C-Metro v/s. D-Metro

Being a middle-class ordinary girl in Kolkata, metro rail has been a part of my daily existence - not just to save money but to save time. After going to Delhi, I still remained that same middle-class ordinary girl but the reason to travel by metro was exactly the opposite - it was not to save time, but money.

So, in those sixty minutes of my travel every day, I started analyzing it.. rather comparing the C (Calcutta) metro with the D (Delhi) metro. Strange it might seem to you but my observations are quite decent.

Let’s begin with the ticket. In Kolkata, you buy a ticket as in a paper card, punch it and cross the gate. And you’re up on the train. No more formalities. In Delhi, you buy a ‘token’ from the TICKET COUNTER and then pass through a metal-detector machine to reach the next level where the guard is waiting to ‘check’ you.

So, here we are.. back to the platform of Kolkata metro. One metro line, one platform and two tracks on both sides of the platform, but Delhi has several lines (you name a color, they have a line with that name), tracks in between and platforms on the sides. Sometimes matching the line-color with the destination station will make you miss some three trains (that’s the least). In Kolkata, you miss a train, they make you wait for one tenth of an hour (okie 6 mins.), Delhi is fast.. trains come every 2mins. and cause a traffic jam before every three stations. ‘Bade bade seher-o mein aisi choti choti baatein hoti rehti hai’.

Trains doesn’t stop in Kolkata (on duty hours).. never.. until you jump and commit suicide on the track (but those are weekly incidents, rarely happens daily). Interestingly, in the capital city, trains stop here, there, anywhere (and to compensate, the speaker says sorry to you after every 2 sentences).

In the city of the India Gate, its stylish.. Gorgeous white coaches, comfortable seats, exclusive ladies’ compartment, air-conditioned trains, speakers telling you what to do what not to do.. I wonder why there was no such announcement like “don’t pee in the train?”, I mean they gave almost every other ‘fatherly’ instruction like ‘don’t make friends with strangers’, ‘don’t touch unidentified toys’ (as if we haven’t learnt a lesson from the film Mr. India), ‘don’t listen to music’, and so on..

In Kolkata metro, they say nothing other than the name of the station that is next. Sometimes they even forget that. Also, there’s NO air-conditioner, no electronic station indicator, no ladies’ compartment and its all underground. I hope you’re not feeling claustrophobic :P

In a capacity of 100 people in a single coach, you won’t find less than 699 people in one compartment in a Delhi metro. Like you can’t even itch your butt, your hand might touch somebody else’s something else. Yeah. By chance if you keep your cell phone in your pocket on vibration mode, then my friend, either you have to enjoy or suffer that vibration till you reach the next station. It’s possible you’ll reach the station, but cannot possibly reach your own pocket in that situation.

Kolkata metro is the same, but unlike Delhi metro where most people are talking or staring or exchanging a glance (sometimes phone number, if he/she’s too fast, then flat number); in the city of Rosogollas, everybody is either talking non-so-sweet about politics or not talking at all. The only time a tolerant person opens his/her mouth in the train is when he/she tells the other person, “kindly do not raise your hand to hold the handle, I might just suffocate to death!”

The only thing that I found similar to both the cities is, when a little girl pukes in the train, everybody moves 3-hands away from her in less than one second, as if she is some suicide bomber. Not one person goes up to her and asks “Are you okay? You need water?” or may be JUST one person will. May be you’ll find such one lady in a lot of thousand and this sadness remains closed in the coaches of both the C metro and the D metro..

lost in a limbo

It was a dark blue night

I was sitting by my window

A wind came to me

Asked me my name

I looked at the moon

Wasn’t shining so much then

I spoke to the wind

As I never spoke till then

It asked me a wish

A wish that I long for

I sat there confused

Deciding what to ask for

Thoughts were running like rats escaping a trap

Discovering fancies that I never believed I have

Facing those secrets as dark as the night

Meeting the new me whom I was long trying to hide

Wind was waiting for my wish

One wish that I desire

But it left me with a thousand questions

Still shining in my head like the burnish of a sapphire

Solving the puzzle till now sitting by my window

Darker nights have passed while I was lost in a limbo !!

Le reverie

The time we spent together..

Was a fantasy, a sense of pleasure..

The time you were not there..

I collected those moments to keep them as my treasure..

The time when you held my hand..

I felt relieved and secured..

Now that someone else is holding it..

I wish the hand was yours..

The time I think of you..

I smile with tears in my eyes..

The time that I’m living now..

Will soon become another dream that dies..

The time I wish you’ll be back..

Are the times I suffer and cry..

Coz I know that’s a dream unfulfilled..

Which will cease and will soon become dry !!

the Pujas used to be fun

With those gup-shups round-the-corner.. and the crowd at Maddox..

Parking the car three miles away and walking with thousands to reach the pandal..

The Pujas used to be fun..

Coming back late and going out early, tiredness never used to come..

Sleepless nights and mindless talks, missing so much now and trying to re-live some..

Poking someone while giving anjali, fighting to touch Maa’s feet first..

Throwing the flowers on the pandit’s head and stealing sandesh from the thali..

The Pujas used be fun..

Dropping rumaal near a guy and pretending to move on, never sounded so cliché before..

Looking at the best dressed person around and quickly stealing the stare was full of masti and shor..

The Pujas used to be fun..

Eating phuchkas with extra mirchi gave so much pain the next morning..

Cribbing for more the next day again use to seem better than the last night’s mourning..

The Pujas used to be fun..

The food, fun and family, the life I used to share with my peers..

Those days I miss, I miss the most whenever I close my eyes for prayers..

The heart from within wants to be there.. there where my soul belong..

The mind still says, calms me down, gives me a new hope to live on !!

a rainy day

I wish this rainy day would have come in my life some 16 years back. At least I would have scored some brownie points for writing such an interesting essay when the exam paper asked for it.

Yes. You guessed it right. Today was ‘the’ rainy day of my life. So, how it started? Well, we planned for an all-girls food-fun-frolic outing today. It was a bright sunny day until those ‘kaale badal ki parchaiyan’ engulfed us. After coming out of the Pizza Hut, all we could see was one auto. It was raining cats and dogs and we – the stupid fools of the story were not carrying any umbrella with us.

Perfect Hindi-film scenario. One auto – five girls – heavy rains. Great excitement. One of the five fools started singing songs like ‘sawaan barse tarse dil..’ Till then it looked sober. We never, in our wildest dreams, visualized the near future.

When we reached the bus, our looks resembled to that of a drenched cat or may be a scare crow. Three girls got down from the bus and danced like heroines-on-the-road. Dance over – journey begins. Oh well, the moment we reached near the DRDO office, all we could see, feel and witness was water. More and more water. And more water. Lots and lots of water. People on the dark streets were standing holding the lamp-posts, cars were half-immersed under water, a few men were struggling to create holes on the walls for the outflow of water, gates thrashed by the force of water, buses not moving an inch and the rising water level raising the blood pressure of all those who were stuck.

Life is strange you see. When such serious and severe things are happening around you, you tend to find some really peculiar people to show you a complete different picture. Some Madonna-in-the-making kinda people starts singing rain songs, some 60’s ka predictable-heroine kinda people starts talking about burglars coming and attacking the bus, some panic-queen kinda people keeps shouting every now and then for any and every reason and some jadoo-type alien, anomalous person like me sits there staring at them predicting their next move. But even God couldn’t predict what happened next. A stupid-faced guy (in Bengali my word will be ‘kelane’) got down from the bus. Went near ‘the’ place where the water was flooding in its full force and started clicking pictures. Someone needed to remind him that DRDO was NOT the right kinda place for his picnic photography or his adventure photography (whatever his intention was). The cops catched him, snatched his phone and was just going to take him under custody when the great-guy came up with the greatest solution. He came back to the bus with an expression “Look, I won the battle.. Be proud of me people, I did it..” and he shouted with a face-full of smile, “you know, you know, I went there to click photographs..hehe hehe.. they saw me.. hehe hehe.. caught me.. hehe hehe.. snatched my phone and threatened to arrest me.. I just gave them my memory card and came..” and then the crowd goes, “hehe hehe..”

Oh well, it was some night. So many emotions I went thorough in a span of just 3 hours. Excitement, compassion, fun, fear, twinge, sympathy, glee, worry – too many to count. But at the end, it was a happy ending as we reached campus safely with a memory that will be etched in my mind for years to come.

few lines by me

If only I could tell you why the sky is blue,

Probably, you would have understood my feelings for you..

few lines by me

There are times, when I stay alone..

Moments, when I wanna stay on my own..

Life doesn’t give me that leisure so often..

Time doesn’t grant that liberty to happen..

Standing in the crowd I feel forlorn..

Craving for the space that I can call my own..

event photography

the fire within

Creature Zone

those

" innocent eyes "

a 10-shot story

Background: According to the Aide Memoire (the Bible for SIMCians), talking over the cell-phone in the Academic Block is a serious offence. Any student found performing any such act will be strictly prosecuted. This is the initial plot of my story.

shot one

shot two

shot three

shot four

shot five

shot six

shot seven

shot eight

shot nine

shot ten

Creature Zone

the

mirror effect

street photography

can the kettle call the pot black?

outdoor - on a rainy day

"through the glass window"

a full moon night

cold smoke

silhouette

frame in a frame

Perspective

"yeh duniya badi gol hai.."

Creature Zone

one of the prettiest spiders I have ever seen

Live and Xclusive ..

one fine day we went for the first field trip from our college.. hands-on experience of Live reporting.. the journalist in me got a mission as if.. so.. how is it going to be.. ideas ideas and more ideas.. the class was booming with innovative and exclusive ideas.. and then the Prof speaks - "let's go to some station and report on some blast".. her million dollar idea seemed as the most dumbest idea ever proposed by any homosapien..

the other alternative was to report on any

existing bomb-blasted spot..

thus came the name - German Bakery.. but 48 students, one location and that too the most high-alert area in the whole city.. isn't it kinda impractical thing to do.. but the master takes the call and the followers just listen..

location done, conveyance confirmed..

next morning started with aloo parantha and dahi.. at sharp 9am we left for the first-ever live reporting practice session of our life..

folks started the trip with antakshari.. a lot of noise and excitement was in the air.. I was jumping around in my purple converse shoes.. it was the inaugural day for my favorite pair..

the 48 were broken into three groups.. and I was the leader of one.. sounds so great.. leader.. not exactly.. it meant, if anything goes wrong, the authority will kick my a**..

destination German Bakery reached..

like the army-in-action, we got down from the bus.. located places for discussions and shooting..

and then came the most important question : permission?

public place - permission - police.. panga..

master went to police station with two followers..

second Saturday, no guard on duty.. no permission..

great.. tried taking permission from local guards..

they almost ran after us.. why?

well, one of the police men asked our master for permission letter.. ideally the master should

have said that we do not have a letter and further request.. but guess what the master said,

"who are you to ask for permission? do you have permission to patrol here?"

it triggered into a chaos.. from chaos rose confusion and confusion ultimately resulted into commotion..

plan b in action.. lets go near our college and shoot.. there we are the boss and don't need any permission.. I said, okie..

on the way, came a bike chasing us.. so filmy na? on the bike, two constables.. one of them ran onto our bus and sat in the cabin to have a little chit-chat about our trip..

next destination : Police Chowki..

what better can happen now?

luxury bus in a wrong lane.. wow.. that was the first new information of the day..

after a negotiation of about 44 minutes, we had no more doubt about the fact that it's not our day and none of the brightest ideas can work.. our glorious plan failed as that of mission Chandrayan I..

but we were not going to sing the song "khali haath aye the hum, khali haath jayenge....".. so we got down at a under-construction two-storied building near our college.. now comes the scene of imagination..

imagine this is German Bakery..

imagine you are on Ground Zero..

imagine the blast has just taken place..

imagine you're live-on-air reporting to the whole world..

and just like John Lennon's song, we kept on imagining..

Live reporting done..

after all this I just remembered Pablo Picasso's

famous line..

"Everything you can imagine is real"..

so, in that way, we successfully completed the first real Live reporting of our journalistic career.

back to school

after for about 5 long years, I felt like I was sitting in a school classroom today..

the feeling was kinda irritating but very enjoyable..

so.. why irritating?

well, the prof went on dictating, at every point, what to do and what not to do.. the endless list of do's and don'ts..

instructions like - look into your own copy, write 30 answers in 15 minutes, raise your hand up straight if you wish to answer, took me back to school..

on the other hand, it was thoroughly enjoyable.. we were listening to him without making a single sound audible to human eardrum..

probably today was the first time (out of school) when taking dictation seemed so much fun..

we were given exercises on nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc.. but it was such a relief for me as solving them is so easy now unlike it was in class 3..

the best part was identifying slang and vogue words..

I had no idea that words like slug, timeline, dateline, bottom line, guys, streamers can fall under the category of slangs..

It was all the more fun as before the class ended, he actually made us give a test saying that "attending Mr. *****'s class is not a game"..

Just like the Vicky of Small Wonder or the Tia of Remix, he says anything and everything about himself taking his own name..

any answer you say will be definitely wrong but he will still say "Good"..

Good does not mean you're correct but it means that he appreciates the initiative and the thought behind your answer..

the three things that you will have to have in his class - attention, interest and discipline..

he speaks like an army-man.. he uses words those are well-selected and hardly any that are wasted..

but nothing can beat the best that I ever heard from him..

"Mr ***** has a photographic memory.. Mr ***** will remember you even after 15 years as his eyes will click click click while panning and looking at all your faces.."

at the end of it, all that he will say is,

"I thoroughly enjoyed this session with you and I hope you did too.."

and this is what makes him loved by all.. his encouragement to the students and engagement with the subject..

such is his presence that even learning something like Style Sheet becomes so grand..

DARKLY, DEEPLY, BEAUTIFULLY BLUE..

SOMEWHERE, SOMEONE SINGS ABOUT THE SKY..

HOUSEFULL show in an empty hall

Hey i'm back..

After coming home and before my work begins.. i am making weird plans of checking out new places in town.. and guess what, the first target was a new multiplex that has opened in the extended part of Kolkata..

Yesterday we went to this place named Bioscope.. The person who accompanied me wanted to watch HOUSEFULL.. After we reached that place, we figured out that the mall was under construction but thankfully the halls were open..

Interestingly, the plexes were named as Cleopatra (theme - play), Aqua (theme - water) and 180 B.C. (theme - history).. and to add to the fun, HOUSEFULL was in 180 B.C...

Here lies the pun - in 180 B.C, women were wearing bikini and walking on the beach.. i mean in the movie.. sorry for the ppj (pathetically poor joke)..

By the time we entered the theater, the movie already started and we realized that we were the only two people in the whole hall.. [trust me, i am not exaggerating even one percent.. i can keep my hand on geeta and confirm (provided geeta has no prob)]

Then i asked myself - what the hell am i doing here?

The optimist side of my brain said - "wow, feeling like a queen !"

whereas the pessimist side interrupted saying - "stupid fool, you came for a movie which no one will see even if the tickets are for free.."

So, after an awfully awesome experiment.. I am going for an around-the-city tour with my cam.. a few good clicks and I will be happy !!

Things that are said, unsaid..

Rarely we meet people, who makes a mark in our life.. either their work, their behavior or they themselves, become so special.. their presence makes us forget time while their absence itself craves for their presence.. not always we tell them how we feel.. not always we thank them for being what they are.. until it's needed.. until we are questioned.. until they ask, "do I have any importance in your life?"..

Why ? Why can't we say things that are so trivial but are so necessary ? Why can't we let them know what they are to us and how they have affected our lives ?

Have you ever told your Dad, that I love it, when you come early from office and ask me "how was your day?".. everyday it must have happened, but YOU miss it if he misses the question even once! Have you ever told him, "I love to go out on a Sunday shopping and spend even the last penny in your wallet.." You must have forgotten to tell him or rather you thought, he knows it, what's there to say!

Did you ever tell your mom, "you cook awesome".. but you do complaint if by chance, there is a little less salt in the dal.. Did you ever tell your mom, "I love you for the sleep-less nights that you have spent on me when I had fever.. or I love you for waiting for me at dinner even if I come from office at late hours.." I am sure, this time too, you thought, "she's mom.. she knows it all.."

Have you ever told your best friend, "I love you for just being there.."
YOU must have thanked him/her for everything that he/she has done for you but is it that they will only get a 'thanks' only if they DO SOMETHING..

You must have failed to thank your lover when he came and waited for long, just to drop you home as you're unsafe going back alone.. Or when he stayed awake till late night as you called up to cry over the phone (any stupid or serious reason that might be)...

There are some people in each of our lives, who does not fall under the column of any 'relationship'.. when it comes to giving them any designation in your life, you tend to think, think and then fail to find any.. they are special and thus, few.. You must have forgotten to say 'thank you' to them for whatever contribution they have done in your life.. for their presence and their unconditional love.. for their time and their emotions that they are spending on you.. Someone said, "The best gift you can give someone is your time.. because once you give it, you can never get it back.."

Even I never Thanked anyone.. Thought that either they will understand or it's not needed.. But now that I have realized how important it is, I decided to write this post to thank all of them who matters to me.. who gave me everything without me even asking for anything, who made me feel different and special and above everything, who made me what I am today.. whose contributions are not just dependent on any "thank you" note.. but by saying THANK YOU, I wanted them to realize that I recognize them and their worth in my life !!

Politics is a part of people's psychology..

Politics is a part of every person’s life…
Often we talk - politicians are this, politicians are that… but there is a politician in all of us… each one of us… now you will ask me how and why the hell am I giving a statement like this… on what basis… so, here I go…
Be it in school, be it in college or be it at our work places (whichever field it might be)… we all do things that we point our fingers at, when we talk about politicians – first thing first, telling lies or giving fake promises; then comes covering goof-ups rather escaping situations and the most important thing, taking bribe or doing things to get something in return.
I know a lot of people will read this post and say “bull-shit”… “She thinks she knows it all…” but those who knows themselves and who are honest to their inner being will admit at least once, “It’s true, what she wrote... at least once I did it…”
Let’s start from the bottom - taking bribe or doing things to get something in return: what do politicians do, they either do constructive works to gain votes or not-so-ethical deeds to earn money… that’s it. Don’t we do anything un-ethical… take the daily, regular, not-so-important examples, in school days, we make our parents solve the toughest sum in the math chapter and go to class next morning claiming to solve the sum on our own to earn the praise of being intelligent… in college days, we don’t turn up in class due to the pre-fixed meetings with our lovers and tell our best friends to give a proxy, to earn that 1 percent extra attendance… in office, we tell our juniors to finish the work in the shortest deadline possible and proudly go and present the assignment in our name, after all I made that person do the work; not to mention, to gain appreciation and a promotion from the big boss… If not the returns are in cash or kind, we do tend to ask for love and affection when we give the same to someone… is it not a deal?
Then comes the story of covering goof-ups or escaping situations: every time there is a fight between two kids, one will blame the other or both will shrug off the incident to avoid the punishment… chintu broke my tiffin-box because his water-bottle fell from my hands… fight, fight, fight… who did what, is like the question of what came first, egg or hen? In college days (to be precise, in those days of attraction or crushes), we manage to get a four-figure phone bill and cover-up the issue convincing our parents how important it was to talk about those tough chapters or the inevitable group discussions on the phone… in office, we commit mistakes after every fortnight and tend to escape the situation by saying, “having too many problems in my personal life to concentrate on work”, “was involved in so many matters that one mistake is just so trivial” or if not anything then, “I’m a human being too, mistakes can happen”…
Let’s move on now where we started from… the first and foremost thing- telling lies or giving fake promises: see, there are just two reasons to the question- ‘why people lie?’… It’s either they can’t speak the truth (they lack the guts) or they like fake more than fact… no offence to anyone but some people say, “Fake it to make it”… no one person in the world is HARISHCHANDRA… in school, students lie about having their lunch when they dedicatedly skip it… kids lie after having fights till the time the class teacher informs the parents as to how well-behaved and no-nonsense kid the parents are blessed with… in college, we swear to our friends to spend the evening with them and then they find us sitting in a garden with ‘the’ one who often seems the world to us… we promise to ourselves not to get pathetic marks in history or mathematics and break that promise in the immediate next exam… and in office, all blunders come in a package with a lie… no lie is ever repeated as we become the master of lies and can instantly reproduce a new and improved lie within no time… be it being late in meetings, laptops getting crashed just before our undone, unfinished, incomplete presentations for which we spend some 23 sound-sleep nights (which should have been taken over by the sleep-less ones) or 101 reasons to persuade your boss to approve your ideas even if someone else’s suggestions are, by all means, better than yours…
This is why I feel we are good politicians and can do wonders in the blame-game when we land up in an argument about “what makes a good politician”… we point one finger at them, neglecting the reality that three of our own fingers are pointing towards us…

knock-out night in a news room

The sunday night started with a phone call... no, I'm not writing the story of One Night at a Call Centre... it's a knock out night in a news room...

It was around 8:39 in the evening when I got a call from Namy... sorry, forgot to introduce you with the protagonists of the story... KY, my collegue ; Namy, my senior and myself. Probably the first time Namy called me... Felt a bit nervous and scared to see her name flashing on my supercool touch screen phone... I murmured in my mind saying twice, "it must be a goof-up..it must be a goof-up for sure"... Picked up the call and a sweet, polite voice asked me, "are you busy?"... her avid and composed voice gave me a hint that it's something opposite to "err"... it was time for the next question, and there she goes, "can you manage to call someone to come to office tonight, there's only two people working for the night shift?"... I cool-ly agreed to come and immediately called up KY to join me... we reached office near around 9:47... lights were dim, bays were dark, people were invisible, dustbins were dirt-free, chairs were carelessly kept anywhere and everywhere and sitting on one such chair was Namy...

Greeting her brought me a lot of work immediately... there were literally a dozen stories to be done before the six'o clock bulletin... in the news room language, it was a busy day... Namy explained me and KY, the stories to be done and we soon started to play... yes, its play... usually the first two hours we play games (not the seniors though) and then we pull it off till late... by morning you feel fresh in spite of being devoid of sleep, still satisfied to finish work before half-a-second time of the bulletin...

Back to the flashback mode of the not-so-nice night... after completing the computer games with absolute failure, we started our work... slowly, gradually and peacefully we drew a close to our stories for the first show for the morning...

Then came the next chapter... five tapes in and out, the story was not available... News does not wait for time, but broadcast wait for visuals... it's the only option and weapon for them... and the visuals were invisible as the people in the night shift...

The visuals should ideally be ready by 4'o clock for the 6'o clock but none of the footages came... the dreadful journey to search and file new stories begins now (we said to eachother)... quite fast we got stories at least for the first few bulletins and then went to ingest (upload) visuals for the immediate show... it was 5:37 and we knew it will be done in 3 minutes untill we inserted the priceless tape (it was then, for the most urgent moment) and it got stuck... i repeat, STUCK... in the machine... our saviour, Mr. Machineman from the Systems came after a wait of a whole long 600 seconds (to be precise, 10 minutes)... he came, he checked and he took the machine with him... no problem, let him take the machine but hello, the tape was stuck inside... the package could not go for the 6'o clock bulletin... Though I knew the package can't walk (that it'll go) - we had to send it ; though I knew it was NOT our fault because it was technical glitch (that must have happened with the same machine for the 998th time) ; though I knew what has to happen will happen, but none of these reasons can change the fact that the package was not shown in the bulletin...

I did not want to go home in the morning after an unsuccessful night with a broken heart, so I stayed on... I stayed on till late and filed other stories that can go on air, stories that have visuals... Finally at around 10:36 am, I left the office with a tummy-full breakfast and a happy heart...

the latest deed

Fashion Photography... the latest photoshoot of mine... thanks to the college assignment, we were given the task of clicking animate and inanimate objects under studio lighting... one of the best experiences of my life... lets discuss the basics first... inanimate objects can be any non-living object on this earth and of course, model as in portrait photographs of human beings...

When I decided to shoot, I finalized on a paricular theme for my photographs which will show moods and expressions through lighting and composition...

The best moments are those in all the shoots is when you know your friends can't behave like models and give poses, they surprise you and rarely shocks you with their fantastic expressions...

Like this pic, this guy is famous as "one expressionless person" on campus; and guess what, I chose him as my model... why ? coz he's too good in basketball and "playful" was my theme... I knew he'll rock... the first few photos were like this... not even funny... but then I got 'the' expressions because I gave him situations and he reacted to them... the shutter went on clicking, and I got my final pic...

Then came my favourite model, who plays music and throughout the shoot she kept on playing on her own and din even had to pose for me coz it came naturally... few were funny and few were "the" ones that I am proud of !

My still picture costed me some 25 bucks and some 12 minutes... thrice i had to change the liquid bcause the color was not flowing in the liquid the way I wanted it to flow ! Finally, it accepted my request and as it says, " intezaar ka fal meetha hota hai ", it came as a nice pic ! See it yourself.

Got new offers to shoot a few more people's portfolio and I promise, mistakes won't be repeated then...

An expert in photography said that, good photographs are results of accidents i.e. u click a thousand pics and one among those 1000 will be a good pic... it does not depend on light, exposure, color and all that technical values... it depends on the final outcome of that one click...

For e.g. I took this photograph in the small cottages that were located behind my college hostel... these few kids used to play throughout the day and sometimes I used to go and meet them to play with them... I took this photo when they were studying... what I realised after almost 10 years of my life with my camera, that a photographer needs to have a very good rapport with the person who is being shot... be it a model or any other person... to take out the natural expression, they need to shed off their consciousness of the camera...make them comfortable enough to neglect the existence of the camera... only after that u'll get the best shots... this pic is quite close to my heart; firstly because its shows the innocent faces and real expressions of the children while they are studying and secondly, the faces go from sharpness to blur showing that the future will be blurred if there is no education...

unconventionally conventional

This post is special.... but why ?

because this post encapsulates our tour to Baripada - a self-sustained village in Maharastra, located three hours from Nasik... so, what was I doing at Baripada? shooting for our documentary film - SaNrAkShAn... Sanrakshan talks about the village Baripada and the person who made it... Sarpanch Chaitram Pawar....
We travelled 8 hours in a bus, 45 minutes on a loaded truck and walked for about 1 hour 25 minutes to be where we wanted to shoot our film... the beauty of the place cannot be construed through words... each and every thing of the place has got its own charm... the wonderful wells, the farming fields, the foxy flowers, the bewitching bees - everything is so pure, so pulchritudinous...the more you see, the more you get captivated and you tend to capture each moment, through your eyes or then through the camera lens...
some of the photographs I am sharing are those which are my favourites...

All of these photographs has subjects which are not unknown to us... but each of them have something to say, each picture phonates a thousand words...