The 24-hour Picture Show

There are so many things that come to mind everyday, which I could write about, but by the time I get to my comp at home or at work, I forget, or find some more important work, or feel plain lazy.

It's like these ideas I keep having, one almost every day, very often in my dreams while sleeping, to base my bestseller on, but keep postponing every single day. At times I have even woken up at night to note down the idea that came to me while sleeping, but all pointless finally.

I have been thinking about writing about the various interesting scenes we come across in our daily lives that are worth capturing in a camera, but we don't. Or at least I don't. Partly because of this painful thing called laziness. Partly because these moments are too fleeting, and even if you did bother to focus a camera the moment would be past. But mainly because, I don't have a camera in my phone, and I can't carry my digicam, which anyway hasn't been charged in over a year, all the time.

I had phones with cameras for over two years, and had put them to occasional good use at times, but now the phone I am using doesn't have a camera. My office had given me a Blackberry Pearl, which did have a camera, but I managed to lose it within a week. Well, it got stolen, but the end result is the same. I was afraid that I would be asked to pay for it, or at least buy a Blackberry on my own, but they gave me an old one instead. I am hardly in a position to ask them for a better one now, and it's working well enough so don't need to buy one on my own either. Anyway, for a technologically challenged person like me, getting one phone configured to my Outlook account and getting other settings done was enough work for a lifetime. I am buying another phone like this only after I get a secretary.

Anyway, so coming back to my post, after that long digression, one of the most striking scenes I missed clicking a shot of took place about four years back on a cold Delhi morning. I had spent a night with a friend of mine at the boys' hostel of Ramjas College in DU North Campus and were coming back to Hauz Khas around 8-9am. We got slightly lost on our way to the metro station and ended up somewhere in the slums near Kashmere Gate. So there we were standing lost in front of a shanty, with a couple of kids answering calls (of the non-cell phone kind) in front of us, and a few metres behind them, at some height, there was this futuristic train rushing by. Cliched representation, but very very striking.

There are far too many such moments when I feel I could capture what I am seeing, and the way I am seeing it, for other people. Maybe even a blog is a non-pictorial attempt towards that same aim. Sometimes what I am seeing and find striking might appear very normal and mundane to anyone else.

For instance, the thing that inspired this post was a very innocuous incident. I walk for about 400m after getting down from the auto on my way back home from office. There's a very shady bar on the way (and my choosing to walk has got nothing to do with its being there), and a small shop that sells something to eat on the other side of the road from it. I haven't figured out, in two months, what it sells, but from the very strong smell and the number of dogs hovering about I can guess that it's some fried non-veg thing. Maybe some weird variety of fried chicken. Anyway, normally the people hanging around the shop to buy a plate of that weird fried chicken thing are men who have just come out of the bar or are going in to buy a bottle or two and move on. The other night I saw an old lady with a young girl and a slightly older boy there. The boy was quite fat, was sitting on the backseat of a parked scooter and the old lady, possibly a grandmom or something, was feeding him piece after piece of whatever she had just bought from there. It was very funny but endearing at the same time. And no, the girl wasn't being made to stare longingly while the boy, presumably her brother, hogged. She was eating as well, but not with the same speed.

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On an unconnected note, I do read all comments made here. Even at posts made months back. I just don't reply all the time, because I don't see a point in replying with a dumb comment or a smiley just to show that I am interested. It's not that I am not, but not enough to insult intelligence, yours or mine. At the same time, just as a clarification, I don't judge comments on whether they are intelligent or profound. Fire away with whatever you feel like.