Khoya khoya chaand. Khula aasmaan.
I looked up, at the aasman. And then I flew. I have this new cool super-power now. I can fly. Like birds. Unlike birds, I choose not to shit when in air though.
So I flew to bandstand. From where you get a good view of the sea-link. So that I could shoot some pictures. Had Subbu and MRP as my captive models. No, they didn’t fly to reach there like me. They took a rick.
At Bandstand, we realized that the sun-rays were not quite falling on the bridge. We took few pictures anyway, but decided to return to the place later in the evening. By when the sun would have moved to a convenient position. Next we reached the Gateway of India. Subbu and MRP in a taxi. Me flying. Arrey baba, sach me.
You cannot get the complete Gateway of India structure as a background in your photo if the only lens that you are carrying is a 135mm prime. I was carrying only a 135mm prime. For the first time I felt fucked up even with a lens as awesome as this one. Gateway of India is simply too big to capture it with a 135mm unless you can get a clear view from at least 300 meters way. Which we couldn’t. A 50mm could have done the job. I do have one. But mine is with Papa, Subbu’s with Neelabh and Tiwari’s with, well, Tiwari. When at GoI, still figuring out how to crack a good picture, a fat Indian lady asked me click a picture of hers from a point and shoot camera that she had, with a firang friend of hers. I clicked their picture. And then told them their faces were hardly visible because the sun was so high up in the sky. LOL – I was telling strangers who had requested me to shoot a picture of theirs from their P&S camera, that their picture, that I had just taken had come all fucked up. They gave me a look which kind of meant – ‘ok superman. so what do you propose?’. I told them to tilt their heads up in the sky so that the sun-rays could fall on their faces. They did that. The fat lady said – ‘wow, you have managed to make me show my double chin. Thanks’. I clicked the picture anyway. Better than the last time. ‘Here you go’, I handed her the camera and said good-bye.
Because GoI refused to fit in my frame, we started walking around South Bombay in general. Just to see if we could chance upon something nice, worth capturing. The only thing that work for us in that area was the Colaba Causeway. Where I clicked few pictures of hers. I LOVE STREETSHOPPING – I would later ruin one such nice picture with these words. Typed in Impact font. With a yellowed LOVE to match the colour of the shoes that she wore when the picture was clicked. And you thought love’s colour was red or pink. Or something equally gay.
On our way back to Bandstand, we took a break at Hazi Ali. Some nice colourful snaps I could click. With some funny poses that we could think of. Even in Hazi Ali, a young muslim passed to me his cellphone so that I could click his picture. I clicked his picture. ‘Shukriya bhaijzaan’, he said. For a moment, I thought I was Salman Khaan. Then it occurred to me that Salmaan Khaan cannot fly. And I returned to reality.
In the city of Bangalore, there lived an autovalah named Baba Khan. Or it could be Baba Jaan. Pardon my poor memory. So the story is, he happened to drop MRP and myself from MG Road to Yashwantpur station once evening. And during the course of our short journey through dusty roads of Bangalore, he told us about how his income was falling short of his family’s requirements. And how he was especially worried about his children’s studies. I had almost assumed that Baba Khaan Jaan was going to ask for extra money once the journey was over. But he didn’t. The only thing that he asked, and because we told him we lived in Mumbai, was that if we happened to go to Hazi Ali, we should seek ‘duaayein’ for his family. When at Hazli Ali, I had a word with God. And God said he would see what he could do. That’s what God says all the time anyway. But asking is our job and we should keep doing that.
By the time, we returned to Bandstand, the sun was shining just in the right direction. We took some amazing pictures. We made some nice posters later. Mostly with cliched and copied lines like ‘I create my own path’ or ‘Dreams have only one owner a time’. But if you really think about it, these very cliched and copied lines say a lot. Don’t they? 🙂