Digging for Meaning

The Volvo (not just your average bus) screeched to a halt somewhere between here (Gurgaon) and there (Kasol) in the middle of the night (didn't bother to check time, it was somewhere around hungry time). The screech  put the dhaba waiters into accelerated motion. Towel on the shoulder, slippers under the feet. Hands busy waving away the flies. Eye roving compulsively and furiously over the fat contingent vomited out of the bus, straight into the washrooms. The washrooms lacked soap. (there perhaps was something that resembled a soap near the wash basin, but one can't be sure.) But that didn't deter us to go order food in the restaurant after visiting the washrooms. At a distance, there were 3 portly men. One sitting, the other two were standing. They were intently avoiding each other's gaze. If accidents of timing made one catch another's gaze, both ended up smiling profusely with wild hand gestures. One can only surmize that the gestures were theatrical acts of ...

Evening time. Delhi domestic airport. As many people in casual clothes as suit & ties - upcoming long weekender crowd. Travelers were forming a queue at Terminal no. 12. Usually, hawk eyed travelers keep a look out for incoming inconspicuous elbows and the wily side steppers. But it was different this time. Many were sheepishly staring towards someone. But only briefly. They would consciously then reign in their gaze, back into forward nothingness. The curiosity was overwhelming their resolve though. The heads would turn ever so slightly back towards this one person. People desperately were trying to feign indifference. The man in question was a short guy with a slightly largish head. His skin seemed like a battle ground. His hair was colored dirty bronze. Another person with him had just left. He had touched the celebrity's feet before leaving. No doubt the celebrity is used to people fawning around him. The celebrity in question was a famous comedian. His movies are larg...

(This is a ridiculous travelogue - real experience fantasized for no good reason.) The Aurora factory This is a magical factory. It comes into being only once in a blue-green sky. One can't reach it with a map. What you need is a recipe of luck. I don't know the exact recipe, but i have a fair idea of it's ingredients.  you need -  1. Good warm pajamas 2. A belt (to hold the pajamas in place) 3. A bicycle with 2 happy tyres (The factory goes invisible if one tries to see it through car windows.) 4. A equal partner in crime 5. A town in arctic with bridge over lakes 6. An alarm clock that is able to wake you up at 4 am 7. 3 hours of sauna the day before ( to have red enough eyes. it's a must. it acts as a sort-of filter that makes visibility of magical things easier. ) 8. Loads of luck.  Armed with all these things, we woke up the third time (once at 12, then at 2, then at 4) and stepped out of our warm warm cabin in Kemijarvi. Let me sho...

I am surprised at myself - at my surprises and the lack of its reflections. Its been 2 days since I came from Finland, my first visit to Europe. While going through my photographs and videos of the trip, I was surprised by the total absence of pictures of life in Europe. Finland surprised me with the beauty of its people. It was in their upright walk, their immaculate dresses, their ever present smile, the amazingly helpful nature and sheer handsomeness. It was in the many lakes, the crisp air and the one might-be-aurora miracle of nature on the norther horizon. It was in the beautiful architecture of its old (new by Parisian standards thought) buildings, its nordic walking/ biking citizenry and so many more things. And it is exactly these very things that I have not photographed at all. Well, yes, I am not very comfortable taking pictures of unknown people - I feel it is amoral to take pictures of others without their knowing, and even if they know, publishing it online withou...

Holiness What does it mean to be holy? Is it supreme happiness? Is it an ability to help others? Is it clairvoyance? Is it wisdom? Is it purity & unity of thought and action? Is it an ability to influence? What is holiness? At Kee monastery, we met these wonderful monks. Most of them have spent their entire lives here. The one with halo hails from Kibber. He has been a monk here since he was a kid. He had such an infectious and ready smile, it was hard not to smile along. He was curious about us. His curiosity was ego less. He was down to earth and unassuming.  The first time I saw the halo in the picture, I thought it couldn't be. Perhaps, its just a lens flair. Or is my doubt, stemming from my ego - that holiness must have accompanying grandeur. Flair or no flair, there is certainly something for me to learn here. Perhaps holiness exists in the rank of men and women - people like us. Its in their acceptance of themselves, that they find their holines...

To travel is to escape.... My mind was completely empty and my body was cold. It was an early summer afternoon in Leh and i was sitting by the steps of a monastery. I was an empty shell with big eyes, simply intent on taking in all that was there; and there was so much beauty and peace there to take in: Colorful fluttering flags, old women chatting conspiratorially at the other end, monks gesticulating to each other furiously, an India soldier checking out his camera pics, two young women talking to someone else on their cell phone and laughing secret laughs... A monk passed by and suggested me to come see the monastery from inside. I had a bag with me and needed to keep it somewhere safe before i enter. That's when i noticed the person sitting just 2 steps below me, with the intention of keeping my stuff there under his watch. I thought it was a young white boy. I tapped his back. a little too forcefully perhaps, because it was actually a french girl. i did an 'excuse ...

While taking out the battery charger out of the camera bag, I noticed that sand was embedded in it. Well, the last time i went anywhere with sand was mui ne beach in Vietnam. But then I saw some sand in the old camera bag too? it was different and sure couldn't be from Mui ne, because I was using other bag then. May be pushkar from last year? may be mcleodgunj, may be some other beach that I went to and forgot.  Travel :D

Camera. Its an amusement park packed into a small box really. Holding it by its grip transforms the world around. At times, it turns me into a detective out to capture secrets of the world no one was supposed to known. Most other times, after clicking the camera on, I recede into inconsequence to the surrounding. Much like fishing, I do not stir and I consciously remove myself from the life of the world moving by. I wait and I move slowly. The act of anticipation is so beautiful, its almost meditative. But then the pictures I tend to take are anything but striking. While taking the picture, I do not attempt at crystallizing a metaphor of life in a frame, or even to depict a representation of some facet of life. I just try to remember through my camera how awesome the life is. So more often my videos are like photographs (still and intent) and my photographs are like videos (not restricted to just one element, context included). With my camera, a sort of calm stillness fills me. I e...

It never seizes to wonder, the flight. Up up and away! :D (Yes that's actually how my face looks like throughout the flight) (The first time I flew early morning towards Leh, I couldn't restrain my glee. My hands clutched at the handle not with fear but with hope to tame down my excitement. I would strain my neck to see out of the window. I couldn't help but laugh out loud with helpless blameless happinesss pouring out through my being. Well, many delays and lay overs later, the same excitement grips me on every single flight still.) Within moments you leave all that you have known. People shrink to impossible insignificance of small ants. Big imposing sky scrapers look like lego sets. As you peer down, you skip by distances so swiftly as if you have grown giant limbs and they are so far below that you can't feel them. Jumping over buildings and roads, my imaginary feet running with easy strides. And then comes the best part of it all. The clouds. :D Passing and...

Bagsu, Vietnam Traveling is a kind promiscuity. Cheating your homeland, escaping to lovely bosoms of beautiful strange lands. Wild euphoria and sudden disenchantment. heady love and stinging loneliness. promises of coming back, and promises of giving back. Gokarn, Pushkar Traveling is an escape. Running to an unknown face, running away from the older known ones. Alone and with everybody. The warmth of unprejudiced smiles. An attempt to bear no mask. or to wear one of your choice, not somebody else's. A relief of not having to rebel every time you want to breath. Himalaya Treks, Ladakh Traveling is to return to your self son of the ground and the sky. The air is you.  insignificant. but integral. everywhere, a nomad. alive and about. Clear free.

"A favourite pastime in summer is watching the sand dunes whirl and inch their way right through the twisting narrow streets of the old town, to exit back into the desert again." so says an article in Outlook. Must sit there, roll a joint and stare out at the desert again. Pushkar had its charm, but I have never yet given deserts it due. I must spend some time in awe of the magnificent Thar soon. Reminds me of the lovely, dreamy movie 'road,movie' . Its not a movie actually. Its a dreamscape on celluloid. Watching it felt like watching ' 2001, a space odyssey ' when high. Its feels like flying in infinity. over vastness. being part of something great yet being just a mr. nothing. The vast expanses of dry land and blue skys. What a movie.

Watched Werner Herzog's 'white diamond' now. every time i see this man's movies, its as if a call. the movies are a beacon to me. beacon to a way i should be living my life. I have written about him here . I am in awe of him and for the first time in life, my hopes and aspirations are taking clearer shape in my mind thanks to his movies, to his lingering nimble gaze, light and studious. the perfect student. the traveler. Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.- Pierre Teilhard De Chardin Its about time. 

Eggs! fried. and as our canteen wallah guy Subhash puts it.. 'Palti maar ke'. Divine. :D Well, i am poorer for the lack of MICA mess now. But that doesnt mean, I am going to give up on a dream of everyday sumptuous breakfast. well, even if I were to make my own breakfast, where would i arrange the greens, the portable fan, spacious airy verandah and fellow revelers of a leisurely breakfast? The single most important thing that bothers me in my current stint at mumbai is breakfast. its not loneliness, its not commutes, its not crowds, it not absence of winter (but, what the duck! how can a place have no seasons :( i want winter! ), its BREAKFAST. or the lack of it. Double fried eggs come in my dreams. dreams of past breakfast. The one on goa beach a year ago. while the rest of my friends were still zonked out, i stole away on our rented Activa to a beach nearby to a Portuguesey named restaurant with open patio facing the beach. the wind would suddenly pick up at time and snatch...

tea. 1. sitting in cafe desert rain, sipping on that apricot tea on a lovely afternoon. with the spoon i swerve the warm concoction. the little apricot pieces play waltz with tea leaves in it. its cold, but sun's rays stream in through the wide open windows. there's a bunch of local kids sitting around, being cool, chilling. some one is playing a guitar. i am 'mainland' indian, so not many people are interested in me. But my companion is french, so she receives warm smiles. She is eating her favourite cookie. i must admit, its quite something. But I prefer sipping on some more varieties of teas before devouring those cookies. Someone just came in having trekked the stok-kangri. we shake hands and swap stories. we laugh at our different accents - german, marathi, english, french - and ensuing miscommunication. 2. A 12 km stretch to a remote village in ladakh wasn't really a road. but no one told us. with the trusty pulsar, we trudged on steep slopes, dangerous ...

As a photographer, i work towards being a good voyeur. photographs as true portraits of the story. i try not to edit the pic far too much. I hate it when some photographers increase the contrast indiscriminately. there should be a politics to your actions. taking an arbitrary photograph of a poor person and then with increased contrast and sly cropping, trying to make the image say things it does not. its not honest. i had lately begun to appreciate video for this more. video with the evidence of continuity makes it a little more difficult for manhandling the story of the images. For the last 2 years since i started learning photography, I have categorically avoided taking portraits of people: picture of people posing, and picture of people voyeuristically. The problem with the pose: Pose reeks with obscene pre occupation with oneself - or from a wider view - with self importance of the homo posers. With digital photography, now any person who is moderately well to do, will have thousa...