Off The Beaten Path

Rock Of Ages

I don't quite remember when I took this picture, in the sense that I don't quite remember if it was 1985 or 1986. I do seem to remember that it was sometime in the middle of the year, and it was rather late in the afternoon.

Lovely warm sunlight, and I used either an orange or a red filter. Probably a red, to increase the contrast. I used to use only 100 ASA film those days. I have, since, used film speeds of 400 ASA, but now I am getting back to the 100 ASA film. I quite like the fine grain and extra contrast in the 100 ASA film.

In recent times, I have switched largely to digital and, I shoot a lot in colour. I have to say that, now I am missing black and white film a lot. So, tomorrow, when  I visit Shanghai I will take my F 75 with some 100 ASA film.

India used to have beautiful skies. Vibrant blue skies, with lovely skies. In recent times, the colour of the blue has paled somewhat, and the blue skies have become a little grey. A grey blue, because of the amount of pollution we have in the sky.

We humans are a strange breed. And, why are we strange?  Here's one manner in which we are strange.  We study a lot  in school, in college and we lay a lot of emphasis on education. The aim of our education is to teach us more and more about less and less, and to ensure that we get great jobs. And, that we start great careers. Somewhere down the line, we forget to teach our kids to appreciate life, to appreciate the world, and to appreciate nature.

So, we build larger factories, cars etc. This is very cool. But, we also forget, in many parts of the world, that we need to limit the amount of crap that we put into the ground and into the air.

Going back almost twenty years, to a warm, late summer afternoon in Bangalore,  I'm glad that we still have, in many parts of the world, great skies.

The Rock of Ages, has seen more summers than I ever will, I am sure, and will be around somewhere long after we humans have gone, unless some crazy bomber blasts it out of the ground. Barring that eventuality, it's going to wait for the day when the sky is clear again, and its going to say, Thank Goodness I can breathe again.

Sunset. Sunrise.

A good friend of mine recently asked my why I prefer sunsets over sunrises. That was a very good question, and it set me thinking. I can't really say that I prefer sunsets over sunrises. They are different. The moods are quite different, really.

The picture on the left was taken in Varanasi, India. I was on the boat at 5:30 in the morning and, it was a glorious morning. I shot an entire role from the boat, right from the time the sun first appeared above the horizon, to the point where the light changed. This will be the subject of a subsequent blog entry. Like the bloke in the boat, I feel that sunrises are a moment of quiet reflection. Of energy coming into the body, of the start of the preparation for a new day. The light, which can be a glorious golden changes rapidly and becomes stronger. The early morning light changes from the warm orange of sunset to a cooler, more energetic blue light. And, in places like the shores of the Ganga, there is a lot of bustle of acivity. The above shot was taken using my old Olympus OM2n, and colour film.

This shot on the left is a digital shot taken while I was on a cruise in SE Asia. It was our first evening on the boat, on leaving the waters of Singapore. I used my Nikon Coolpix S 10.

Sunsets have a different mood altogether. The warmth of the afternoon sun, gives way to the warm oranges of sunset. While the mood if of contemplation and reflection, it is often that of reflection on what has passed, and on preparation for the evening. Skin tones are warmer. The mood is more relaxed, the pace is slower, easier.

Which is better? Impossible to say. The song "Morning Has Broken", refers to the morning as "God's recreation of the new day". Sunsets are times of peace. When predators and victims drink water side by side, without fear and, possibly in companionship.

Bassein Village. Bombay, 1984

Bassein Village was the next stop after the Fort. I don't recall if we were looking for it, or if we stumbled upon it. I really can't remember. Anyhow, we did. If I remember well, one of the first shots that I took in the village was of these fishing boats. I liked the angles and patterns made by the prows of the boats and, for me the composition fell into place.

We walked around a bit, taking pictures of the people, what they were doing and generally behaving like city slickers or, city bums. I don't believe for a moment that we stopped to pause and think of what these peoples' lives were about.

Looking back, I think most of them have been stuck in time, as it were. Fishing and drying fish the way that their forefathers did for generations. I am sure that they even carried on the same prejudices that their forefathers had, and believed the same beliefs. Things in old India tend to get passed down from father to son according to the strict ritualistic teachings of " my grand father did it this way, my father did it this way, I do it this way. And, so will you, my son". It's changing now. It's changing faster in the big cities, and more slowly in the small towns and villages. But, it is changing.

Commerce changes it. I've travelled a lot in the villages of India, and as more and more companies push into the villages to sell their products, and expose the villagers to advertising, and as they expose them to new mediums like the Internet, things change. For India, this is crucial, to unleash the power of innovation.

Bassein Fort. 1984

Years ago, in 1983 or 1984, I did my only course in photography. Some of us in the class became pretty friendly for a while, before we all went our own ways in life. 

Sometime after the course had ended, and before we went our own ways in life, we went to Bassein, in the distant western suburb of Bombay for a day of photography. And, Bassein really was distant for us people! The train ride seemed to go on and on and on. For me, it did not really matter, as I was infatuated by one girl in the class. Not that my infatuation helped me, because she got married soon after!

Bassein is one of those forgotten places in Bombay. It was, at least in those days, a completely unspoiled place. There were no tourists. Just us. And, there was no place to eat either. I think that I was probably the only one who had not brought some food to the picnic. Which is probably one reason why we did not stay friends as a group.

Bassein is an old Portuguese fort in Bombay. It seems it was a pretty thriving fort between 1534 and the mid 1700's when it was sacked by the Marathas.

The fort is still in generally decent condition. If you look at the photo album, you will see some of the nice columns and some of the superb ramparts of the fort.

We did'nt feel this at the time ( by noon we were baked ), but looking back at the photos, I do start to think a bit. Of the kind of grandeur, pomp and glory of the place. I wonder actually, if the Portuguese actually wore some of the heavy clothes they wore in Europe. That would have baked them!

Forts are great. They are so bloody....... historic. I really cannot think of a better term than historic. History, when it breathes, is fantastic. When it is converted into a dull sequence of dates, dates and dates, it becomes dry and heavy. Schools need to do a better job with history.

Borivali National Park. 1983

I took these pictures, which you will see in the album by the same name as this post, way back in 1983. These were times, in my romantic imagination, when the world was a simpler and cleaner place. Certainly, Bombay was a cleaner and less polluted place those days.

The park itself is brilliant. It's pretty well spread out and, right in the centre of one of Bombay's northern suburbs. It's home to lots of flora, fauna and is a nicely forested area.

About 6-8 km from the entrance gate is the Kanheri Cave lot, which are Buddhist Caves from the 9th century AD.  Kanheri is a modernised version of the term Krishnagiri or Black Mountain.

In the typical Indian style, they have renamed the Park, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. We, in India, have this new love for renaming everything after political leaders. And, Sanjay Gandhi was the son of the late Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. I have to say, this new habit is so bloody stupid, I must say. No one, but no one, except a few politicians who want a promotion, really give a damn anymore about half of the  political leaders we have. So, why mess around with perfectly decent names?

Anyway, sadly for me, I did not get to see much of the flora and fauna. I walked from the train station to the Caves, and back on a hot afternoon in 1983. I think it was the summer time, because that day we were playing the World Cup Semi Final against England, I think, and lost.

But, I was the only one walking. Everyone else had some sort of motorised transport and, they kept looking around at me as if I were mad. Possibly I was. But, there was a pretty prosaic reason for the walk, which did keep me fit. I was a poorly paid engineer, and could not afford a taxi or a car!

I walked around, climbed up and explored the caves. They are magnificent. I loved them. But, I have never been back! Maybe, it is time to make one more visit there!

Introduction. The Start

In the beginning, there was nothing. There was nothing, or so we would like to believe. And, then the Big Bang happened. After which, the world as we know it came into existence. We don't know what came before the Big Bang. We don't know what the universe is expanding into. We just seem to know that it is expanding and growing. At some point, we speculate, that the universe will either collapse onto itself in a Big Crunch or, that it will become cold, and continue to expand. Into what? What lies beyond the Universe?

This is why I am agnostic. I cannot accept the position of the atheists, who believe that there is no God. I don't believe that we can prove that there is no God. Neither can we believe that there is God. There is certainly no God that we have dreamt off. Religion is interesting. But, it does not point the way to "God", and the "God" of the scriptures is not "God"!

I don't know what was in my brain before this blog, and I certainly cannot predict where it will go. I had initially planned this to be chronological, and that does force some sort of discipline on the writer. But, I am not sure if I want to put my lifestory on the web. But, I will put up lots of pictures, and shall accompany them with my somewhat meandering thought process.