Vasudev

I dont remember when or where I clicked this: either it was Matunga 20 years ago; or Kothrud 14 years go. But what I do remember was that he was singing very beautifully. With a strong voice which carried a long distance. He also looked soulful and tried to talk. But there is some fear around these people -- many of them are con artists (they say). They will talk of trouble in your 'bhavishya' or some such thing and try to con you. I dont know if it is true.

It must be a tough life. To just wander around singing and hoping that people will give something in return. I wonder why or how people end up like this. I was not brave enough nor considered myself a photographer enough to go talk to him and hear his story.

Water of Life

“It's in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life.”
— Viktor Frankl

Me the Photographer

A few days back I decided that in the coming year I will focus on monochrome photography. I will study value and tone. And I will document my journey.

Recent events have resurfaced the question of what one means by a fulfilling life. What is that one really wants to do? Are we doing it? Time suddenly seems precious.

For long I have stood on the sidelines of photography. I started the journey when I was in primary school when my father handed me his Zenith-E with the 58/2 Helios-44. I have had a black and white darkroom for a while and I printed photos on Illford paper. I have clicked portfolios. I have shot for film promotion. And so on.

But I always hesitated to call myself a photographer.

Let me now embrace this aspect of my life. I am a photographer.

The New View

After 13 years of 1202 we had to move out. It was the first shifting for the wife and the daughter both.

Moving is hard. We get attached to a place. It becomes our safe heaven. Breaking that safety leaves us open -- vulnarable. I tried to believe that the true roof is the sky on our heads and no one can take that away. But for the second time in my life I felt the pain of leaving home.

Luckily we managed to stay in familiar environs. The view, though, has changed. Now we look towards the south instead at the west.

An Angle

Life is full of angles, circles and lines. Or so it seems. An angel is an abrupt change in trajectory. An acute angle is an ouch. A right angle is often the sign that all is not right.

One wonders.

Tough Year

It's been a tough year.

That photo is from Sept last year. It feels like yesterday. Time is flying. Its been 9+ months since I have been slaving on Canon.

And then the health shocks. All the excesses of life finally caught up.

One has to pay the price for all foolishnesses.

Goodbye 2025

This must be the earlierst goodbye from me. Its not even 3 hours since the year ended.

2025 has been a difficult year. The peace gave away to financial distress.

I believe 2026 will bring lasting change.

Portrait: Siddhu

We used to trek together, long back. He was always the quiet reliable happy mate. Always ready to help.

He fought back to life after a devastating motorbike accident.

Siddhu is a fighter.

Camera: Sony A7R III
Lens: Voigtländer Nokton 50mm F 1
Light: a tall Ikea paper lamp


Portraits of the Soul

Random brickbat

Dried moss as seen through a kids microscope.

Sometimes life does throw a brickbat. Amit met with a bike accident. He barely made it to the ICU. I had never been to Cooper hospital and it was an eye opening experience.

The night we took him to the casualty was a regular rush night. 3-4 patients per bed. They saw his condition and started working immediately. But there was only one stretcher and only 2 nurses. All rushing around. He was then admitted to the Trauma ICU. The first 48 odd hours were hell for all of us - total mental and physical exhaustion.

He was in the Trauma ICU for 11 days. Then another 6 in a ward. Thankfully his legs and hands were not broken. Only about 5 ribs and the collar bone. The real risk were the numerous internal injuries and the head injury.

We got him back home after a miraculous come back from the brink. The tireless efforts of the doctors and his instinct to live pulled him back. He now has a long slow recovery ahead of him.

Government hospitals are an experience you will not easily forget. They cater to terrific loads with minimal staff. The poorest of the poor are not turned away here. I routinely saw doctors doing 24hr duty. These are the ones learning in the attached collage. Nowhere else can you get this kind of experience. Despite the multitudes of dogs, cats and heans staying on the premisis, despite every corner being used as a spitting zone, despite the mosquitoes and the dirt, despite the stinking and overflowing toilets - despite all this people do get cured. People who otherwise would have nowhere else to go.

As a society we must rethink the importance of these institutions and how much effort we need to put into them for all our sakes...

Oh melancholy!

“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”

— Victor Hugo

---

The photo is of a old man who is watching the priest do his stuff in a small temple on the outskirts of Solapur. He is lost in thought. The wire mesh adds a whimsy of him being trapped in this life, perhaps.

Shot with the Voigtlander Nokton 50/1 at F1.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
   And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
   And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
   To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
   Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
   Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
   If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
   With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
   And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

Goodbye 2024

2024 has ended. A year of suspended animation. Of trying to figure out what the rest of life will look like. A year spent with family and friends. A happy, lazy, peaceful year.

A slice of Mumbai - the Worli Sea Link

Christmas 2023. Didi treated us to a dinner in the Taj Land's End. Juicy mutton gravy and lots more. She also took us on a tour and showed us a balcony on one of the higher floors. Exclusive spaces for the exclusive folks of this world. We were lucky to get a glimps at all.

This photo is taken from up there.

Serious Observations of a Funny World

Mulund Chronicles

Reconstructions were everywhere. The old giving way to the new

March 2015 - Oct 2016

I was born and brought up in Mumbai. Lived in various places and all of those had an impact on who I am today. For 5 years till my 4th std I lived in a small village called Tarkhad near Vasai town. After that for about 22 years we stayed on the University of Mumbai campus at Kalina.

After my father retired, we shifted to Kandivalli and then to Goregaon. None of these two places felt like home after campus. After a few years the family shifted to Pune. I stayed on for another year trying to do a startup. When me and Percy finally started working on an idea we shifted to his house in Warje on the outskirts of Pune. We stayed there for 2 years, mostly underground.

After the startup shut I moved back in with the family. Got married and we all shifted to Kothrud, Pune. Finally a home which felt like home.

Once while visiting friends in Mumbai I visited Powai. I was to meet them at some football ground. After so many years living outside of Mumbai it all felt grand - the large buildings and the hustle and bustle. I wondered if I would ever live or work in some such grand place again...

Next year I got a job in that same grand building opposite the football ground. The Supreme Business park. The financials were still a little shaky so me and the wife shifted to an unassuming 1 bhk in the old LIC colony in Mulund East.

I stayed for amost 2 years in Mulund East. These were few of the most difficult, happening and eventful years for me. Lots of things happened...

I got to experience my favourite Mumbai monsoon in full glory. Twice. I connected with old friends. Old life. I travelled a lot to Kalyan and Pune. My mum got sick. She passed away. My daughter was born. I had a health crisis as my B12 and D3 hit near zero. I got my ACL reconstruction done which had been pending for over 6 years. I repaid my startup loan. I brought a bike with cash payment.

So much.

Mulund East is old Mumbai. Some of the buildings there were derelict and rundown. 50+ years old. There was decay everywhere. Old people. Poli-bhaji kendra's where mostly these old people got their food. It was like shifting back in time.

But Mumbai has it's charm. We felt at home. Me and the wify were finding back our feet in this city. The house was small and very old but it was still cozy. Luckily many of ours friends lived in Thane and nearby so Viviana mall was the new meeting place. Many dinners.

The Punto got used to the road from Mulund to Kalyan. Since my wife was pregnant she spent last trimester at her mothers in Kalyan. So most weekends I used to be there. On the others, we used to find our way back to Pune. I missed my mother and my little niece...

I used to get food from these very poli-bhaji kendras. One of them was run by a dude near the main chowk. He used to have chicken on some days and I used to get that. We employed an old bai who had grown up in the locality. She used to get fish - bangda, ravas, surmai, kolambi - for me and cook them in traditional style. Amazing stuff.

The office was super. We had an x-box 360, a pool table, a tt table & a mini golf course. Great time spent there. My health crisis made it extremely difficult for me to work and I thank Rishi for being patient with me. Eventually I left as I felt I did not do justice to the job at that point of time. That was the lowest point in my working career.

I shifted back to Pune to join my brother's startup. I had got very homesick after my mother's passing and I suppose I felt at home in Kothrud with the rest of the family. But this short stint in Mumbai will remain etched in memory.

The old markets of Mulund

The LIC colony. Reminded me of our campus. There were families who had stayed there more than 40 years.

The dude where I got my weekly dose of chicken curry.

Just Mumbai.

The new office was swank

Good times

The wife gifted me my dream lens. Super Awesome.

Powai

Mumbai rains. Oh I miss them.

The eating area of Supreme Business Park. We had waterfall view in the rains.

Powai

Old haunts. The Naka and DP's

Post the ACL reconstruction. Recovery was painful

Serious Observations of a Funny World

So You Want To Be A Writer

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.

–– “So You Want To Be A Writer” by Charles Bukowski

Patterns of Life

To understand is to perceive patterns.
- Isaiah Berlin

Beauty lies all around us. When we are open to receive beauty we will see patterns all around.

To be “open to receive beauty" is to cultivate a mindset of reverence and appreciation for all the that surrounds us - both minute and grand. We need an “active openness" which requires us to engage with our surroundings with mindfulness and intentionality.

William Blake, in his glorious poetic wisdom, said:
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."

When one adopts such an open stance, patterns of beauty reveal themselves with a magical clarity. The interplay of light and shadow, the juxtaposition of myraid forms, the cadence of the wind and water and of life itself — all become agencies of joy and a reminder of the inherent order and harmony that govern the universe.

In this state of openness, beauty is not merely observed; it is experienced. It becomes a source of inspiration and a reminder of the interconnectedness of all things. As John Keats wrote, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness." Beauty, therefore, is not transient; it lingers, enriching our lives with each encounter and leaving an indelible mark on our souls.

To see beauty and the patterns it forms is to embrace life with a full heart - it is an invitation to look deeper, to feel more profoundly, and to live with an awareness that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.


Photo taken at Badami on a Sony A7R3.

Solapur style mutton kheema balls | सोलापूर पद्धतीचे मटन खिम्याचे गोळे

During my school summer vacation I used to visit every year. My mausi used to make excellent 'kheemyache gole'. Those lazy summer vacations were about doing almost nothing - I used to hang out at my maushi's place and spent time with my elder sister. My mother and younger brother used to stay at my Aaji's place which was nearby. The afternoon's used to be super hot with the tar on top of the roads melting. Everyone used to just sleep off the heat. After 5pm it used to cool down and the town would come awake.

We saw at least a movie each year. Visited my Aajoba's garage to play in the oiled soil. We used to drink sugarcane juice at 'Poonekar Kamte' at Daffrin chowk. I used to go to the Kaljapur Maruti mandir with my Aaji. Sometime even to shop for groceries.

Sometime my cousins from Kolhapur used to also come down. Then it was a lot of activity. Aaji used to get a large basket of 'chokhi aamba' (small mangoes which we suck the juice out of) and all of us had a free hand. Then there was the ice-cream making activity. My youngest mama used to get the ice from the ice factory and then we used to put Aapus aamba and milk and sugar in the ice-cream maker and work it. It was a lot of fun and the ice-cream used to be awesome. We used to go the Park to eat pani poori and pav-chatni.

In the earlier years when I was younger my Aajoba had taken us on several drives to nearby places in one of the many cars he kept building at the garage.

This all happened till my grandparents were alive. My mother used to cry while leaving every year - as did my Aaji and Aajoba both. We used to head back in the Siddheshwar express which left at about 8:30pm. It reached Kurla at about 6am next morning. Then the auto ride to the campus ... and home!

By the time we got back the first rains would have turned the campus into a beautiful heavenly place.

NEX-3 and the Voigtlander Color Skopar 35 F2.5

I am still not over the fact that this beloved setup of mine is gone forever.

The Sony NEX-3 came out more than a decade (13 years!) ago. I was already a Sony digital user with Sony's first A100 DSLR from 2006. But the mirrorless usecase (and hence the future) was obvious to me so I sold my DSLR and got the Nex-3 with it's 18-55 kit lens.

The reason I came to Sony was that my friend Himanshu had a couple of Minolta lenses. So when I earned my first money and ran straight to the JJ Mehta camera shop we naturally gravitated towards the Minolta cameras. I got the Minolta Dynax 5. After a while Minolta got taken over by Konica and they rebranded as Konica-Minolta. After a while apparently Konica sold the camera division to Sony and Sony continued with the same Minolta A mount. Hence the Sony A100 with the A mount.

Coming back to this setup: the NEX-3 was a fantastic camera. Super light weight and compact - hardly larger than a serious point & shoot. But the lens was long and of average quality. So I went in search of used rangefinder lenses on the forums as the new E mount was adaptable to other mounts. I purchased this Voigtlander Color Skopar 35/2.5 lens from a stree photographer in New York city. This lens, even with the adapter, made the overall package exceptionally compact. People did not believe that it was an APS-C setup. The rendering of the lens was endearing and many of my best photos are clicked with it. I miss it.

Young and carefree

“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
Says the great Marcus Aurelius.

We are never as connected with our own soul as when we are young. The joys of those carefree times...

When I was in primary we lived at Tarkhad, a small village of about 50 houses. The road to my school passed through fields and small lanes in the interior of Vasai. During the monsoons I used to float a stick in the streams / gutters running next to the lanes. It was such great fun to follow the floating stick for as long as I could.

Serious Observations of a Funny World

Of old connections

The fools met again.

After the year-end blast at Mandwa, we decided to meet again. A central location (Lonavala) was chosen. Hurried plans. But good ones. The hotel was mostly empty. We booked two rooms — 3 each. It was a great night. We played music (mostly Hemant did) and we sang and we danced into the merry night.

The next morning every left for Mumbai and I headed back home. Nice time.