22nd October was a fun day. I got to meet the amazing cast of Bajirao Mastani who had showed up during the promotional event for NBA star Sim Bhullar, who I was trailing during his leg in Mumbai.
A fun evening with Stars!
The Breath of Life
Monsoon- the season where the breath of life takes over the land making it overflow with a green this vibrant that it transfixes it beholder, making it hard to distinguish between a dream and reality.
The Final Rise to a New Dawn
The year of 2020 ends with a beautifully colored moon rising from the horizon, hopefully indicating a wonderful year ahead.
Happy New Year everyone!
The Larger Canvas
Though we share the same world, some places have a stormy and dangerous weather while others have a sense of calm– both occurring at the same time.
Put it up against a larger canvas & that’s when we realize that we share the same space with everyone. It is either our fortune or misfortune that hasn’t caught up with us, yet. And this very though can make a person hope for the best or to be prepared for the worst.
World Photography Day
Photography is one such art form that has found much prominence since its inception. Like each art form that ever existed, photography was discovered for documentation, leisure and the creative development of the human mind. The person who made the first photograph never would have imagined how big of a gift they had contributed to humanity and how much this invention would influence the same. It was due to the invention of photography, aided by the print medium that helped people document various scenes in history and let people ‘witness the scene’ as it had taken place in some other corner of the globe. Photography was and is one the of the pioneer and primary wheels of the mega vehicle we today know as media.
The first photograph took about 8 hours to be made. Despite of the hard labor of the heliography process and the fact that it was made on a sheet of glass or metal coated with a chemical called Bitumen, it was the first step in the right direction. Over the years innovations in the art form took place in the form of monochrome (black & white) to color, photo paper to digital, large format sensor cameras to cellphone and so on. When one innovation was achieved in photography, it set the wheels spinning in a different industry as everything was interconnected. Once photography was the prized procession of the elite due to the ever-expensive ecosystem. But now almost everyone has to ability to get their hands on a device that can ‘make a photography’, seize the moment, document it and make it a memory.
Photography was one of the best things ever to happen to me. Having being always fascinated by art, technology and mechanics- photography was one step further in that direction. When I started out, I saw it as a means of artistic expression and a way to document the things I witnessed or saw as beautiful & artistic, propagating the same through print or digital means. But fortunately, the door I seeked and knocked at had opened into a much greater hall that comprised of many other forms like audio, film making, history etc and even life as a whole. It also helped me transformed and develop as a person- making me much more patient while doing things just as during taking a photograph, be more adventurous and spontaneous to look at different subjects at hand, be creative during trials in life often ‘re-framing or editing’ the situation to make it work. But most of all it taught me the fact that an artist or a person doesn’t need to seek validation from anyone else other than themselves. You are the artist of your photograph. You manifested the picture (or your life) in your own likeness and image. And if what you created was with a true heart and soul, it will always be beautiful and perfect. And for this one understanding is what I thank photography the art form the most!
Happy World Photography everyone!
Witnessing a Cyclone-3
The last segment of the storm was that with rain. Though the gusty winds had shaken up almost everything by now, the rain added its own touch to the experience. I certainly feel that on a normal day I have witnessed much more rainfall. But today, even the slightest rain came down very hard on us.
The rain drops gathered massive velocity, thanks to being aided by the wind. They came down with such intensity that they managed to break past the beading seals in the window, flooding a small area of room.
After a few minutes of continuous rainfall and periodical winds howling past, the situation dialed down quickly. As a matter of fact, the skies cleared up and one could see the sun set. We went around the house to take stock of the situation. Though we didn’t sustain much damage, the foliage in our garden and a few houses in the vicinity did.
Our encounter with Cyclone Nisarga wasn’t as catastrophic as we thought it would be, thanks to last minute change in trajectory. But it sure imprinted in our hearts and minds that nature has reached its breaking point and the pay back for our sins were long overdue.
Witnessing a Cyclone-2
The storm started getting stronger by the minute. It came in brief pockets that carried much of its might. One such pocket had passed by few minutes ago, blowing away the solar water setup and the roof of a nearby house sending them crashing to the ground.
Then came this one which played its game with the mango tree we had planted right in front of the house. The earlier pockets had been rocking the small plantation for quite some time now. By watching the ferocity of the wind that rocked the trees like possessed people, we knew that one of the trees had their fates sealed. We assumed it would be the coconut as it was the ‘black sheep’ of the lot- never giving a proper produce in the last 15 odd years. It also had a lot of erosion at the base and its leaves broke off prematurely. But it was the mango tree, the star of our garden that was on the books.
As one such pocket of gusty wind came along, one of the bigger branches of the canopy, the one that used to give us a large number of mangoes, spanned from the main trunk and crashed to the ground. The power to the wind was so hard that it broke the branch into two segments, one of them crashing on to the road.
As we were still shaken by the solar panel fiasco, we didn’t focus on this very episode. But it was later when I skimmed through the footage and realized that I did capture that very moment on film. Though we were a little heartbroken that a good portion of the tree we nurtured and cared for about 2 decades snapped of in a matter of few seconds, we counted our blessings as there was no damage to anyone. And after the storm had passed, we realized that the condition of the foliage down the road was much worse- a trail of destruction till the very end.
Witnessing a Cyclone-1
As if 2020 wasn’t enough of a bummer in itself, Mumbai witnessed its first cyclone which went by the name ‘Nisarga’ in over 100 years. Though the maximum city was mostly spared by the cyclone due to its last-minute change of path, the region Navi Mumbai got to witness some of the power and glory of Mother Nature.
The Konkan region being on the west coast of the country isn’t as susceptible to cyclonic storms as compared to its eastern counter parts. Cyclones do form in the Arabian Sea but they rarely make landfall in the region, especially in the city of Mumbai. Even though there is debate on the previous cyclone of 1882, this one wasn’t missed by any chance, thanks to the internet and the fresh memory of the havoc caused by the Cyclone Amphan a few days prior.
Though the city and I have witnessed different types rains and floods, this one was new. As a matter of fact, there was hardly much rain compared to a normal rainy day in the city. But the wind was what turned the tables-literally and figuratively.
First was the big sense of calm. It was as if time had stopped in its track. Though there weren’t dark clouds, the sky was dull and there was an eerie silence all around, amplified by the lockdown. And that’s when the cyclone made its entrance.
One doesn’t see the wind, but feels its presence. Trees rocked so hard and wild that they could snap any moment. Even the few raindrops in the air crashed down hard, gaining immense velocity by the wind. The howling of the wind from the gaps of closed windows seemed as if death was whispering it was time to go. One might have been in the security and comfort of their home but in a scenario this apocalyptic, no ever was truly safe.
Wonders from the Wetlands-5
A sequence of images showcasing the landing pattern of a flock of Lesser Flamingos at Seawoods, Navi Mumbai.
Watching a flock of flamingos land is vivid display of coordination, discipline and skill. Being the large birds they are, Flamingos deploy a different strategy compared to their smaller feathered counterparts. As they approach their landing zone, the flock often takes multiple trips in the air in a circular fashion, slowly descending into the area cutting down their momentum with each drop in height. When they reach an ideal combination of lowered height and momentum, they land into the holding pond to join their counterparts. They even deploy their wings to glide and often flap them, possibly to cut down and counter even more momentum.
No wonder humans deployed this brilliant technique in the aviation world where aircrafts use a similar strategy while landing on an airstrip, a manoeuvre very much favourable in a crowded city like Mumbai.
Wonders from the Wetlands-4
A flock of lesser flamingos fly overhead, making their way to the holding ponds at Seawoods, Navi Mumbai. To witness these birds fly right over your head, maintaining such coordination and precision has been one of my favorite moments ever.
Right from their approach to the subsequent fly past, these birds generate a wild buzzing sound possibly due to the flapping of wings in such large numbers. A sound so wild and terrifying that it mimicked that of a Luftwaffe Squadron heading towards war. And coupled with the beautiful spectacle of the plane blue sky being painted by hundreds of figures in vibrant red and pink colors- one was surely in for a sensory overload. I was so overwhelmed by the first sighting that it left my mouth hanging and ears buzzing for a while and was able to make a few pictures only when the next batch came in.
This surely is nature at its finest and a memory of a lifetime!
Tgatwork 