A Little Change…

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted something here, and I could see just how much you guys have missed me in the meantime. Thanks to everyone who’s been following this blog. Although I don’t have any stories to put up out here, I still wanted to come by and tell you that I haven’t crawled under a rock somewhere and died… I’m still alive and kicking!

This post is a bit different… instead of a story, I’m putting up some random photos that I’ve taken a while back, of my favorite subject there is – Delhi. I hope you like the photos here. There will be some more shots coming out here, along with some short stories too… haven’t really decided that just yet. For the time being though, enjoy the pics.

  

Taken at Chandni Chowk. A man lighting his kerosene lamp to prepare for the oncoming night. Business as usual.

 

 

Coffee Home at Connaught Place, New Delhi

 

Two eagles in the backdrop of a cloudy day. It rained soon after this, much to the relief of Delhi. I wonder what the eagles thought, though…

 

One of the many, many hawkers on the streets of Chandni Chowk. So preoccupied was he with his evening cup of tea, that he didn’t even seem to notice me taking this picture of his.

 

Connect the Pigeon Dots? Oh well, it’s already been done by that wire up there… a little inside story about this particular photo, I got a nice little drop of “blessing” from my beautiful models right after taking this picture, much to the amusement of all my classmates! I think somewhere, there’s a picture of me posing with a little white blob on the my jacket sleeve as well…

More stories and/or photos to come in future. In the meantime, you can head over to my Flickr account to see

some more pics that I’ve taken. That page would be (hopefully) updated quite frequently too.

Cheers to all.

Technorati Tags: Appreciation,Non-Fiction,Photography,Delhi

That Damned Shortcut: Part 2

This post is the second chapter in the story of how a shortcut affected the peace of mind of five college kids. In case you haven't read the first part, Click Here. Cheers...

~~~~~

While Siddharth got busy making sure she was not hurt, Ira, Amit and Parul looked around to see what had caused her to faint.

Amit was the first one to notice what was a bobbing lantern coming at them through the banana trees. Scared to death, he merely pointed his finger towards it.

From among the banana trees, out came the bobbing lantern. It was held by the most ancient arm that anyone from that group had seen in all their lives. The five of them sat petrified in the car, while the figure moved slowly towards them. Although they couldn’t see the face, they could feel the unseen eyes of the black figure on them. A few feet away, the figure stopped, and they got a glimpse. It looked like a man, wrapped in a black blanket, a hood hiding his head from view. The lantern, swinging from his hand, cast deep shadows on whatever bit of face they could see of him. His face was wrinkled to the extent that it seemed pieces of it would be falling off. All this however was left unnoticed, once they spotted the moon shaped scar on his left cheek, and the two sunken circles where they knew the watchful eyes rested.

“Do all of you see a man there, who’s easily 200 years old?” whispered Amit into the silence. Ira shushed him without looking at him. Parul, who was trying to revive Minisha, left her on the floor of the car and sat petrified at the appearance of this man.

“We have to get out of here. Amit, start the damn car!” said Siddharth in the palpable silence.

“Sid, the car’s not starting. You think I’d be here if I could help it?” said Amit in the bravest voice he could summon.

“Be quiet you two, no need to attract attention,” whispered Ira.

“Ira, look around!  There’s no one else here, I think we’ve got all the attention possible,” said Amit.

“What if he wants to harm us?” asked Ira, a strangled whisper being all that she could come up with.

“Ghosts don’t want to hurt anyone, unless they’ve done the ghosts some harm. I read it somewhere,” Sid spoke from the backseat.

“Shut Up!” said Ira and Amit together, turning back at Siddharth, half angry, half scared witless.

They never thought that there would come a day when they would start believing in ghosts.

The man moved forward. Slowly, he came towards the car, the lantern still bobbing eerily in his hand. They waited with bated breath, wondering what would happen. He stopped right in front of Amit’s window, his cold breath fogging the window, even though the weather outside hadn’t been that cold. The man stood there for a full minute, then a long bony finger emerged from beneath the depths of the black blanket. He rapped the window thrice, and pointed back along the road. Again, he rapped the window, and again he pointed back the way they had come.

 The moon decided to show up for the night, and threw light upon the true terror that had spread in that little car. Amit turned the ignition, and this time there was a feeble lurch in the car, and a faint gurgling sound came from the engine. One more time the blanketed man rapped the window, and pointed.

“Come on, don’t give up on me now. I don’t wanna die here, not tonight, not in a stupid Banana Plantation!” Amit almost screamed at the car.

And voila! The engine suddenly throbbed to life. Sweet relief shone on Amit’s face, as he put the car in reverse to get out of there. The figure, seeing that they were fleeing the scene, followed them with outstretched arms.

“Get the hell outta here Amit! Pedal to the metal!” screamed Siddharth from the back seat.  The tyres screamed, but Amit relentlessly pushed the car to its limit, till the road from where they had started was visible again. They turned on to the busy street, stopped the car under one of the many burning streetlamps, the wonderful light washing over their white, scared faces.

“What. Was. That?” Asked Ira in the stunned silence.

“What the heck was that dark thing moving towards us in the darkness? Was I dreaming?” asked Minisha, having finally come back to her senses. Parul still couldn’t talk, while Amit had beads of sweat sticking to his head.

“Never again, am I going to take that sort of a shortcut. I’ve had enough of Ghosts for this lifetime!” vowed Amit, and they headed down the well lit road back home.

***

The man on the road finally removed the blanket that he had put on to scare the kids. He had a smile on his face, as he remembered how as kids, his gang of friends used to scare innocent travelers back at home.

“Felt good to do that after such a long time. I’ve still got it,” said the old man to himself, and walked back home, laughing as he thought about the scared faces of the poor kids.

~~~~~

This is a story that has been co-authored by Isha Chawla, and the first part of the story can be found on her blog... although I'm assuming that you came out here from her blog itself!

“A Crush on Delhi”

The title for this post comes not from my head. Coined by Kshitij Sharma (classmate, friend, fellow passionate-photographer), I do however share the feelings that simple line brings out. The city I grew up in, it's been my home for the last twenty years. I've seen this city breathe, live, and grow. One of the earliest memories I have about the city is the existence of the Double Decker buses of DTC. They were quickly replaced by the boring buses, and the longing to ride one of them remained but a longing. The city kept on growing though, and so did I.

It had been a long time since I had captured a moment of time within a little box… more than a year to be precise. Thus, when the opportunity presented itself, I did not hesitate (not even to bunk the Marketing Strategy class!) to get out of Greater Noida to come back to Delhi, the home housing my home. The one lesson I learnt that day was that City is full of surprises, some brand new while others ancient…

As always, when coming anywhere near Delhi, it was Connaught Place that beckoned us. Almost naturally, we drove down the roads that led us to the beating Heart of the city. However, the first surprise came in the form of a little detour near CP, that led us to a place called Bawli (correct that if I'm wrong there please) a water tank that was used during the Mughal era. Another interesting claim that I heard that day about that place was that it was a tunnel that led all the way to Agra. I don't know whether to believe that claim or not, but still it was quite an intriguing claim.

The most fascinating aspect of this monument was the sheer depth of the tank. Since there was no water there, we could see how far down the steps went, and from where we stood it was quite clear that the tank had been filled up. Another claim I heard there was that it was an 11 storey deep tank. This could be true, but the first question that jumped up in my head was the obvious… how did they build that tank? It goes without saying that a tank of that size would certainly not have been built first and filled up later, but the intricacies of the architecture certainly posed a difficult-to-answer question: how did they build the tank? Even the guard from the ASI did not have an answer to the question, but then again, that's quite okay. A few unsolved mysteries in life certainly spice up life itself.

I could have spent at least another few hours out there, but the main purpose of our visit to the beloved city was to go to Chandni Chowk. It was one place that has drawn me towards itself, like a moth to a flame, ever since the beginning of last year. I really cannot count the number of hours I've spent roaming around in the narrow pathways of Chandni Chowk, always finding myself at a new place, always presented by a new surprise in a different ancient looking shop. Interestingly, there was a door in Chandni Chowk that I had been looking for last year, but somehow I never managed to find it. Of course, last year I visited that place on my own, so almost every time I ended up getting mysteriously lost in the narrow winding lanes of the ever crowded market. This time however, by some sheer luck, I found that door. Nothing too elaborate, it was a plain old door… it was the memories attached to that door that I was chasing, and being presented suddenly and quite unprepared-ly by the one thing I was hunting for so long last year, it was a bit of a bittersweet moment for me. Just thought I'd mention that here, no real purpose of saying it as such…

The view down the lane towards Red Fort was as mesmerizing as always. The main road of Chandni Chowk, the hubbub of traffic all around us, the shopkeepers screaming their "dishcount rates", the constant flow of people, a crowd that has a life of its own, the food stalls on the footpath meant for people walking, the wafting smell of the delicious tikkis being fried on one of the largest frying pans, the old paanwaala who made the paans while I took a zillion photos of him… even that old man with the most magnificent white beard, who wouldn't let us photograph him… it all reminded me of a time that I miss a lot right now, a time when I wouldn't care about where my feet were taking me, as long as there was a camera in my hand, and the Life of Delhi to capture in its frame…

Four Feathers...

Once upon a time, in the hustle bustle of a city, stood an ancient mosque. On a bright sunny morning, the tip of the dome of the mosque became the stage for a drama unfolding. The Dome became a battlefield between a pair of hawks and a pair of crows. Each was fighting the other to gain control for that position, and were ready to slaughter the other for the sake of victory... yet life for the humans below remained the same, the chaos of a busy marketplace, people walking about supremely unconcerned about the four birds fighting for their lives and their pride up in the freshly laundered blue sky...