Three Kilometre Pilgrimage.

We are all great book lovers in my family, and like any book loving Indian family, we’ve grown up reading Ruskin Bond. His idyllic writing, and warm depictions of life the north Indian landscape, especially his beloved Mussoorie, of his past, amongst Anglo Indians of a past era that he grew up in captured the imaginations of most school kids in India (Well, most ). My Mother taught them and we read them. He was like a familiar literary landmark of growing up in India . So when my father proposed a trip to Uttarakhand, we sisters and Mother team raised our voices emphatically, and declared that Mussoorie was a must on our Itinerary.

“We want to meet Ruskin Bond!”

“But he’s probably very old now, or busy,” our father said.

“He wrote that meeting fans delights him. He said they’re welcome at his place!” my sister countered. She was a bigger bookworm than I was, chewed and digested books and retained photographic memory of the contents on a regular basis. “Why would a self-respecting writer not keep his word?”

“ Yes, authors usually state whether they are able to meet their fans, and reply to their messages. I checked it on quite a few authors’ websites!”

“Anyway, it’s a choice between Mussoorie and Nainital. We’re keeping our itinerary flexible” our father finally said. And that was the end of our discussion.

Ruskin bond is a beloved writer. He was one of the few who wrote that meeting his fans delighted him, and was a popular figure that , in spite of getting on in years, still visited the Cambridge Bookstore in Mussoorie  every weekend, to meet his fans , give away signed books, and talk to people. My sister and I had tried to contact J K Rowling before this, only to be pushed away by her rigorous assurance that anything we’d send her would not be read and replied to. So you can understand how excited we were at the prospect of meeting this master.

We set off in early June, flew to Delhi, thence to Dehra Dun, where our tourist cabbie was waiting with his car , a tiny cramped Indica outside the Jolly Grant Airport. We then travelled first to Haridwar, where we got to see the Ganga Aarti before a Ganges in gloriously full flood, and thence to Joshimath. From Joshimath and its Narasimha Swami temple, we moved further ahead to Badrinath.

The colourful temple was a river, a hot spring dip and an excruciatingly long pilgrim line away.  I’d never seen queue discipline like this anywhere in India. People were simply not allowed to jump the line, for the rest of the people in the line would murder them on the spot. The frustration of waiting long left people in most uncharitable moods (that it was in the course of a darshan of the Divine did not matter). We stood in scorching hot direct sunlight for a good two hours, got pushed around by crowds and managed to catch a glimpse of the Idol in the sanctum sanctorum before the vicious stampede dragged us out unceremoniously. The first official darshan of the Chota Char Dham ended like that.

Post this experience,  none of us were keen to go to Kedarnath, our next destination. which involved long detours, a horseback trek, and more lines. I wanted to avoid horse back on starved ponies, my sister the crowd, my Mother the ridiculous trek and our cabbie wanted to save on fuel, so on popular vote, we decided to skip Kedarnath, decided against Nainital, since it would involve a long detour  and move on to Mussoorie.

Our uncle in Dehra Dun advised us “ Skip Mussoorie. It isn’t what it used to be. Why don’t you go to Dhanaulti instead?” Of course, he didn’t understand that it wasn’t just for the weather.

We soon found out why he said that, though.

 Summer in Delhi is thoroughly unforgiving. Anyone in Delhi, with a car and a weekend flees to the hills the first chance they get. Usually, they make a beeline for Mussoorie. So when we got close, we were stuck in the kind of traffic jam that is usually seen happen in Delhi during peak hours when the traffic police is fast asleep. We decided to move higher up, to beautiful, peaceful Dhanaulti, but it was crowded even there, and we managed to find a tiny mouldy room with difficulty. 

In the night, my sister and I fantasized about meeting Ruskin Bond going up to his little cottage surrounded by a wild flowering garden, meeting the legend and feeling humbled in his presence,  about having a quaint cup of tea with the great man, and discuss the journey of a writer,his own journey as one,  something that most voracious readers try to embark on at some point, and the dream of finally seeing your writings read, life , and other profound things that can only be discussed with a Master. We could hardly sleep (it wasn’t just the fantasizing, though. The bed was cramped, the rug wet and mouldy, and the room stank). 

The next day, we set off on our pilgrimage, the big pilgrimage to Mussoorie, to the Central Library Ruskin Bond frequented, the roads he walked, the scenes he described, and to Landour, where he lived, and hung out , went for long walks and played cricket with  other well-known people like Tom Alter.

Mussoorie was so crowded that our cabbie refused to drive into town. He insisted on parking at the outermost parking lot available and refused to drive another inch. We decided to make it on foot. The Central Library was quite close by. A ninetenth century wooden building, it boasted of a hall with a hatstand and coat hangers, a traditional parlour with armchairs . The old well worn leather, wooden panelling and shelves and shelves of old books were simply beautiful. And like any traditional library, they had that old register of visitors and members, whose names, addresses and comments were all written down. We got Ruskin Bond’s address from there.

“ It’s up in Landour, about three kilometres away”, the girl at the reception desk said. “ You’ll find it near a Tibetan restaurant.” My sister noted the address,  and we took a few photographs in the waiting hall.

Then, we set off towards Landour. We had to pass by the shopping area, which was surprisingly clean, due to the town’s stringent policy, and the cooperation of the many vendors making up the market. It was thoroughly crowded, and few vehicles were visible. By now, even Father seemed excited as we marched up the hill, along the quaint railings on the Mussoorie Mall road. Three kilometres of walk to meet a celebrated author in person didn’t seem so bad. We passed trinket shops, exhibitions, book shops, clothing shops, all of which were chock full of eager tourists.  We paused a bit ahead for a breather, and asked a passer by how far Landour was. He said, about three kilometres from here.

We were confused. Not knowing how to get around, we asked for directions, and kept walking uphill.  Three kilometres uphill is a daunting task. We now knew why we hadn’t seen any overweight Garhwalis.

We paused at the Cambridge bookstore, the place where Ruskin Bond came down on Saturdays to sign books and meet his readers. The jovial owner was behind the counter, talking perfect, semi accented English, to the Man himself on the phone.

“ Oh yes, sir! Perfectly, sir. I’ve just sent the lad with a set of books to be signed. So, will you be in for your afternoon siesta, sir? Oh, yes, sir, absolutely sir! Have a good day, sir!” He hung up and noticed us. 

“To meet Ruskin Bond?”

“Yes. Do you know how we can get to his house?”

“Hmm… He’s gotten on in years now, and isn’t as active as he used to be. So it isn’t likely that you’ll be allowed to meet him. Do you know, you’re the eleventh group of people who’ve asked me for his address this morning? “

“We’ve come all the way from Hyderabad. We’re all avid book lovers, and we’d really love to have a chance to meet him.” My mum quipped.

“All right, I’ll give his address and number to you. But you mayn’t be able to meet him. But even if you don’t , why don’t you pick up a couple of his signed books to take back?”

So my sister and I got a couple of signed books.

We continued to walk uphill, across the clock tower, and asked other passers by how much further it was. The answer was three kilometres every time.  By which time, we were all thoroughly frustrated , with extensive foot pain and starving. My father started a round of I-told-you-so.  We were passed by a honeymooning couple ,  the man walking ahead and his wife trailing behind.  They asked for directions to Ruskin Bond’s house ahead, and moved on.

We met a friendly vicar’s family, and stopped for a rest and a chat. He was from Cochin, and his wife was from Guntur, so we bonded with them and their three daughters for a while. His eldest was a bit younger than I was, and was excited about getting into college.  We told them that we’d come this far to meet Ruskin Bond.  Mrs Vicar smiled and said that she was an English teacher herself, and everyone at her school was thoroughly excited to learn that she shared the same address as Ruskin Bond. They told us we were pretty close. 

So we moved a little ahead, and found that flamboyant Tibetan inn, Doma’s that everyone talked about, the one three kilometres away.  Moving a bit further uphill, we found his house.

It wasn’t at all like the quaint cottage we expected to see. It was more of a very normal, typical hillside flat, with a narrow dingy entrance leading up to the main wooden door. There was hardly any greenery around, save for the few potted plants near the entrance.  We knocked on the door, and a middle aged woman in a salwar kameez , opened. We asked for Ruskin Bond.

“ He’s ill. He’s asleep with a  headache. “

My Mother tends to be rather insistent  “We’ve come to meet him from afar. Could we just meet him for a little while? All of us are his avid fans. “

“ Sorry, he isn’t meeting anyone”

A little boy came out. “Are you Gautam’s brother?  Mr Bond often writes about you all” my Mother told him. He nodded, and said “Ruskin Bond has gone to Dehra Dun on some work”

We figured he was in no hurry to see us. Many of his fans land here in Mussoorie, but not many make it all the way up to the hill, it is quite an exhausting climb. But just one door, or a couple , and a few adoptive family members stood in the way of our meeting this literary maestro, this literary legend of every Indian school kid.

We humbly nodded, took a couple of pictures at the gate to his house to the adoptive family’s amusement, and walked away. We were too exhausted to be disappointed.  We moved up to Char Dukan, the market at Landour, and sank into the chairs of the nearest café.  Some beautiful Himalayan stray dogs kept us company. As we consumed noodles and fed biscuits to the gentle giants, I looked around. This place seemed like an expatriate haven. Caucasian missionaries, their wards and families, and Mothers home-schooling children, and exchange students learning Hindi.  I later learnt that under the British, while Mussoorie was open to Indians and Indian royalty in particular, Landour was the British Cantonment and had their convalescent sanatorium, and hence had more British and American missionary populace than the town itself.

My sister seemed down, at the one pilgrimage that wasn’t to be.

 I then remembered this one story that my Grandpa told me, about this man who went on a quest, seeking God, to obtain salvation. He travelled, searched everywhere, studied the various texts, debated with the learned, visited all spots of pilgrimage, and was told that his answers could be found in the Himalayas, those majestic mountains that are virtually the stairway to Swarga.

And so this man set off for the Himalayas, met sages, studied yoga, and wandered village to village, hamlet to hamlet as a mendicant, seeking God.

In the course of seeking alms as a mendicant, he chanced upon this one house with closed doors.  Above the door frame, in vermillion dye, was written “God Resides Here”.  He was beside himself with excitement. After his long arduous search, he was finally close to his goal. Just a door separated him and God. He raised his hand to knock.

He then paused, and started thinking about what would happen if he knocked. The door would be open, and he would be face to face with God, for whom he’d been searching so earnestly all this while, and that darshan would grant him salvation. But what about after that meeting? The rest of his life stretched out empty and meaningless, since now that he’d met God, and there was nothing higher than that, there would be nothing to live for, strive for and struggle for beyond that. The prospect of living a purposeless existence beyond this shook him, and he decided to leave the house alone. He turned around, and walked away, resuming his search for God everywhere else.

It got me thinking. The fact that we loved reading and writing, and aspired to write and be published, and read by many . Our admiration for Ruskin Bond was ever great. What if Ruskin Bond the man was not the man we imagined him to be? Our possible disillusionment at the meeting, and its consequences were rather unnerving. I had faced something similar previously with music and it was not something I’d want others to go through. 

So I turned my attention to the beautiful dogs at Char Dukan, and the prospect of a nice restful walk at Dhanaulti awaiting us. Maybe it was for the best. And God Knows, the man earned his laurels, but he’d also earned his rest. 

A Review: After Dark by Haruki Murakami

My tryst with Haruki Murakami began two years ago, when a College Professor recommended that I read his book, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle . As a student of Exhibition and Spatial Design, I was to learn and understand how space can be manipulated and transcended, and expressed across media.
I picked up many of Murakami san's books, except the one recommended to me. In time, I've grown to like the way he writes, to accept his brand of surrealism that is typically Japanese.
So, when I saw After Dark in a good friend's collection, I immediately asked to borrow it.

The story centers around the late night goings-on , centering around a young Japanese college girl Mari specializing in Chinese language studies, trying to while time away in a fast food joint reading  to put off going home. She meets a young aspiring musician, a guitarist in a band, who happened to meet her a few years ago, along with her elder sister Eri, a model, on a group date. He tries to chat her up, and she responds a little coldly as they catch up .
 He practices in a garage near a Love hotel, and after  a while, she gets a call, asking for help from a hotel manager of a love hotel. A Chinese prostitute has been brutalized at the Love hotel, and her client vanishes without paying up. The hotel manager can't understand what the poor girl is trying to say, and asks Mari to help translate.
Eventually the girl is picked up by one of her pimps, and the pimp and his gang are on the look out for the man who brutalized the girl.
We meet the offender, a late night office worker , and his lone time at work, and returning home at dawn. While the elder sister, Eri sleeps a long sleep full of mystery without showing signs of waking up.

I immediately fell in love with the book , as there are a lot of elements I can relate to and enjoy(yes, I'm a night bird). The late night stay-ups, the coffee, meeting people, and the mystery that only the night can possibly hold.
Haruki Murakami's writing is brilliant. Usually, in his other books, there is a certain consciousness crossover that happens when the reader encounters the surreal aspect, but in this book, it is a lot more constrained, and subtle. As usual, it stays surreal because Murakami san doesn't bother with explanations. Possibly, the surrealism in his book is far more muted than the others, and it is far more realistic.

His characters say things without actually stating them, and things that happen in his book spark possibilities , but ones that are deliberately not used (will he go out with her? Is he haunting her dreams?) and that choice not made establishes the sense of the mundane everyday.
His book is not to be analysed though, We just need to allow it to wash over us , sink into the feeling of late night neon light urban Japan, and the angst of college going people, awaiting the choices dawn brings them.
A very enjoyable read. Best read in a busy all night cafe, overnight, with a cup of strong espresso, and good music for company.

Children

I was just done with a cuppa and some muesli for breakfast this morning. yes, It's a late morning after a heavy night's sleep, and I have a class awaiting Ich. Anyway, I decided to write something before getting on with my day's work. I've been reseaching on children for a while now. I'm just in my twenties, and I've already got only faint memories of what it felt like as a child. (I think i can now sympathise with all those adults who supposedly don't understand their children, or the so called generation gap), and research is sort of helping me recollect.

I think I love children now, the fact that they are beings who haven't yet learnt to wear a mask.
The other day, a dance competition saw me seated next to three children, on a raincoat trying to ignore the annoying occasional droplet on their heads while paying attention to the dance. The audience grew  and the amphitheatre grew cramped, so I seated one on my lap.
Very honest, very harsh. They were supremely practical, and I could see a slew of politics playing out with the deftness of masters, only, they didn't have to mince their words.
One was the sweet best friend, trying to be the life and soul of the party and trying to be accommodating, obviously she was the older of the lot, and the second, a slightly disgruntled girl who came and went, and the third, a pretty little thing with a mouth like a whip, virtually ordering the other two around, while one had a bright smile, the other was silent.
They switched sides with the performers easily, and gave some of the most direct critique I heard that night.
Children are harsh. 

Another block

The only time I feel like writing something is in full company where there is something interesting being said and I have no notebook.
Seven empty paper cups of tea testify to a long night of unwritten conversation, and fially, a worthwhile pen to write with turns up and the will to write comes back.
I am in the middle of a huge block, the inability to do anything, put anything on paper. Not work not info gathering, not thoughts, not what I've seen, heard,....
I don't even have a way of making this post look interesting.
There are these magical old papers from long done assignments that had a lot of love invested in them, which I tore up to write on today.
And with a flutter of wings, the angel returns.
And i decide it is absolutely annoying to try and edit a post and make it more readable, so i let it go, and move on.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: a Movie Review

 A lazy Saturday afternoon beckoned some sort of entertainment, and I, having gone long enough without movies, decided to plunge right into a search for a good movie. Some hunting later, I ended up with a film version of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", by BBC. With David Suchet as the venerable Hercule Poirot, the movie is an adaptation of Agatha Christie's supposed masterpiece. Being an avid reader of Agatha Christie's books, I looked forward to the movie versions, but somewhere, they dull down for those who know the story. But I was never able to track down Roger Ackroyd, so I was more excited than usual to watch this one. 

I won't summarize the movie, as that would constitute a crime in the world of detective fiction. However, thank fully, I am glad that they have not distorted or played around with the stories or characters in these as they have with Miss Marple's movie adaptations, and the glimpse of the original is recognized. 

The movie is decently made with Christie's trademark ensemble: a group of people, all with their own skeletons in the closet and lots of strings attached. Two murders and the suspicion of blackmail hovers in the air.  Unfortunately, we see Poirot as a retired gentleman, now dedicated to the cultivation and improvement of vegetable marrows, a single masterpiece of which he smashes down in disappointment.  We see a similar departure in the movie, where the truth emerges from confession, not detection. Although similar means of explanation have been used in other Christie stories, Poirot's train of thought has always gotten us there. One misses his little grey cells here. 

 The movie moves at the pace of a leisurely bicycle ride on a fine morning on a muddy road. The gravity of the loss of valuable human life rarely comes through ( an overdose of the British Stiff upper lip?), rather, it is merely a matter of logic, perhaps, with murder being Christie's recurring theme , the topic has reached a level of redundancy (should the director also approach murder thus?), the logic of the killer and the ingenuity of the detective assumes greater importance.  

However, I'm sure, it would be of much greater literary pleasure to read through the book, since it offers something that the movie does not, a first hand exploration of the storytelling mind of the murderer. In which respect, the mystery stands, but the movie fails. 

A Review: "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk

I was sent on a ten day trip to Hyderabad by my firm, and while waiting in the airport, I decided the wait, the trip and the stay would definitely be sweeter n the company of a book. I had an hour to kill, so I started browsing. WHSmith has nice books. Normally, I'm picky when it comes to buying books, since it had better be worth the money, and also something not easily available in a library, or something utterly worth owning. This time, I chose to pick up Orhan Pamuk's "Snow". A lot of people had recommended Orhan Pamuk's work to me, in different contexts , so naturally, I was curious.

The book follows the time of the exiled Turkish poet, Ka, in the city of Kars in Turkey, which is quiet under the  heavy blanket of snow and poverty, as he seems to work on an assignment with a newspaper to uncover the cause behind the suicides of a number of young girls there. in the beginning, this is what he sets out for, quite determinedly following up with the bereaved families of the girls, and eventually brings out the underlying conflict in the town, between Secular, Leftist ideals that Ataturk had promoted, with the surging Islamist , religious ideals. the Kurds and their rebellion are thrown in for some drama. And at this stage, we meet many important characters of the story. We meet Serdar Bey, the prophetic newspaperman, Turgut Bey, a secular father proud of his outspoken daughters Ipek, (KA's love interest) and Kadife ( a young woman with staunch Islamist ideals), Muhtar, Ipek's ex, and now a fleeting character, Necip, the young Islamist student, who grows close to Ka, and his best friend Fazil, Blue, the Islamist leader and militant, Sunay Zaim and Funda Eser theatre actors with a dramatic political agenda, and the author himself, or maybe a namesake character who buries the poet, the book and he story.

The poet starts with journalist work, but increasingly becomes tangled with the politics of the area, and with Ipek, while struggling with his ideological position, as an exiled Turk ,a known figure,  as a so-called atheist, as someone who came from the "godless" West,  and his journalistic assignment is lost in the mess here. Becoming caught up as a mediator in a political, diplomatic triangle as someone with no political experience, we naturally see a swaying character, and this swaying has produced more poetry than the character recollects to have come up with in a stretch of time. These poems constitute the now missing book "Snow".
 His interaction with Ipek revolves around their relationship, her beauty and her exes, and with Kadife, around Islam, the issue of the Headscarf (is it called the Hijab?) which she refuses to remove, and her friends who killed themselves for the same issue, only to be condemned by Islamists, since suicide is unethical in their religion.
Kadife, her relationship with Blue, and a coup de etat by an Ataturk worshipping Sunay Zaim and his people during theatre, and with Necip, who he grows to like , around religion, love and writing, are all central characters to giving the book its breadth.

As loved ones and powerful ones get killed, following a statement, and Ka is accused of betrayal, and is forced to part from the town and people he was around, and returns to Frankfurt, only to be assassinated there. His friend Orhan concludes the story for us, hunting for his friend's poetry book, and hoping to reconstruct his final years.

 I  liked Orhan's writing style, as something both poetic and crisp, and good to keep readers gripped. He manages to maintain a good pace, and  the novel does not feel Western, or patronising, nor so Turkish that the rest of the world couldn't connect.

The character of Ka himself, in views and character, the author has maintained a degree of ambiguity and indecision, but since we are seeing the Turkish world through this character's eyes, it was probably necessary to keep him fluid to give us a balanced and unbiased glimpse of Turkey. However, the real flavour of the character was the fact that he was a poet, yet we see none of his poems, nor does the narrative become infused with his poetic thought. The same tone is used with every character, so one misses the poet, and therefore, Ka the person.
Ipek is not as well drawn out, since she merely becomes an object of desire with a past, and Kadife, possibly because of the position she holds and the people she is surrounded by, assumes a powerful and assertive personality.
Sunay Zaim and his wife make the story rather eccentric and off centre (A political coup de etat by a performers' group? Really?)  that for a moment, I really wondered where he was taking this story.
But the ending seemed a little surprising, since, out of the blue, you hear the voice of a different character, while, so far, you've been inside the head of only one.

I really enjoyed reading the story, and could connect to it in some ways, being from India, and being able to witness similar changes in my country. The sensitivity with which he portrayed these issues was well done. However, probably, the reality in Turkey feels different, but being from a multicultural country, and having encountered atheism, the idea of being Non-islamist as being equal to atheist did not convince me, since, we have come into an age where spirituality and religion can be treated separately. since, coming from a multi cultural country.
On the whole, I enjoyed the book, and would love to discover more of the author's work.

Photograph

I have a photography assignment that I have to finish, I'm done with taking the pictures, and the tough part comes in here, when you need to sift through the good ones, and select them for a final collection.
Photography is amazing, and photographers are an interesting breed. They can be intimidating sometimes, with their huge cameras, expensive equipment and business-like air.
There are probably many people, who can philosophically say, " It's not about the equipment" . But people would still pay an arm and a leg for a good photograph. and for a lot of people, a good photograph is possible only with good equipment. But I personally believe that , no matter what your image making device is, if you've caught what you want to catch, you're a photographer. This confidence I got from a teacher, who felt that rather than just using the tool, it was necessary for us to understand the subject, the frame and essentially, develop the eye for them.

I've seen many breeds of photographers, and each of them with their set of idiosyncrasies, and perhaps, in India, the whole affair of taking a photograph is quite a memorable one. Back when pictures were expensive to take (I think this was in the fifties, but this is not such a general thing in India) a lot of people would not bother to have one taken unless on important occasions like Marriages, because you saw your daughter for the last time as part of your family, events in the village,  and deaths, because they needed some sort of memorabilia. My English teacher in high school remembered how, in his village, once the person has died, they'd employ a photographer , huddle around the dead person and try to make the body sit straight, as if alive, for a  family photograph. The more affluent had greater access ,and would get pictures taken at every possible occasion.  A lot of other cultures would resist pictures, since they felt they'd call upon them the evil eye, while in places like Gujarat, the very sight of a camera would draw crowds to you, enthusiastically waiting in line to be captured.

My good friend Harish , a filmmaker, talked of this one incident, when, he'd worked as a journalist, and had to go into the rural heartlands of a place (I've forgotten which).  They had some work with the local residents there, and somehow, happened to be around when a fight erupted in the community. The situation had come to blows, when they chose to start taking pictures. The crowds would immediately snap to attention and smile and pose for the picture, and after the snap, they'd get back to the fight. This would happen repeatedly, since Harish and his friend were trying to catch the fight in progress, but the crowd would interrupt the fight and snap to attention and smile each time, grumbling.

Photographers have it tough. There is great emphasis on the "defining moment", a moment that supposedly "makes" the photograph, and for that, they need to become invisible to the people at that spot. I don't know how exactly a lot of photographers achieve this, what with their outlandishly expensive and huge equipment and the obvious air of someone who doesn't belong there, blend in. I suppose each person has his technique. I for one, had to get a ton of permissions first, and second, had to use a camera that is hardly noticeable, (gasps in horror!) a digicam. The other time, I was in a public space, and I generally smile a bit when I encounter people, so people would find me nonthreatening and not bother when I click in the vicinity.

How important though, is capturing a moment to someone using a camera? I believe half the market in India uses the services of photographers who hardly subscribe to the term. A few years after I left my town to study, when I came back for the holidays, my mother really wanted a formal family photograph. So we went to the local photographer's studio wearing nice clothes and asked him to click a few pictures. A few days later, I left for college. I returned to find a set of framed and laminated photographs that the photographer had distorted across a larger frame, so my mother was covering half of it, looking much larger than she really is (imagine her rage) , and others, where the well-meaning photographer with the best of his aesthetic sense, had eliminated the background I and my sister had stood before, and photo shopped a large artificial flower into the frame, almost the size of our faces. I lost my faith in regular studio photographers after that. But he only meant well ,and was only doing what his contemporaries across the country were doing.

And indeed, I started paying greater attention to their antics after this, and a large number of people really wanted that stuff. You'd have a newly married couple in full wedding finery standing on a table in the Titanic pose, and the photographer would Photoshop them onto a ship, or a sunset, or a moonlit night backdrop. There would be a photograph of a couple in the wedding pandal,  and the backdrop around them would be erased and they'd be placed in Swiss mountains doing the Homa. A lot of pilgrimage centres would have booths with devotional concept art  backdrops that the pilgrims would pose in front of  and get pictures of . This brings me to the wedding photographer . He was a real species  unto himself, and his job involved bringing a hot heavy flash into the wedding area, interrupting the wedding, irritating  the priest, pushing the well-wishers and the guests away to get a better view of the couple's faces( Imagine their discomfort, smiling into a hot yellow flash, under all that makeup and finery) and generally stepping on the cake, only to produce a video of unrealistic proportions, with sentimental film songs as the soundtrack, to be given to the families as a memory of their kids' wedding. The ones these days, thankfully, are not that irritating or disruptive.

A recently held lecture happened in a gallery full of precious pieces of design (with a lot of  furniture) and the lecture was held by a certain veteran furniture designer , and attended by a prominent Museum curator, a historian, design students and a magazine editor. Since it was a rare opportunity, a lot of photographers had come, and while the talk was going on, one photographer very casually settled his bag and his bulky equipment onto a precious chair on display (despite it being on a pedestal) , and went around clicking pictures of the lecture, while the rest of us looked on, scandalised. We couldn't stop him, since it would mean interrupting the lecture, which was being video-recorded, and the man , once he had the shots he wanted, picked it up and moved away. The things that happen for the sake of the frame are really surprising.
I remember Stephen Leacock's short story, the Photographer, that talks of his experience with this enthusiastic photographer, who, for the sake of a good picture, distorts the author's face, until it resembles him no more, and I feel that things haven't changed much even today.  The Photographer's journey is a unique one, and their work for the frame is often justified for them.

I finally managed to get the hang of handling this atrociously heavy camera, and took some pictures for my assignment, and lo behold, half the ones I thought would be good were shaky. And I'd shot them on the spur of the moment outside, where you can't really set things up for your convenience, maybe go again with the camera.
I'd borrowed the camera, so it wasn't possible again, but I'd lost some of the good ones, and I have to sigh and get on with what I have. My faculty would have pursed his lips at them, but I can say that I enjoy taking pictures. It allowed me to notice things I wouldn't pay attention to, and I started paying attention to how I saw things, even without a camera. the politics of the frame , the semiotics of the things a Photographer would include within it, all fascinate me, and essentially, I wonder, how a simple piece of image making equipment has manifested itself in its possibilities , on one hand, becoming an art, and on the other, an expression of memory and a will to preserve , all the while reflecting the choices made by a society regarding the way things are captured , and its eventual visual culture.