A Christmas Outing

Hi,

The last post was somewhat not-in-a-usual-state-of-mind type. But, even if mistakenly, the idea got conveyed that the bunch of half a dozen of amateurs were all serious like Uncle Sam, you might like to reconsider the conclusion.

To start the day, we got these beautiful Christmas trees from Rashmila (the one behind the snapathon plan and its successful exceution).I call this tree... aaa... mmm... FREE TREE. (ya! I know that name stinks, but did you see the number of 'E's here? did ya? huh?... oh! forget it!) Rashmila, if you are reading this, please don't throw me out of your upcoming plans.

Oh! Must warn you all that the amount of colours in this post is noticeably less. One of the reason being the time when the picture was being shot. The perpendicular and overly bright sunrays were making the colours appear dull, so I and Mr.P agreed on removing them from more than just a few places.

Passing though the market place, at not less than eleven thirty, a few things caught the attention of Mr.P. One of them is this one.I had heard it somewhere that in India, anytime is tea time. I don't disagree I have seen people having tea at 4am, before breakfast, after breakfast, at 11am (some also have it after lunch), after the post lunch nap, before/during sunset, after sunset (for sure) and even at 2:30 am in teh morning (ask those engg. college students!). I call this picture TIMELESS BEVERAGE.

Again, in the context of India, spices are something that make our country different from others. Continuing on the market place, this one could never skip the eyes of Mr.P.

I call this one TASTE OF SCARLET. Wont be wrong in calling our country the 'spiciest' land of all. eh? :)

I don't know if the next pic should have been a part of the last post, but, for some reason I didn't put it there. Although, you might not disagree that there are a few elements in it that might qualify more for the last post.

I am highly unsure, but the first look at this man and I could reverse engineer a story about him. He might have come out his house early, might have pulled a goods loaded cart, then he got a break and now is BASKING in the sun. (okay, no questions please, these are only assumptions in a few milliseconds).

I too was planning to stand in the sun for a few moments more, but some of your company went inside the gates of an old red and sold building. Mr.P didnt want to miss anything out. He too went in.

Have anyone of you ever noticed one thing? Even though the residences of people are clubbed together in a single multi storied building, still that building is called APART-MENT. (oh! by the way, he is Sounak).

After walking on the road which runs parallel to the tram tracks, all six of us now found a door completely ajar, with noone standing, sitting or watching it. (No, we didnt have any ill intension)

We all stepped inside and I am sure we all got quite nice pictures how the structure of the of the house of the middle class of old times used to be in the city. Mr.P calls his catch ONE STEP.

Then, we all went inside the locality of Kumortuli (for the second time in the same calender year) but this time, Mr.P was not at all planning to shoot anything in particular. He thought of relying on the moment which may put something in front of him.

I had no idea, which god is this, but I wont be surprised if the artist had Lord Shiva in his mind. The backdrop was something that Mr.P didn't want to put in his frame, so I had to bend down my not-so-athletic body, to get the angle he wanted. (I think, this is a NATARAJA).

But after this, it was Deepak who found out something quite interesting. All six of us were so excited by it, that we sometimes were blocking the other person's camera.

All Deepak said was "Boss... take a look at this." and we six took really good looks at it. It is part of the necklace that a big graffiti-ed goddess Kali was wearing. It was something that made a name come out at that very instant LIFE FROM DEATH.

Inside the studio of Nepal Pal (yes, the same one), I went in again. It was looking like one of those aircraft hangers after the airplane is out of it, so empty. Mr.P didnt take the picture. the largness (and hence, the emptyness) of the studio didnt fit in his screen. Deepak, Chandrika and I went in.

I showed them the staircase from where Mr.P had taken one of his little admired pictures of Kumortuli. The place had nothing there now. Will it be unfair if this picture is called USED UP?

We didn't know the roads of the locality. Luckily, Sewoti expressed our concern (that if that lane to the left leads to the Ganges) in a bit louder voice. Suddenly, a boy on a bicycle passed her, saying a "yes". We concluded that, here, we just need to make it audible, the answer will surely pop up.On our way to Ganga, this temple got spotted. And thanks to the auto focus settings of my camera, Mr.P got what exactly he wanted his snap to be. I call this picture BARRED BELIEF.

Oh! almost forgot to post this one at its proper place. As I have mentioned even earlier, the artists hardly care who is taking their picture, and who is not if you are not drawing too much of their attention (or its a secret for a theme puja).

This young sculpture was no exception, a few occasional questions was being asked, but his father was the one to answer them. This artist was completely FOCUSED in every stroke he makes in that clay.

And this one now was a find by Mr.P himself. We already had a footprint on a door, and now we had a palm print on another door.

Actually, I dont know if Mr.P was audible enough for others to hear about his discovery, but I am sure that he knew, he needed this picture (why?? I don't know!). He calls this one BRAKER (dont like it? me neither!)

At the Ganga, Mr.P was just enjoying the sun and I was getting a chance to be a part of other photographs :) The day was done now. Time to get back. Sewoti took us to her home. And the most remarkable part was the elevator ride. Let me try putting it in a compact way. Two and half feet by two and half feet, four people maxxximum, speed...mmm... I could see people using stairs... and when it has reached the second floor, it was at 1.75th floor, good lighting makes it easier but still not for claustrophobic. But if someone asks me: how is it? I would say: It was singularly thrilling :). And also those fish chops were superb!

Then we all took our own ways back. At Park Street, Deepak and I had our lunch and then went to the Music World store. (Nyah! we just admired some of the album arts and cursed some of the album prices and came out). Then we (me and Deepak) went to the St. Thomas Church.

It was Christmas and hence, it was not unusual for us to find the church to be a little crowded. Mr.P and Deepak took many pictures. I also took a few pictures of Deepak that he wanted for some profile pics! :). But, not being an expert on religious texts, I dont know what exactly they call this event depicted in this beautiful glass painting, but I, we, called this THE CRUCIFICATION.

Huh..!! well, that more or less how the daylight of December 25th, 2010 was for me. (the evening only has memories of a pain in my feet, probably from the walk that I had since eight thirty in the morning).

Anyway, sorry,I didn't notice that the post is getting huge. It always is great to share time with you. Please feel free to share your thoughts on this post. We will be waiting :)

Cheers :)

A Cubic Studio

Hi,

This post was never meant to be here. It was just a sudden something in someone's mind that I find myself writing at the dead of night.

One Saturday morning the sun rose from its preassigned prehistoric heavenly direction and so rose a wild idea in the mind of an "emotionally blank" brand of species, Mr.P. Absolutely nothing... he said absolutely nothing for the next forty seven minutes and kept utilizing the remaining battery life of my camera. As he was not expressing anything and hence I am, frankly, not in a position to fill in the gaps between the pictures with anything more. 

C H R O M E   T O U C H

A reflection of the fragments from the entity of self, is perhaps, the only fashion that is known to mankind.

E L E V E N   A   E M M

GPRSs and 3Gs and touch screens and so many others are clear losers to these age old papyrus descendants.

R E L A T I O N S

Somethings have become so rare these days, that a testimonial always comes in handy, especially in those times which categorize us as "lonely".

A D D I C T O R S

Addiction is for happiness. Happiness is an addiction.

S H E L V E D

A lot was done in the past. The same past whose future is, now, the present.

E L E M E N T A R Y

And the world, after all, may still have the 'customize' button. Just the correct observations and deductions and all becomes so absurdly clear.

W E A K E N E D

The Saturdays and Sundays are the regular doses of some inferior drugs which are somehow still watering the roots.

E S C A P E

A little showoff of the true desire is nothing harmful save only one area where it ends up convincing a habituated mind that the desires have come true.

D E A D

The word with the widest range of interpretations. But, as of now, staying concerned only with the really burned or broken or buried ones is the safest option.

Coming back to facts, again, this post was never meant to be here. I know its not the usual "Mr.P and I" type of post but thanks to Mr.P for letting me experiment with his perspectives.

The shots have been taken in the ten feet by ten feet by ten feet room where I sleep every night and hence the name of this post.

Thanks, really, for sharing our perspectives.

And you know what....we will be glad to know yours too. :)

Kumortuli with Mr.P and Co.

And that "Co." in the title is for Sounak and Rashmila. Thank God that I had spoken about a Kumortuli trip with Sounak in the last post or else we could not have got the most syntactically correct mind of our circle with us - Rashmila. She was as enthusiastic as to see the greenroom of the idols as we both were!

Hi,

[Must warn you here: This post is a quite lengthy one. Your patience should be the key if it is the end that you wish for! I can only promise my honest efforts to not to challenge that in mid-way.]

I think it is needless to say anymore that Mr.P and I could finally make it. But after I was back from the jaunt, Mr.P discovered that he has made a good deal of errors while clicking which has destroyed many of the pictures (it kind of is disturbing). Whatever was left undamaged, is here.  Most of the pictures here are in black and white and I have tried to keep the names in a bit of alliterative fashion. And one more thing: the pictures do not represent the flow of time on that evening. They have been placed in a random manner.

Here we go. The area of Kumortuli is an amoeba shaped typical north Kolkata colony on the bank of the river Ganga. The soil and sediments which the Ganga deposits on its bank is the ideal raw material of sculpting the idols.

They are transported on boats and are distributed among the sculptures from the Bagbazaar ghat. The perfect blend of this soil with water is called 'etel maati' in bengali (which means sticky soil in english) which is the one the artists use to give the idol a standing shape. This picture above I call CRAFT'S CLAY.

Not only the etel maati but also needed are many more small but important ingredients to complete the structure. They include straw, bamboo, ropes, plaster, glue etc.

When we three reached this place, I could see him working with the plaster. I tried to seek a permission from him to let Mr.P click his photo. He didn't say a word. Something in me refused to call it rudeness. He was, very apparently, busy with a FESTIVAL FORMULA.

And now for the saddest part for Mr.P. He went there to shoot the artists at work in full swing. But later he realised that in eight out of ten pictures, he didn't care to notice the settings of my camera and also could not keep his arms steady. Result: bad pictures (short term) and a loss of one year (long term). Whatever he got, one of them is here.

This photograph is from the studio of Nepal Pal (Yes... thats not a surprising name in Bengal). About eighty percent of the artists in Kumortuli have the surname Pal. When I asked one of the artists working there about the number of idols being given shape there, he answered me - about thirty. I calculated a bit and even from my poor mathematics I could tell that they are working really hard to meet the DEADLINE DEMANDS.

Its not only art but also some deal of engineering which the artists use to make every Durga Puja a grand success, year after year. Kumortuli can be  termed as a mass production house of the idols and for mass production, everything cannot started from scratch.

These casts are made in hundreds and thousands in numbers from the same moulds which probably are in use for decades. These are later blended in with the main structure to give that a final shape. In some of the studios we saw smoke coming out of these casts. Later I came to know that to dry these and to get rid of the mosquitoes, something is kept burning inside these INVERTED   IMITATIONS. 

And how it is possible for Mr.P to return without a glimpse of the old Kolkata which in spite of being unplanned, untidy and filled with narrow old lanes has such an inviting hypnotism that it is very difficult to be in two minds to be sure of the actual roots.

In my last year's trip to Kumortuli also, Mr.P came back with a photograph of a meagre lane. Lucky for him, this time also that he could find the correct settings for his snap. According to me the sight of the AGELESS ALLEY in Kolkata, no matter how old it grows, will remain unchanged in memories forever.

Moving out for some more pictures, Mr.P caught a few more flavours of North Kolkata. Comparatively, the people (not only kids) of North Kolkata are still crazy about the sport of kite flying than of southern Kolkata.

While the entire colony was busy with their deadlines, the only concern of a few of them was 'why the wind not catching up?'. I noticed eight repetitive attempts of this boy in not more than one minute while Mr.P was only waiting for the face of the kite to be seen from place where I was standing. I call this picture JOY OF THE JOBLESS.

As you already know, this trip was planned a week before when it actually took place. The reason for that was simple. The later we go, the more the probability of the idols to be near their finished state. And to me, Kumortuli is more about the process than about the product (sounds like one of those ISO 9001-2008 guys!).

Its good that we were a week late. The reason being we could see the colour work along with the clay work. My observation told me that this was the first coat of colour used on the white primer. The idols are the reflection of what the artists think to be the most perfect of human structures and the colours do not count as exception. I call this picture DAFFODIL DISTEMPER.

Many will argue in favour and many in against of the concept of Theme Puja. (no no.. 'Theme' is no God whom we worship). Theme Puja is name given to idea of having the pandal, the decorations and sometimes even the idol to be of the same concept. These themes range from Burmese Pagodas to Harry Potter, from haunted houses to the Golden Temple of Amritsar.

This year is the one hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary of Rabindra Nath Tagore and this life size sculpture of the very man is a clear indication of what at least one of the two thousand Puja Committees of Kolkata is thinking as their theme. There was a big standing sculpture of The Phantom (yes... the comic strip superhero!) with his Hero beside this one, but Mr.P could not capture him good. As a Bengali, I call this picture RABI ROBE NIROBE (which means "Rabi will remain in silence" ... inspired by a line from his poetry: Tumi robe nirobe. "Tumi" means "You" in Bengali)

In that studio of Nepal Pal, when we three went inside, we learned that its a two floor studio. When I was climbing up the naked staircase, Mr.P caught a glimpse of the studio beside it... of Rakhal Pal. (I am not sure, but I think Nepal and Rakhal were brothers)

It was actually a different feeling to see Durga idols everywhere. On the Puja outings, I am sure that only a handful of Kolkatans can manage to see so many idols in those five days which we three have seen in ninety minutes. Even from the gap which the builder has forgotten to fill with cement, a glimpse of more than one Durga is easily available. Looking at the dark sense, Mr.P calls this picture ULTERIOR UNDERWORLD.

There was actually a good number of photographers roaming the entire locality. We saw a news reporting team also. Three to four of them also were shooting the same thing at the same time when Mr.P took the snap below.

This is/was again, I think, was part of some theme. Apart from the main idols, the artists have to pay in the equal amount of attention to every detail that these side attractions have. Hats off! Mr.P calls this one PLASTERED PAIR.

It was Rashmila who redirected Mr.P's attention to these hanging representation of some Puja in the past. Sounak, Rashmila and Mr.P were capturing Kumortuli in their own freedom but if anyone of us was finding anything worth the attention of the other two, a signal was always given.

During the five days of Puja, tender coconuts are kept on these earthen pots along with bael leaves and a piece of cloth. These scarlet pots have their place right in front of the goddess. But once the ceremony is over, just like the idol of the goddess itself, the illusion of these pots are also taken out from the minds of the devotees and they remain only the TERRACOTTA TABLEAU of those five days.

The arrangement of the idol in the Durga Puja is like Durga in the centre (with the lion and Mahisasura at her feet and Shiva above her crown), Lakshmi to Durga's right and to the right of Lakshmi is Ganesha (with his Kola Bou to his further right). To Durga's left is Saraswati and to Saraswati's left is Kartikeya. All this means that its not only Durga that the artists need to sculp but also the other family members (Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartikeya are believed to be her children).

This picture above is a fraction of all the Saraswatis which are getting shape at Kumortuli. As all of us know, she is believed to be the goddess of art and education. The colour of Saraswati is imagined as white as symbol of purity which she represents. This picture is called by me as SERENITY SERIES.

Earlier I had said that there is a lack of colours in this post (which, no doubt, you must have noticed). But leaving out the colour from the shot below would equal the sin of vandalizing.

Its not the first time when Mr.P has captured a complete stranger in a somewhat "interesting" (according to Mr.P) situation and surrounding. I don't know whether this man is one of the artists or one those hand pulled rickshaw pullers but he stayed peeking in like this only for some moments. Mr.P calls this one BARS AND BLUES.

Now the last one. It was visible from an open door near which Sounak was clicking something inside. Mr.P didn't move close but zoomed in the view and clicked this fraction of the lion.

In case you are new to Hindu mythology, Durga is believed to have used a ferocious lion as her faithful accomplice and transportation during her battle with Mahisasura. Just look at those deadly dental arrangement (an artists impression of what nature can put inside the companion of a Goddess on a mission). But this fearsome sight brings out only the feeling of joy when a person like me (who, even after staying in Kolkata, has missed the Durga Puja in 2009) looks at them in 2010. I call this picture CARNIVAL CANINES.

After this clicking mission was over, we realised that it was just a quarter of the fun. Near the Bagbazaar level crossing, we saw Santanu Moitra in a car with about five of his friends. (that bald head, that French cut beard, those typical broad framed spectacles are recognisble anywhere). Moreover I didnt think over it twice before walking up to his car and confirming our hunch by directly looking at his face. (no... the autograph part happened later).

We then, were looking for some evening snacks. Cha. We located a shop called Bachhu Singh (the spelling may be incorrect). We had the most splendid tea there (a kind of significant milestone in itself that evening). If any of you ever come across that shop, please convey our thanks to Bachhu Singh.

Then we caught a Metro from Shova Bazaar. Sounak and I were to get down at Tollygung and Rashmila at Jatin Das Park. But near Chandni Chowk or somewhere we all three decided to get down at JD Park. Why?? To listen to a fabulous song from a Bengali movie - Autograph. The song is called "Amake Amar Moton Thakte Dao" (let me be the way I am) and can be an instant favorite to anyone who listens to it. After listening to it twice, Sounak and I continued from there to Tollygung, where again we had to get a little wet in the rain. But the smss at 8pm confirmed that we all three reached home with a memory of a fantastic evening, both in our minds and cameras! :)

Huh... Will not stretch it any long.

A very very big thanks to you for reading till the end. Thank you for your patience!

Please do let me and Mr.P know about your thoughts on this post.

Take care, bye. :)

A Wet Weekend of Mr.P

Hi,

(Wow!!, the joy of saying this particular "Hi" will never age out!!) :)

Anyway... Truly speaking, this post was planned to be on an entirely different subject. One of my oldest and dearest pal, Sounak and I were planning to go out this saturday to Kumortuli (the place in Kolkata where ninety nine percent of the Durga idols for Durga Puja are sculpted) to see and capture the artists at work and their unfinished masterpieces. But it rained! It was raining at 4am in the morning and its raining even now. You can very well guess what happened to our plan.

But now I can see... it was not a complete waste... the day! (How could it dare? Mr.P was after all determined to the hardness of granite)

Once the plan got finally cancelled, Mr.P changed his subject and thought of experimenting with the shutter speeds. Take a look at the picture below:

I bet you will look at the picture again after you have read the next sentence. This has been taken at 11:56 am in the afternoon (with a flash, a very rare thing by Mr.P). The shutter speed was increased to the highest permissible value in my camera and the exposure was also the least (this explains the lack of light). And it was the high shutter speed which made those rain droplets reveal their very precise positions at 11:56 am IST. Yes, those white spots are the HANGING DROPS.

Being Mr.P's first love, my camera enjoys the most careful handling by me. I try not to expose it much to dust or moisture. Frankly speaking, there was something different running in Mr.P's mind when this next picture got shot.

Mr.P was about to step out to our terrace to take some very open photographs of the rain. He had an umbrella with him. But there was wind too making the job very tough. I requested Mr.P to drop the idea (after all it was my signature on the cheque which got me that device). Strangely, he didnt agrue! We came back and stood at the terrace door feeling very much LOCKED WET.

At about 4 pm, when the wind seized and the pace of the shower receded itself a little, Mr.P grabbed that three fold umbrella and went outside. Realizing that the camera has to be kept very much under the range of the umbrella's protection, Mr.P thought of rejecting the idea of becoming a Nat Geo weather photographer and focusing on simpler nearby entities.

Mr.P allowed  more light was to pass inside the camera due to the cloudy cover above and that is why this picture is appearing to be so bright. This is a plant on my terrace that has got a magnificent pattern of tiny leaves which keeps the water in it held within the arrangement for a long time. I call this photograph FRESH DRIP.

The last of the best in today's lot was taken in the evening. Samosas were getting planned and I was the one to go out and get them. Mr.P anyway was almost done for the day but he wanted a finishing touch (something to square his desire for Kumartuli and later a full fledged rain photograph). He again went to the terrace in that poor natural light and started to look for something. What he got with an 8X zoom was this

Little bit of blackening and whitening did the trick (no... really... we don't have any black leaved plant with us). More than the colour of the leaves, its the colour of the water present on it, which came out so unexpectedly dazzling. Mr.P calls this picture MERCURY. I don't disagree!

Well... there were more... but they were no better than the guinea pigs of the laboratories. All in such a condition due to the experi-mental nature of this unknown breed of Mr.P.

Anyway... it was great sharing some minutes with you. (Its always a treat!). Looking forward to an exclusive Kumortuli post somewhere in near future...

Till then,

Cheers :)

A Morning and a Night

Hi,

First thing first: this post is the smallest of the all photoposts I have had till now. And there are a few reasons for it. I had a bit of extra workload at my office, so Mr.P allowed me to practice snoring on those weekends. And a few "lets go out" plans got trashed for some unavoidable reasons. So whatever is there below, is taken at my home, in my very floor.

And the one just below this sentence is in my very room. That was July 5th, when I woke up for my office. The moment I did, I saw this creature.

It was resting on my window curtain. Mr.P got up silently, fetched my camera and then told me to put my left palm behind it (yes... the background is a fractional view of my palm), while Mr.P, holding the camera with only his right hand, took this FIRST FACE of the day. But this fresh green creature (is it a mantes??... Nyah... they look a lot different) escaped, before he could take a second shot.

There were a lot more junk captured in my camera's memory stick after this (no... I am talking about the real junk). But on the night of August 22nd, when I went out to my terrace to get the chair back inside, I looked up in the sky...

Believe me guys, the actual view was a hundred times more magical than this picture. It was great standing drenched in moonlight and taking numerous shots of this heavenly CIRCULAR PRISM (please don't start investigating technically, I beg you...). The colours havent come here the way I saw it that night, but a little exercise of your imagination can definitely take you there!

Well, as i said...its the shortest photopost...

Do take care of yourself...

Until next time.... Cheers! :)

Mr.P's candle lit evening

Hello..  :)

(No matter how many times I say this, it always feels the same childish excitement as it did the when I said the first "hello" to you!)

Well, first thing I must make clear is that the photographs in this post are not during a power cut off in my locality. They have been taken in some vaguely thought setups. So please do not make any mental picture of how the idea of this post came to Mr.P, it just did! Thats it! :)

In this not a very long post, the idea of this first picture came to Mr.P was when I went to the kitchen to get some biscuits (what? its not a sin to feel a little hungry at 9pm, is it?). Mr.P saw the candle on the rack and that was it! He ran in (without any biscuit) and made this setup.

There was no wind in that room at that moment which is the reason why the flame was steady. Mr.P didn't know what kind of page to open for this photograph. He just turned the book and the page here in the photograph was the one to which it opened. He didn't think of looking for an alternative. He calls this photo as NIGHT OIL.

Mr.P went down the staircase with the candle held in his hand. He was planning to take some pictures of the stairs and he did it too. But trust me, even someone like me can say that those photoes are nothing but junk. Then he saw this old bicycle of my younger brother, kept at the landing.

My brother used to ride it when he was barely eight or nine. He will be entering college next year. I see this bicycle kept at the same place everyday but looking at it in the candle light made it look very solitary. It looked like as if it is trying to hold the last shred of the LOST DAYS with it, in vain.

Only a few days back, my good friend Sujay asked me if Mr.P has a weakness for the colour of yellow. (Here itself I must tell you that Sujay himself has an eye for beauty and is a marvelous photographer. Click here for Sujay's photographs.) He concluded this after he went through the posts in this blog. I had to think for a while (just a while), then I answered on behalf of Mr.P that he was not wrong. The combination of black and gLOW (golden yelLOW) is something he falls for everytime. The next picture is again a something where Mr.P slipped.

Mr.P was just about to put off the candle and light up the fluorescent tubes. But as he went close to blow it off, he saw the smooth reflection of that long flame on the molten wax. There was little wind which tilted the flame. Mr.P calls this picture TILTED MELT.

Well, to tell the truth, the rest of the snaps were the real trash, so Mr.P decided to not to show them to you.! But, leaving those out, please do comment on how did you like these three picks of the candle lit evening. Coz its always great to know how we are doing.! :) 

Till next time,

Cheers :)

Mr.P on a Little Cruise

A big HI after a big break,

After the Prinsep Ghat, there has not really been any Mr.P type of outing. Some of you have been asking me if Mr.P is upto something or not (believe me, when this is asked, it feels great!) and the answer has always been a sad 'no' because of the recent heat and humidity at Kolkata. But on June 18th, the entire team at my office decided to take a break on a cruise on the Ganga (and needless to say Mr.P had sniffed his material already).

Its very rare that I bring my camera to my office. I took it on that day and the first thing I shot was the little sculpture on my desk.

This two inches tall artwork was brought from Mayapur last year. I have kept this in front of the moniter on my desk and I call this photo GANESHA DOT JEE O DEE.

At about three thirty pm, the team left the office in two buses and reached the entrance of a riverside park called Millennium Park. Everybody was busy in taking photographs of their peers and bosses. But Mr.P was being tactically stubborn in being himself. He did took some of the photographs of my team mates also but he was more into the surroundings.

This OLD HALL was always there on the Strand Road (a street bordering the Ganga on its eastern bank at Kolkata) but I saw it yesterday only. The most attractive thing about the building are probably the palm trees in front of it.

At about five thirty pm, we were on the deck of the little cruise ship (called MV Paramhamsa). Some of us grabbed the chairs and some went out to explore some more of the luxury vessel. Mr.P stopped at the captain's cabin.

He knew that I am still to grow up a little more to catch the ideal maturity of my current age and he knew that I sometime prefer to spend some time in movie fantasies. Mr.P smiled at me when he saw this place and he let me name this photo then and there: JACK'S WHEEL.

But after some more minutes on the deck, everyone around me noticed the sky together. We were in the middle of Ganga and this was the sight in the sky.

Me, being a little hydrophobic, had my smiles transferred inside the sling bag I was carrying but Mr.P was being Mr.P. Looking at the magnitude of the cloud, he only thought of comparing it with that bridge. He calls this photo as UMBRELLA OF THE CLOUD.

After sometime, the sun went down and the sky became tougher to predict due to the darkness. I got my smiles out. People were now busy with the starters of the dinner (so was I) but Mr.P would not let the camera go inside its pouch (and hence refrain me from using both hands on the starters). At the late twilight he got this.

Those four 'things' are the floodlight stands of the Eden Garden (hopefully I need not tell you what is that!). This photograph somehow is able to capture the new and the not-so-new images of the same city together. Mr.P calls this photo STILL STILL.

Now Mr.P took a little chair and sat down. Strangely, I found the deck to be unusually empty. Then I discovered the place where every party lover was.

I went to the floor, but then i realized that I am not the only one with a camera (I might have ended up revealing the truth about my dancing skills in somebody else's camera), so, I came out after a few minutes. Being there was amazing. Mr.P calls this collage LIGHTS, BEATS AND MOVES.

After a sweaty bhangra-cum-salsa-cum-hip-hop session on the floor, few of us decided to catch some fresh Gangetic breeze. We went down at the ship's dining hall (which open up to the lower deck). After some air, we came in and sat on the high chairs of the empty mini-bar. It was Deepak who saw this on the thin curved drink-tending marble platform.

I casually asked if it resembles anything under that beam of light. Anugrah answered: "LOOKS LIKE LIFE to me." Mr.P knew that taking at least one photo of this simple arrangement will be worth if it can provoke a little spark of thought.

Before dinner, Mr.P tried numerous times to take a fair photo of the Howrah bridge, but the light was not enough for producing a convincing photographs. With a dozen of junk snaps, I went for dinner. But after dinner, Mr.P thought of taking few more attempts.

This was the best of about thirty of its uglier brothers. Please forgive Mr.P's untrained hands and lack of technical knowledge for not presenting you with the actual and a more magnificent view of this landmark. I call this photograph NIGHT PRIDE. (hope you don't mind my feelings for the city, which sometimes ends up reflecting a little biased me)

The next one goes a little personal for me. I (not Mr.P) took this one before leaving the ship. Its for that person to whom I could not say a proper goodbye on that very day but who was honest and sweet enough to not to hide the truth from me (a truth that only a few lucky ones get to hear).

This is for her: "I am sorry for being the idiot I am. These are FOR YOU"

Ahhmm... Well, that was more or less what my evening was like. I got down at Park Circus from the team bus and got home in a cab and started working on the day's catch.

Its incredible how so many of you have been writing about your views on this blog and its even more satisfying to see some of you following this particular page on the internet. Please keep loving this Mr.P like this. I promise on his behalf to keep him alive.

Till then,

Cheers :)