Camera

         The next time you are balancing on one foot and manually focusing on a flower in some random building and a kid walks up to you from behind, calls out ‘camera uncle camera uncle’, makes you loose your balance and your focus and then instead of apologizing, laughs at you and then requests you to take a photograph of him and his friend making cool salman khan poses, just take the photo.

          And oh ya, if you do not want to be mocked more make sure you undo all the amateur ISO and shutter speed adjustments before you click. Take the photograph, show it to the kids and make sure it is clear. And please for god’s sake do not try to reason that the photograph has more depth in black and white. Just shoot it in full auto. Then stop waiting for a ‘thanks’ and quietly walk away and enjoy the immense satisfaction you get from hearing the kids bragging to all his friends that ‘camera uncle’ took a photo of them…

the kids in question

         Over the last few weeks I have been roaming around with my dad’s camera and trying to figure out what each button on the Canon EOS 400D does. Now trying to take photos teaches you a lot, but most of the stuff it teaches you isn’t about photography. For a start you begin to see how other people perceive you. A camera to me maybe a device to take photographs, but to someone looking at me, it is merely an ‘accessory’ I are wearing. Let me explain. I was at ‘Gokul’ a bar in Cloaba and a drunk man on a table nearby called me a ‘foreign return’ (that is an abuse incase you had not figured already) cause I was carrying my friends camera. And the other day I was offered cocaine on causeway by some sidey dealer who thought I was a druggie because I was trying to take a shot of a taxi through a cluster of flowers (really, is that so weird?). But things aren’t always so bad. I was allowed to walk into the Taj and use the toilet purely because I looked like a tourist with my camera.

         I learnt a bit about other people as well. Never take a photograph of a rich person regardless of how beautiful his/her house is. They are all adamant and haughty people who think that you are out to make money by taking photographs of them. As a rule, the less well of a person is, the more willing he/she is to pose for or appear in your shot. They are also generally more amiable and friendly. I started this piece by taking about children and how they love to appear in a photograph. It is sometimes irritating to be constantly troubled, but like I said before something as simple as a photograph can make a person really happy. I noticed a few quirky things as well. For example if you walk into a really crowded place and point your lens in some random direction at least 50% of the people around you will look in that direction. And random people smile at you when they see you sitting on the footpath and trying to take a photo of a flower on the road (someone will inevitably step on the flower and disfigure and discolour it though, so don’t get to happy). You begin to notice things around you much more keenly. I have lived at C2 Jolly Highrise Apartments Pali Mala Road for the past nine years of my life but in the past one month I have discovered two abandoned ‘bhoot’ bungalows merely 50 meters from my house, one mini-community which is really well hidden, have finely begun to appreciate the lighting on Pali Hill and for the first time in my life have begun to notice flowers everywhere (to my fathers great surprise).

another photogenic kid

         Today I find myself spending more and more time on National Geographic website and I only now discovering how so many of my friends are extremely talented with a camera. I hope that photography doesn’t turn out to be just another temporary hobby for me. But even if it does the last month has been a really good fun.