Forbidden Territory

Have you ever seen couples somewhere at deserted place?  I am sure you have seen them numerous times and sometimes in compromising positions. And we look at them like "WTF". Didn't you manage to get a decent place?
How great it would be if the story ends there? But it is not....
The young couples and lovers in India live the most horrible lives of their age. They fell in love but don't know how and where it has to be accomplished? They become committed but in a haywire, it's all chaos everywhere. They live the dilemma of a mad man that if someone will see them with their girlfriend or boyfriend, it would become a great scene and point of discussion back at home. Though, we all know that at this age it's normal. We all have crossed this phase at some point of our life. But do we really accept it? 
And so we find them at secluded places hand in hand and swearing the promises to spend a life time with each other. It become blur on a lonely road at a stage of time but they do exist...yesterday, today and will be there tomorrow too till the time we will not accept it as a common phenomenon. We will have to see it till we will not get it out from its forbidden territory.

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The Daily Rituals - I

Though, Mumbai is famous for it's local trains. But, that's not the only mode of conveyance for its inhabitants. Buses too are soul of this harbor city and plied on each and every streets you can think of. There, where people travel on imported luxury cars, a class of people daily travel on local buses. They are the ambassador of Bombay and not Mumbai? Mumbai resembles the new Bombay but it's soul breathes in Old Bombay.

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Ask yourself

What you say to yourselves when you see a child spending time in dirt doing something which he should not, or helping their parents to get the daily bread and butter? The time when they should go to schools, playing with their mates and living a life which they are entitled to. But it seldom happens with dome of them despite of numerous NGOs working day and night to bring justice to their life. Or what if I say that they fail to reach them because of a mindset that only orphans or homeless children are the one who needs a helping hand. My statement could raise a debate but isn't it true that despite of billions of dollars and rupees being donated every year of which a vast part goes to NGOs, are not yielding a result that we want to see. Or it's just something that put the people in disguise who donate a good amount of their earning every year.

While on a walk to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, I captured some of these children who never ever seen the face of a school. Living in a slum nearby, their life start in the morning trailing with their parents to the park where they either sale with them or play nearby if they are not able to participate in the work their parents do. After some years they grow ans start doing the same work what their parents do. Life teach them the basic maths of counting and they survive on this for their lifetime and after them, this is going to be the story of their future generation too. And when I think this a thought always marks a question......are we really progressing?

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They too are human....Ain't they?

They are the one who makes the city livable. They start early in the morning to clean and sweep the  dirt and garbage that we city inhabitants produce or throw day in day out. They made their living cleaning our shits. They don't think of the hygiene and all the other technical health jargon. And what if they do? Had we ever thought about the same? We never actually, this is not in our habit, we give it a damn. What we think that we should live a life cleaner and greener. But it would be if we would give it a  thiught that how we make it more cleaner and greener. This is not the duty of the people who are making their living cleaning it. But it's a duty for all of us to be clean and let everyone live the same life that we are enjoying. Salute to theses people......after all, they too are human or ain't they?

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A travel to the past - I

There is something in 80's that always hums in the ear. Those were really the days that we will always cherish. Childhood!! Yes and with our childhood, cycle is something which was always there without fail. If we will have to frame our childhood, cycle would always make a presence in some form or size. But as the years passed cycle too has loosened its grip and we seldom see those cycles that were a craze for us. Yes, we can see the new advanced cycles these days but they never became a part of our day to day life but back in our days...they were an integral part of our life. Be it going to school, getting vegetables from the market, having fun with friends and sometimes racing with them. Just you talk about them and a film start running in mind, isn't it? I am sure you too having a black and white film still running in your mind. Mumbai has given me another chance to capture those machines again. I have started capturing them whenever I got a chance. Here's the first part in the series.......

Memories are still intact for me when I used to stand my cycle like this. I used to look at it to my heart's content like a precious diamond. It was hard for me to leave my cycle in someone else's hand.

They have blurred in the passage of time. But who have controlled the memories? or there's someone?

They were in fact more beautiful than our Girl Friends :)

They might be cornered and out of fashion but they are still more fashionable things for us. 

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Equality?

It's really hard for me to define this picture. I agree there are more pictures like this before as well, but this one has been taken by me when it was happening right before my eyes. Though, both child and mother never ever realized that I was taking their picture standing on the other side of the footpath. 

Whenever I see this photograph, it reminds me that life has it's own path which has been decided by almighty. We cannot change it but we might struggle to make it correct. But at the same time, a thought always cross to me that why, why this ever happen to a child where people have enough money and ways to better every child's life who has nothing.

I know doing is way tougher than saying. But haven't we been saying only since the ages? Had we taken a step, I am sure the situation would have been much better. We look at someone else to bring the change while we keep enjoying the comfort that has been provided to us or we have earned. This picture and the people with whom I have interacted a bit completely changed the way I used to think. I am not saying that people are not doing the right thing, they are but I believe the way it is being done are not sufficient enough that every child get the benefits of it or every single person in need get the benefits which has been set up by the people who are concerned. I know a lot of NGO's have been set up to work on this kind of situation but what they actually do is not something that we cannot see. I am still thinking when are we going to change the way we live? When are we going to bring the equality in the world? I don't know that but still we can change some lives, or ain't we?

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Life as it is.....

I haven't actually talk to him or taken his permission to take this picture. It just happened that he came into the view point of my camera and I shot this. But he reminds me a lot of things for the people who quarrel daily with life to make a living. The area where he sells his items, would never be able to live there. This means he travels daily to the town from the suburbs of Mumbai and it's not really easy to travel in a crowded local train.and then ferrying all the streets on cycle to get the items sold. So that he would be able to run his day to day activities and survive his family. When I look at people like us whose earnings are in thousands, for some its lacs per month, always whining about the adversities of life and keep complaining that had it been the case, we would have been able to own that bungalow. We never actually talk about the food, cause we know that this is not going anywhere from else. Education is a matter of luxury for us and we want our children to be graduated from the best schools and colleges. But I am sure, we never ever stop for a moment and think life from a different perspective, a perspective which talk about the necessities and not luxuries. Which talk about the happiness in bare minimum resources. I believe on that day, we would really be able to understand what luxury is. What we are experiencing now, is nothing  but something which has been given to us and something what we have earned for us, but spending it unnecessarily on something which is not going to add a value to our life, is something that we have to think for. Isn't this thought make some sense? Do tell....and see what's happening around.

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Love Tales

They are a couple from Rajasthan. Life has its own odds and harshness. But defying this is something which can only be attainable through love and affection. They have moved out of Rajasthan looking for a life which would have promises for a better tomorrow. However, they ended up living in  a slum with no proper pl;ace to spend their nights. Still, the love which they share, many can only think of.

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Taj

The Black and white Days are still there to reclaim the history.

A royal touch......What you say?

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Marine Lines

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Mumbai or Bombay?

"I am not a Mumbaikar. But then no one would be more Mumbaikar than me. I know this city from the scratch and not from the high rises. From where humans look like ants and no one ever understand it looking at it from the distance. And I would say that, Its not Mumbai...it's still the same Bomaby or बम्बई as we knew it since our childhood. Changing it's name never change the soul of it." - He says while he kept looking at my face and train.

This is Rakesh from Gonda. A district in UP. He has been raised in Mumbai and started helping his father from a very tender age. He used to woke up early in the Morning and worked till late night. Time changes but he still works the same way, he used to do in his childhood but a lot have been changed since then. He no more work in Mumbai but have shifted to Khopoli, a small town in Maharashtra and close to Khandala. He has started selling fruits(Though, he still sell other stuffs at stations but his family rums a fruit shop in Khopoli) when he saw that there is no much profit at the end of the day and then there were people who used to collect hafta from him and his father. Those days were very painful. You do all the work and then someone come and collect money from you just because it was his area where you were hawkering. This is ridiculous, but then there were people who used to help you in time of needs. This thing has been a forgotten word these days. He sighs. A small drop of tears rolled down o his cheeks while he remembering the old childhood days and trying to remember the hard work on the streets of Mumbai. And suddenly his eyes lit when he says......It's still Bombay for him and not Mumbai. Mumbai does not give the feel of what it was and what it stands for. While, I bade farewell to him from my train, he kept looking at the camera in my hand. Though, he did not allow me to take a portrait of him saying, " Kya saab ab yahi mubai me dikhaoge?"

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Love light

Night has its own beauty, you often failed to admire it. But i must say that having a camera in your hand and experimenting with light, made this feeling a beautiful feeling that we seldom feel. These pics are of my last night out, I am not sure if I have captured them right, but I must say that I have earned a lot from this night out. There's more to come in the coming days and I hope every time, I will improve a bit more.

Here, I have tried to capture different shades of light and I must say, I am surprised. Light has it's own language. A language that traverse through the time which never gonna fade away.

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Caption This...

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