bicycle DoP

i cycle to my television shoots as well...the studios, an easy 15-20min radius from where i live... i remember when i first arrived on my cycle to the kbc n koffee sets, my lightboys were horrified!..."kya sir, gaadi lena chahiye". of course, there'd be one of them who'd thumbs up in full approval from behind ;)
now they are all used to me seeing me rollin in ...i am loving it!

bicycle bicycle bicycle

been meaning to do it ever since i got my bike...ride from home @ sai baba in goregaon to sur's @ thakur village in kandivili...and i did it this morning!...in 20mins flat!! with coolers over my eyes n music in my ears, i was there in just 3 songs. up over the malad flyover rolling down all the way downslope to the notorious malad toi signal. slight upslope till the k'vili station road bridge n then a smooth roll down to mahindra gate...whizzed right past security n parked my bike just below the block. ahhh!...to think i've spent an hour n a half hours sometimes suffocating in a rick to do the same distance at peak hours!!
bicycle lanes toh door ki bath! wish i was in amsterdam!!
so many lifetimes ago, i'd race rickety ambassadors n fiats on skates as they spluttered down the highway in bandra east...i skate from home in kherwadi to the santacruz airport just to see planes take off...o n to under one while it took off was the biggest thrill of the week!!...i'd skate the from home in vakola to school in matunga, n be joined by two classmates on their bicycles at the bandra kalanagar flyover!!! cannot imagine doing it these days...
next...gonna try goregaon to vakola to my mum's! yaaay!

not just jazz

i had missed all of the prithvi theatre festival celebrating the musical. got a chance to see denzil smith's 'jazz' last evening at bandra...my friend, naresh has been digging up bombay's fantastic jazz past over the last few years...his research shaped much of the script but the play left me disappointed. some of the lines were straight out from a high-school annual day production!...making me cringe. the lead - bugs bhargava huffed n puffed his way thru the different characters he played - mumbai's long forgotten jazz greats. drugs, sex, women, exploitation, penury, desperation, alcohol, church, bollywood...o how much church! seemed more like a "made by bandra for bandra" consumption! the high point was young rhys!...boy! can he blow that sax??!!
good intentions not matched by as good results...in fact, it could've been a radio play!!

maalish! tel maalish!

sar jo teraa chakaraaye,
yaa dil Duubaa jaaye
aajaa pyaare paas hamaare,
kaahe ghabaraay, kaahe ghabaraay

...a few days ago, i decided to shave my hair off! well, almost ;) but the chammpi that followed...aaahhhh tres bliss! wondered why i didn't get one before!!

a couple of hours later...

no one says it like schulz!

one year later...

...my sister, she surrounds herself with memories!...and friends n family!

bandipur sightings!

making a mountain of an ant-hill
any amounts of spotted deer
tusker, saar! king elephant
aanai family at a salt lick!
the closest we came to seeing a tiger!tho' a lot of fat gujjus saw one one evening. once, the driver/guide shiva (the dude!) slammed the accelerator n catapulted us for a rare 2sec fleeting glance of a leopard...

the gypsy is such a wonderful vehicle to sneak up on the animals...trying to beat them at their own game...purr-ing down those jungle tracks...engine switched off...rolling along, eyes n ears pealed...most exciting! crested hawk eagle, flying squirrel, sambar, langurs, monkeys...so many birds!!!

occassionally missed carrying my slr n long lens...but then was sooo relieved not to be carrying it!

diwali in bandipur

so after the torrid time in bangalore, we went off to bandipur...the most unusually quiet diwali it was...almost forgot it was diwali except when some locals burst some crackers late one night. but the night skymade up for all the missing fireworks!...a zillion stars up there tho' it was too cold to stay out to catch a falling star!

tusker trails - this really neat enclave of 15huts complete with dining room with all meals, swimming pool n recreation room. they'd wake us up early at 545am with bed tea n whisk us off in gypsy-loads for a 2hr safari deep into the sanctuary. (commander-in-chief mama noronha!)
hungry after devouring the sightings, we tuck into a huge breakfast n set off for a 2hour trek! back with just enough time to splash around in the pool, beer n lunch...and a well-deserved siestaaaahh! only to be rudely woken up yet again with chai at 3.30 in time for another 2hr jaunt into the jungle to hopefully see a tiger!
back at 6.30 all dusty n happy n onto a full game of tt!! some vodka followed by a light dinner, sit around a campfire (but no one told ghost stories :( zzzzzz n next morn the familiar firm rap on the door - saar goodmarning, bedtea saar!! o such blissss...
PS: c-in-c mama noronha sulked most of the time coz there wasn't any church nearby ;)

to accept

google found about 267,000,000 links for "to accept" in (0.11 seconds)...but i am finding it so hard...i turn to the buddha...but he ain't smiling...as yet :(

fire in the mountain run run run...

now for a break from the clan!

the volvo whizzes past these :(lalbaugh lovers forever!night dreams burnings you?
bengaluru pompidou?!

of nephews n nieces!

that is gaurav (aka baba), karen, rohit, pooja - our very own gen next! need to keep checking myself from calling them kids anymore!! for them, i'll remain ajoo...they'd spend at least a week with me during their summer vacations...and we'd go to the science centre n the beach or i'd show them "children's" films like bicycle thieves n lord of the flies which would upset them so much that they'd do katti with me :)
pooja's bit the bug n is doing film at shristi in b'lore. baba wants to be a writer tho his mum wants him to be a travel writer ;) rohit wanted to be an inventor and karen - she doesn't know!

hima-ben

hima - among my oldest friends...from xavier's. now, much married with two boys in b'lore.time n distance have never mattered ever since.
"Old friends,
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears"...
mum would make jam sandwiches for her long train journey back home to dhanbad. she found us this super 3bedroom homely service apt in town, which soothed our frayed nerves at the end of the day.

family tree!

now, just how cool is that?! nagpore circa 1965 or thereabouts.

this, my fav pic of the trip...at lalbaug in b'lore. wished jim n pooja n c! were there too to "complete" the picture...or maybe i should just photoshop them in!!

had carried my minidv cam too but didn't end up shooting an inch of tape. dunno when i'll ever complete that film. by now, the family's gotten so used to me shooting them, there's hardly any resistance when i get them to do stuff like this ;)

bangalore sucks!

just back from the big family vacation...which save the b'lore bit was absolutely fab. bangalore, they had all warned me was bad, had changed for the worse, etc...but i couldn't have imagined just how bad it had got.

the traffic in bombay, i thought was the pits. but in b'lore, it's anarchy!! bad pavements force you to walk on the road. horns blaring, two-wheelers brushing past, choking on particulate matter, getting knocked down by a car n getting screamed at n blamed for by a passing-by middle-aged aunty!! not a word of apology or helping hand from the god-cursed lot.

i mean, the locals seem just so hostile to outsiders...or was it my imagination? the rick guys are another animal. i always thought delhi was the worst. but these guys win hands down. rude arrogant conniving pack of foul-mouthed thieves. o i hate them. the insane one-ways coupled with their refusal to speak any other langauage, made travelling around b'lore a complete nightmare.

the bangalore palace, lavishly portrayed in all the tourist brochures was firmly on our radar. so off we went after much haggling in 3 rickfulls. no other tourist in sight, save the prince himself n his guest, the portly ex rail minister jaafer sharief. entry fee 100rupees! no printed literature they had nor guide book. but enough arrogance to say take it or leave. n if u don't pay 100bucks you cannot take pictures either! so a huuuge showdown with this really rude security guy who actually kept shoving us off...by then the entire noro clan had had enough and piled on mercilessly. o it was such fun, but left us feeling just so bitter.

it must've been a nice place but now hurtling towards imminent disaster :(

family holidays!

not since we were kids, did we go out of bombay for the vacations...the family with the familiar military green hold-all. we'd troop to dadar station by noon to take the train to nagpore each christmas holidays. i still remember waking up to milk vendors yelling dodh-dodh-garam dodh at wardha jn in the wee hours of the morning. nagpore would always come after ajni eeaarrllyy in the morning, foggy n cold...n me always reluctant to get up. aziz bhai our "regular" cyclerickshawwalla would always be there for us...we'd pile up the rickety rickshaw n poor ol azizbhai would heave us from the station to mohannagar postoffice.

waiting impatiently at the gate, were my dad's two sisters n niece...this was the family house! we were all born there which made it so special to go back there each year. a huuge house it was, tho' just half of it was now occupied. a back garden with fruit trees for us to climb n me to chase squirrels. a front flower garden overrun with weeds and a ritual task to clean up! the living room opened out onto this garden. my favourite room. here were these big bw portraits of my dad's parents looking down on us. an upright piano which propped more family pics. n there within this wooden case - the music system! a grundig 78rpm turntable, a tape spool deck, a warmly glowing tube radio and this really big unweildy amp...of course i couldn't lay a finger there...i'd look intently digesting every glowing lamp n moving needle...

sometimes, my uncle - dad's brother would be visiting fro germany. he was a priest there n travelled a lot. after dinner, me tucked into my razaai, he'd hang a white bedsheet on the wall n pull out this really neat projector n slide after slide he'd bore us with stories of people he'd met...i'd wait for the scenic shots...remember seeing my first snow! i'd sleep till late morning often refusing to get out of bed coz it was too cold n still dark! my aunt - anna (no not aa-naa but un-naa) would dip her finger in her glass n let me lick it...i'd cringe but it warmed my insides ;)

i'd run up n down the approach road rolling this truck tyre (or at least it seemed like that then) all morning till lunch!! then there was the club. singing, fancy dress competitions, dad playing billiards (dunno if i actually remember that or from what i've heard!)...and one mandatory trip to mahrej baag (which i discovered so many years later was maharaj bagh). mica, so much shinny mica we walked on. and one trip to seminary hils...again poor ol azizbhai was summoned n again he'd pull us uphill n we'd jump off n push the cyclerickshaw up...on the morning of our departure, we'd go to jubilee bakery for cardboardboxloads of the best ginger biscuits n macaroons on this planet! sometimes, we'd carry back to bombay sackfuls of oranges...but olly, my cousin sister would get really upset when the time came for us to leave...she'd grit her teeth n start to cry...n then we'd all cry before leaving for the station...

tomorrow, we all go to bangalore to spend diwali with my niece who's studying there. missing in action: my dad, my bro-in-law anil, my brother jim and c!