto the cobbled path from the tarred road.

That is the other constant for someone walking here. Change. You cant keep walking on the same surface always. The footpath you were walking on gets blocked by some poor soul trying to sell something to make a living or some drunkard who is lying in your way after drowning his sorrow in too much alcohol, if you were on the road then you either come up against vehicles parked right under "no parking" signs or the oncoming traffic which forces you onto the cobbled path, which is invariably dug up by the municipality a few feet ahead!

Best part is you get to overhear people conversing! A constable standing outside the fire station scaring a kid with his old rifle, a driver complaining to another about his mother-in-law, a child pestering his mother for a soda, two little girls sharing an ice cream & their lovely smiles!

You may also get some company along the way as a stray dog or two decide to get some exercise & join you in your excursion, atleast till the end of their territory, where another stray greets them with a growl! They are good company, neither judging nor demanding. Sometimes they try wooing other dogs being walked by their owners, and if you are lucky you get to flash a helpless grin at the pretty girl walking her dog!

You cant expect to take a walk without coming across any cows. They come in all sizes and colours, with their shiny black noses glistening in the sun. They'll be sleeping, standing, chewing cud, flapping their ears & whipping their tails to keep the irritating flies away or just harassing the local vegetable vendor for their maamool. The more domesticated ones smell like dry hay in a warm summer.

If you happen to come across them lying down after a long time into your walk, their large, soft, fuzzy belly begins to resemble a nice cushion to curl up on, even if it is the road you are on!

I suddenly realize that I'm not a kid anymore and neither do I weigh what I used to! Any attempt to catch a few winks on a cow's tummy would only invite a kick or head butt now, unlike my childhood days. Its the little calves that hold my attention. With drooping eyelids from a drowsy late afternoon siesta disturbed by a curious onlooker or bounding behind their mothers, their innocent expressions make me feel like squeezing them hard in an embrace till their mothers give me a stern glance maybe! Then I could run for my life!

The gentle breeze makes the old leaves come tumbling out of the big trees along the roadside as I continue my walk. As there is no place I'm headed to, I stop ever so often to admire the bloom in someone's garden, to see the water leaking from pipelines, kids playing cricket in the lanes, some foreigners who had found a home in this mellee, the orange tint on the west face of the clouds.

Along the way, you will know when to turn back. There will always be a sign, you just need to notice it. As the orange of the clouds turned to red, I knew it was time to head back as light would fade soon & walking in the dark was not very appealing...

I offer a silent prayer as I pass a small temple, for the ability to be able to roam freely and enjoy my journey. The idol of God within the sanctum sanctorum looks resplendent just with the flowers that have been offered. The priest offers an aarti culminating the evening prayers. The smell of camphor drifts onto the road. The beauty of the moment touches that pure part of my soul which we seldom realize we have.

I reach my room just as the last of the birds heading home wish each other goodbye. I am tired, but in a good way. It is an exhaustion that cannot be brought on by any kind of work, an exhaustion which gives rise to sound sleep filled with dreams of the wonders I've just witnessed.

There is a joy in walking which cannot be matched by anything...

who we are...

I thought a good way to start my blog would be with a little reminder of who we are.
Nothing defines us better than our national anthem & our national song.

Despite all the controveries kicked up for political mileage about these songs, they still remind me of my school days, of innocence, of the feeling of pride every time a thousand voices united to sing one song at the morning assembly, even if we did not understand what it meant to us back then.
Now that I can understand the meaning behind the words, these songs seem even more beautiful to me.

I hope the songs given below, and my literal translation of the same, force you to spare 2 minutes from your hectic schedule to remember who we are and where we come from.
And if they fail to rouse the same patriotic spirit in your hearts like back in your school days, know that something is missing. Something is wrong.

The onus to set it right is upon you.

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O dispenser of India's destiny, you are the ruler of the minds of all people,
your name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, the Maratha country,
the Dravida country, Utkala and Bengal,
it echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
it mingles in the pure waters of Yamuna and Ganga,
they chant your name, they seek your blessings,
they sing the glory of your victory,
O dispenser of India's destiny, the salvation of all people is in your hands,
Victory to you!

Jana gana mana adhinayaka jaya he
Bharata bhagya Vidhata
Panjaba Sindh Gujarata Maratha
Dravida Utkala Vanga
Vindhya Himachala Yamuna Ganga
Ucchala jaladhi taranga
Tava shubha name jage
Tava shubha ashisha mage
Gaye tava jaya gatha
Jana gana mangala daayaka jaya he
Bharat bhagya Vidhata
Jaya he jaya he jaya he
Jaya jaya jaya jaya he!

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I bow down before you mother,
rich With flowing waters,
rich with wonderful fruits,
with sandal scented winds,
dark hued with the harvest crops,
O mother! I bow down before you,
your moonlit nights are joyful,
you are adorned with trees in bloom,
ever smiling, speaking sweet languages,
blessing us with happiness, O mother!
I bow down before you mother!

Vande Maataram
Sujalaam
Suphalaam
Malayaja sheethalaam
Shashya shyamalaam
Maataram, vande maataram
Shubhra jothsana pulakitha yaminim
Phulla kusumitat drumah dala shobhinim
Suhasinim, sumadhura bhashinim
Sukhadaam varadhaam, maataram
Vande Maataram
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