Anirban Saha's

How many of you have seen this image below :

Did you laugh at it ? All seeming true. Isn’t it ? It wasn’t a fad when I started photography. It was not many years ago that I bought my camera.  A junior of mine inspired me to open a facebook page for my photographs. People appreciated. I’m happy about it. I am no one to lecture people around about specific do’s and dont’s,, But this post has a purpose. Read through.

This image has three sets of stake holders :  One who photographs and laughs at it. One who does not photograph and laughs at it. One who photographs and does not laugh at it.

So what makes it so laughable ? – The Indian youth, the kind of publicity Facebook offers or is it the Indian society’s mindset ?

Well, time to ponder upon. But before that ..few quick points :

As a facebook netizen, I get irritated because of the following :

1) Mass tagging : You click a photograph. However good or bad you know it is, you tag 40 odd people in it. 6 of them turned up to “like” it. Dear friends, respect your work. If your work is good, your heart gets satisfied at first. You do not require “like”s to tell your heart – “I’ve done a good job”. A good photograph, will always find viewers, (and definitely at Facebook). Please do not do this. ”Good thought, Good words, Good deed… leads to ultimate success” … is true to the rest of the world. For us in photography (if you are seriously in it ) “Good thought, Good frame, Good shot …leads to ultimate success”. See, even I used to tag people. That time, tagging wasn’t so mainstream and I had limited it. But with maturity, I felt this is unnecessary. People kept commenting on their photographs so that they would remain obnoxiously visible. I personally do not approve of the intention.

2) Requesting for a “good” review : Be open to criticism please. We are artists. If someone is spending some time of his/her’s, at least respect that effort. You might agree, or you might prefer not to. But be open to them; who knows, you might get a million dollar advice!  Do not ask a person (who is elder to you) “Dada, bhalo comment koro”. That comment in bengali roughly translates to “Elder brother, please leave for me a good comment”. If your work is good, your elders will always say its good work and will suggest betterment. If your photograph is bad, why did you upload it in the first place?

3) Creating a group chat, adding a hundred people and asking to comment : I shall get personal at this. If you want me to review it, please show respect and humility. Drop me the link to your photograph personally and I shall oblige.

As a person I get irritated when :

1) An young kid shows off his DSLR behaving as though he is some awesome photographer : He very well might be. But humility marks an artist.

2) Speaking all bull shit about another photographer : Well, that’s entirely personal and loosely related to photography. More of a personal trait. But friends, be honest. Be humble. Appreciate others’ work. Who knows you might get something interesting to learn from them ? Respect your seniors and more importantly – contemporaries.

 

For a moment, let’s not laugh at it. I really did not intend to crack a joke. But if you have managed to laugh in between, let us find time to laugh at you. Why do we point at a handful of  Indian Youth, generalise them and make ourselves believe that, that is the picture of the entire nation ?

Personally speaking, all the 5 points I pointed out previously would hardly manage to gather near 200 heads in my 2500+ photographers in my facebook friend list. Can I say that all of the young photographers in my profile ask from me “good comments” ? Can I claim that all of them, creates a group and send links ? Perhaps, no. Even I was generalising.

We need to understand that times are changing. We require to shift our attention from traditional Computer science or whatever engineering, medical or whatever traditional to more creative aspects. If they are interested, let us guide them.

Let us not impose on them our thoughts, or laugh at their aspirations. Let us encourage freedom.

Not everyone is bad. If we carry out statistical analysis among the Indian youth who hold the camera, we will see :

1) An overwhelming majority will be under the age of 22. That’s precisely college and school students.

2) A very good percentage shall be of people who REALLY want to learn and is not getting proper guidance. Youtube cannot suffice always.

Now what has Facebook done ? They bring to these young people good photographs to inspire them. The youth stands inspired today. All these Name-Surname-Photography is an exhibition of their aspirations. They express their frustration when they are not guided properly. All the mass tagging, messaging and stuff are exhibitions of a mix of expectations and frustration.

They wish to be guided, They wish to be visible and a pat on their back shall work wonders, trust me.

I was/am a regular face at Kolkata Weekend Shoots. And if you happen to read this, you already know where I post my photographs. Online, I started a group – “Amateur Photographer Unit Pan India”. It got moderately good response. This is where I started knowing each of members personally. I took it offline with “The Meetup Group : Photography Discussions” and now see this :

Prashant Awasthi, Srivatsan Sankaran and Me just enhanced the concept of my previous initiatives to make “Journal of Indian Photography“. Few people said that we have many such “pages”. How much of the response shall we get ?

Now be informed :  This page is 15+ days old. We did not “tag” people. We did not “mass share” links. I personally invited few people.
This page has 1219 members right now. I am blessed, we found very good help from people we look up to : Mr Sayantan Mitra , Sapna Reddy, Mr Trilochan Kalra ..and their friends. Among my contemporaries we found Raghav, Rammohan Paranjape, Antony Pratap , Arundhati Chatterjee, Karthik Pashupathy, Kartikeya Jain, Vishnu Sivanandan.

We conducted a contest.. That’s Contest#1 : “My best shot”. We have more than 141 people participating in it. The youngest of the lot being a 15 year old guy Kushaghra from Kolkata who photographed with his iPhone. We had 16 year olds participating. the average age was near 22 I guess (I shall come out with the complete statistics), spread over – Delhi , Lucknow, Agra, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Nagpur, Kolkata and different parts of Bengal, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati .. Such is the impact.

Yes friends, who laughed at the first poster – Such IS THE IMPACT. We all want to learn.  Let us not curb any young feeling. We might have had bad examples. But that’s extremely few. I would not say that the entries are master pieces. We all can become better. We require encouragement.

We have NOT set a specific agenda for “Journal of Indian Photography”. It is open to anyone who wants to join. It is open to any idea, you would like to give. It is open to any suggestion for its betterment. If you happen to read this from any part of India, and want to join in, help spread awareness, help share knowledge …feel free to join in.

For a moment, let us not take the short cut.

For a moment let us not laugh at the poster.

For a moment let us just not walk that extra mile to make the difference.

For a moment let us walk that extra mile to “FEEL THE DIFFERENCE”.

It’s an incredible journey, trust me.

 

 

Disclaimer : I am not an acclaimed photographer. I work in TCS because I love programming.  I’m just another person who refuse to curb freedom.

Glimpses,small talks, photographs of Boshonto and fond memories, adda that can never be scripted down.

বাতাস ছুটিছে বনময় রে, ফুলের না জানে পরিচয় রে।
তাই বুঝি বারে বারে কুঞ্জের দ্বারে দ্বারে
শুধায়ে ফিরিছে জনে জনে॥

ওরে ভাই, ফাগুন লেগেছে বনে বনে–
ডালে ডালে ফুলে ফুলে পাতায় পাতায় রে,
আড়ালে আড়ালে কোণে কোণে॥

~ কবি গুরু রবিন্দ্রাথ ঠাকুর

বাঁচার ঋতু , প্রানের ঋতু , ভালবাসার ঋতু … ভালো লাগার ঋতু – আমার বসন্ত ঋতু। বাসের জানালা দিয়ে দেখতে পাচ্ছি ফুটপাথের ভিকিরির গায়েও এক মুঠো আবির ঢেলে দিয়েছে কেউ। হাসছে সে, হাসুক। সুর্য তার সমস্ত্য আলো দিয়ে আকাশ সাজিয়েছে। আর সাজিয়েছে বাসন্তিকাকে, যার এক ঝলক রূপে জালিয়ে দিল চোখ। আমার পুড়িয়ে দিল চোখ। আগুন লাগলো মনে মনে। সেই আগুনের আঁচে বস্তি তে ভাত ফুটছে। মা উকুন বাচছে মেয়ের। বসন্ত এখানেও। তাই বুঝি মাতাল বর তা আজকে মদ ছয়েনি। আর সে মদে আকাশ বিভোর করে চাঁদ উঠেছে। বসন্ত এসেছে, আমার বসন্ত।

~ সাম্য কার্ফা

A flash of fiery red; A dash of burnt auburn.
A splash of bright orange.
An explosion of sunburst hues .
I close my eyes. And smile.

Because I see with my closed eyes, the willowy boughs of the palaash tree, as if it stood before me.
Laden with the blessings of bloom, it sways hypnotically in the sweet spring breeze, like a snake sways to the music of a snake charmer’s pipe.
It swoops down and shimmies up with the rhythm of the wind, and it paints red all over its invisible canvas.

A spring in your step ; A smile on your lips.
A sparkle in your eyes.
Colour on your cheeks.
Feel life. Feel alive.
Boshonto. What does it play in your mind?

~ Imon

That slight bitter-clay taste of Abir in your mouth.
That slight crinklyness of your skin that is often the only reminder that you are not who you are for now.
That heady smell, that dusty, earthy, heady smell, which intoxicates even sans the bhaang!
The fingerprints you leave on everything you touch.
You’re afraid to go clean yourself, because that will only get you further painted, because no one is who they are… Yep, it’s holi.

~ Arko Sen

On this day, friendships are made, strengthened and kept. Ushering Spring with the festival of colors at Shantiniketan, it’s something worth your time. When you see those smiling faces, find yourself in the middle of thousands of people singing Rabindra sangeet on a bright sunny day, an unequivocal thought lingers in your mind all day long.. It’s all about love.

~ Aurindam Mukherjee

Life seems a whole lot brighter as small children dressed in sarees of every hue possible took to the stage amidst a hearty burst of the Rabindrasangeet being sung by the choir then…6 to 60, all putting in their contribution to the rainbow of melody which colours the sky. The performances end at around 9:30 and then starts the revelry, students and tourists alike smearing abir on each other, teasing and laughing, The mirth in their voices, mixed together in perfect unison. There seems to be no archness of manners, no unnecessary sophistication attached to the celebrations, everyone bent on enjoying the one day of freedom from their bondage of regularity to the utmost. The air around changes colour as the mood changes, the day getting more exciting as it nears to a close…

~ Achira Dasgupta

..while in the adda, I did not know how to participate. This city bred guy who has spent years trapped in the jungle of concrete and in fear of colours… what would he contribute to, in the discussion ?
It was yesternight when I was sitting by the side of my open window, doing I do not remember what. The music playlist came to an end. The world seemed to have come to stand still. ভিশন দম বন্ধ করা নিশস্তব্ধ।
I hate this feeling of being suffocated. I played the other set of tracks on. আমি তাঁরেই খুঁজে বেড়াই যে রয়ে মনে , আমার মনে, আমার মনে … আমি তাঁরেই খুঁজে বেড়াই। How beautifully Ustad Amjad Ali Khan added to Tagore, how beautifully, he has taken this song to an entirely different dimension.
Dreams …you perhaps can never plan them.
Wishes …you perhaps can never guide them.
Depths of the human heart – you perhaps can never gauge them.
The colours of Shantiniketan’s Boshonto Utsav still fresh in my mind, the full moon with its grace spelling her magic. I closed my eyes,

ও আমার চাঁদের আলো,
ধরা দিয়েছ যে আমার পাতায়ে পাতায়ে ডালে ডালে।
মোর অন্গিনায়ে বাজলো গো, বাজলো সেই সুর আমার প্রানের তালে তালে।

Trance again. Took me away to another world. Its fun, its fun to see how we all deny our hearts at times. ..specially at times, when our nature paints it with its’ colours.. the colours of spring, how true. The colours of change, how true. The welcoming of warmth, how true ! The colours that slowly define us, ..how true.

মুগ্ধ কোকিল মুখর রাত্রি দিন যাপে,
মর্মরিত পল্লবিত সকল বন কাঁপে।
দশ দিশি সুরম্য সুন্দর মধুর হেরি,
দুঃখ হল দূর সব-দৈন্য-অবসানে॥
নিবিড় অন্তরতর বসন্ত এল প্রাণে।
নিবিড় অন্তরতর বসন্ত এল প্রাণে।

Adda friends :

Photographs by Pratyay Mukhopadhyay, JU 3rd year Civil Engineering student. “Like” his page in Facebook.

…and Anirban Saha, umm the host

Personal note :
It feels incredible to have them in the adda. Aurindam is a JU passout and one of my oldest twitter-made friend. Arko Sen, is perhaps one of the most creative persons I have met. PS : An awesome programmer too! His “About me” is interesting. It reads, ” just an egoistic ill-phisyqued arrogant unattractive weird eccentric narcissistic misanthropic philogynistic nihilistic postmodernistic objectivistic hetero-techno-retro-sapiosexual male.” Haha.
Achira Dasdupta, is not new in this blog. Always bubbly, enthusiastic …and English honours student !
Samya is a person, I befriended very recently. A writer by passion, he already has his writings published at many newspaper. And guess what ? He is doing his masters in Chemistry. When he gets poetic, I make it a point to keep shut. I fear spoiling his sense!
Imon, too is an old friend of mine. Not very frequently do we talk, but when we do, she always make sense. Strict, sensible… and at times I feel, how come she is my friend? Haha.
Pratyay, by now you know – He is a champ ! It is his photographs that encouraged me to this adda.
And, the omni present Tagore, amidst all of us.

Travelling and photographing events have always led me dive into the uncertain. And after months, I was the same mad Anirban Saha, I cherish having been one. In spite of the Doctor’s prescribed rest, the increasing workload at office and the unconfirmed tickets… I managed to have the Kumbh experience.

And trust me; words shall fail if I try to describe the Kumbh. No place as holy as the Sangam during the sunrise, with a lakh other bathing in it. The only warmth to receive was that of the people. A new insight to my own being – varied, plural and accepting all that came to me.

And I believe, we all felt the same that very moment. The connect of ours’ with that of the sand below, the water in front.. the chill of the breeze, the hymns and the rituals and finally the rising sun. That for me, defined life. The way we camped under the open sky. The life was when one of the purohits’ came to me with a new blanket and kind words.

I stayed there for 20 hours and I did not explore the entire of Kumbh. I visited few Akharas, bridge number 7 till the Sangam.
The entire night I sat sharing talks with few others from Varanasi, Delhi and suburbs of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar around the campfire.

Let us know few terms before we proceed :
Naga Babas – The Yogi’s of the Naga sect .
Sangam – The confluence of the three rivers – Ganga, Yamuna and the hidden Saraswati.
Akharas – Sects / Camps of the Yogi’s.
Ghat – River banks.
Pranami – Donation / Token of money out of reverence.
Shahi snan – The time for the Guru’s and religious leaders to bathe in Sangam.

This is the place, where the universal religion of Din-e-illahi was conceptualised, and this is the place that rejoices humanity above all. The pilgrims are innocent, warm and welcoming. They flock on the sides of the road where their Godly manifested human Gurus’ walked their way to the ghat on the auspicious Mauni Amavasya, to take a dip. A single dip is all that was required for them and all of us to connect to the Almighty.
This time of the year, the Ganges is supposed to bring alive the “Amrit” or the immortalising nector. The story is based on the stories of the Samudra Manthan (the churning of the ocean), and this year the yog (timing of the amavasya) is extremely holy and has come after 136 years.
The Naga baba was saying all of these while we shared a puff of the cannabis. I did not know what to believe. His sense of conviction challenged our singularly scientific world, and talked of the soul and the Sanatan dharma (of which I understood quite less, as he went on speaking in complete Hindi).
To me, the immortalising factor was meeting the set of amazing people. The immortalising factor was the bond we shared within minutes only to part ways, to see the fog clear and the sun rise at the Sangam.
I do not believe in an afterlife. I believe in one singular life. And I have only this life to work, love and spread smiles across to friends. No bond with God as strong as the bond you share, the moment, with the one you gift a smile to. I had picked this topic up within a discussion with one of the Naga baba’s. He then spoke of our own selves. His words had striking resemblance with that of Sri Sri RamKrishna Paramhansa Dev and the ideologies I have grown up with and believe in.
One of the Naga baba’s, I do not know why, maybe because I am young, he called me to his sermon and started blessing me. When I offered pranami, he refused it. One of his sermon lines was “Pehle jaano, phir maano” (Know from the experienced, experience it and then believe in it). I do not know what he precisely meant, but that seemed rational.
Sanantan Dharma – the concept of Hinduism is the natural order of being; the natural order of connecting to the elements of the nature, our souls being an integral part of it. (“For more details, read www.rampuri.com” …and yes, one of the good English speaking yogis from the Juna Akhada told me that! I am sure to go through the entire website in details some time real soon.)

The darkness and the fog made its way to the early dawn. People started flocking for the Maha Shahi Snan. The normal pilgrims were not allowed to the sangam, as it was the time for the Shahi Snan. We photographers hardly got a legal chance to photograph. I waited for some time and some opportunity. The police was at times harsh, and that was an absolute necessity at that point in time. But some kind talks always help. I found a safe place within the police at the start of the road and some sort of unspoken confirmation that I may photograph. The Naga baba’s were rushing onto the streets all of a sudden, and I seeked an opportunity there. I got to the middle of the crowd of the Nagas, trying to photograph them. I also pulled in a spanish guy – Emmanual, who happened to have taken the same opportunity. While I tried explaining to him what “Har Har Mahadev” means and why we all were shouting them while running, he was amused. At the start of the bathing ghat, he was caught, while I managed to escape through shouting “Har Har Mahadev” !

The Maha Sangam – I am not sure, if you get immortalised after you take a dip. I did not take a dip. I washed my hands, my feet and sprinkled Ganga water on myself to purify me and I offered the Surya pranam. It felt very pure- the rising sun, the merging rivers, the breeze… you and a million others; that is a triumph of the belief, the belief of having connected to your own self, a moment of peace. I mentioned in the opening lines – No place as holy as is the Sangam during the sunrise.
The Nagas and the other Yogis, the police, the pilgrims, the media and all the tourists.. thats the perfect recipe for a chaos underlining spiritually. There were near 3.3 crore people (information not verified) from various sects of Sanatan Dharma ( Hinduism ), and visitors from across the world. I travelled alone and in the 20 hours that I stayed there, I kept searching for people who would understand English or Bengali, or is a photographer. This while, I spotted a monopod and 3 photographers along with it ! They were from Kerala. I met tourists from Israel, Italy, Germany, Australia, Portland USA, California USA and I do not have a count of the Bengali photographers I met. PS : There were other photographers as well. Most notable of them was the Spanish Guy – Emmanual, who did not even understand much of English. He read about Kumbh in Spanish and the very next decision was to be at this place. And another photographer from Varanasi who knew Bengali – Anand Sharma who was extremely kind.
I do not know what to add to this blog post. I love these chaos. I love travelling and reading. I do not know what the dip might do to you, but the Kumbh experience shall only make me humbler and more accepting by my nature. This is an enormous experience, an asset in its own definition and I shall look forward to the next, and this time a planned tour

A slideshow of snapshots for you (wait for it to load):

Update : 20-02-2013 ——-
My Guest blog post at mapsofindia.com – the largest repository of Indian maps.
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Photograph courtesy : Anirban Saha Photography
Contact : +91 9903055542
email : mailme@anirbansaha.com
All rights reserved.
“Like” Anirban Saha Photography at Facebook

Merry Christmas to all who happen to see this ! I am yet to understand what Christmas is to my city of Kolkata ! I see, the Cathedral Church and the Church beside – jammed, all places for food and booze – jammed. I see the Park street – Esplanade- Chandni Chawk – jammed! Argh !
On the second hand, I see kids enjoying, demanding and getting for themselves the fancy Santa Claus hats and the weird looking big eye shades… err the horns! I must say – the Youth and the old – are on the streets, doing what I don’t know. The demand for good stuff is way higher than the supply there is, and it comes heavy ( at-least ) on my pocket !
Christmas, in childhood was actually better off, with St Paul’s Mission School organising some events !

I am sharing few snapshots with you. They don’t happen to be photographs. Sad, but I need few more years to take a good “Photograph” of Christmas in Kolkata! Places travelled – Bow Barracks, Esplanade, Park Street and St John’s Church ( no photos )
The cover photograph and this are shot at Bow Barracks.
Shot at Chandni Chowk.
And they are the happiest people selling stuff to kids around ! Shot at Esplanade.

Shot at St John’s Church.
that are my friends and me posing
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Photograph courtesy : Anirban Saha Photography
Contact : +91 9903055542
email : mailme@anirbansaha.com
All rights reserved.
===================================================================
“Like” Anirban Saha Photography at Facebook

My first experiment with Studio lights at Sambit’s dad’s studio, near Dunlop Kolkata.. and it was a good learning experience. With my existing set of models failing to make it that far, Harshit ( as always ) was to the rescue. Anyone who knows me well, must be knowing Harshit by name and photographs. He is a very close friend, and an extremely patient one. Well yes, got to know it this day
Sayon and me, kept on experimenting with the studio lights, and asking him to pose for us three ( third is Sambit himself ) and he did that will full patience, cooperating and trying extremely hard to pose as an angry man! Well, that isnt easy for him, and I know it.
See, most of the photographs were not focussed on the face. So, I thought of square cropping few of them so that, it becomes his facebook profile pictures
PS : Unedited set of photographs.

This was the first attempt, and definitely not the best I have to offer, do suggest betterment and things you would want me to know.

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Photograph courtesy : Anirban Saha Photography
Contact : +91 9903055542
email : mailme@anirbansaha.com
All rights reserved.
===================================================================
“Like” Anirban Saha Photography at Facebook