Hello again from the Tramping podcast. Rajiv Chopra is back again, but I guess you know that already. I have not done a podcast for a long time. One reason was to plan my 'podcast' direction for 2025 and beyond. The second reason was that I wanted to go through a short course on sound before I resumed podcasting.

I accomplished the second task but not the first. However, I have a vague idea of where I wish to take the podcast. For one, I'd like to focus on photographic themes and link them to a few thoughts on society and the photography and writing process. I may go off on tangents. AI interests me, as does Palestine, but I will avoid political discourse.

I intend to monetize this podcast in the second half of the year and hope to hide it behind a Substack paywall.

First, I'd like to wish all of you a Happy New Year and express the hope that all of you have happy, healthy, and prosperous lives.

Now, I will move on to my topic: size. Size matters, and I am not referring to male or female anatomical features!

Earlier this year, I postponed my Timurid or Mughal, Delhi project because I could not get into the project's spirit. The old emperors refused to call out to me, their ghosts telling me I needed to do significant research before they would let me into their ghostly realm.

In the meantime, I started doing street photography at night. Nighttime street photography presents the photographer with unique challenges. The low light demands high ISO shooting, and even when you reduce noise, you will not always get a sharp image. Second, people move, and even when you raise the ISO, you may need to open your aperture to avoid a shutter speed of less than 1/125 of a second, or you will have a lot of blur. Third, street, shop, and traffic lights are bright, casting deep and deep shadows perfect for creating certain moods. Be aware, however, that the shadowy parts of an image are noisier than the brighter parts, so use software like DXO Pure Raw at the start of your workflow or Topaz Photo AI at the beginning and end. Always Topaz Photo AI at the end.

Where does size enter the equation? As I post these images to social media – people consume media on their phones – I realize that the small screen size robs the images of their drama and impact.

In an ideal world, you must view these images (most images) printed or on a large screen. Also, when you post to Facebook, your pictures compete with those of society's people pretending to have a great time, and when you post to Instagram, you compete with bimbos. My Instagram feed is full of Thai bimbos in bikinis, and I wonder if the algorithm has gone mad.

Another solution is to post to your website, remembering that, once again, people consume images on their phones. I'd love to insist I have a solution, but I don't. We must keep this fact in mind when we post our images on social or other media. You will have to contend with small screen sizes until you put your photographs on a wall. When that happens, stand back and watch the admiring faces of your viewing audience.

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I’ve been thinking of how we travel, and when I read two books, “On the Road” by John Kerouac and “The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I began thinking some more. In this podcast, I’ve buried the concept of time within my monologue and will expand on the topic in the next episode.

Listen on..

The Transcript. Kinda.

Streaming consciousness monologue.

I enjoy being on the road, and when I use the word "road," I do not always refer to the physical aspect. Before I continue, I must warn you that this episode may last longer than some previous ones.

Also, I want to start with a quote from Walt Whitman, which I stole from Jack Kerouac's book, "On the Road: The Original Scroll."

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick together as long as we live?

- Walt Whitman.

Alright, I want you to focus on the line—Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?

I've just finished reading John Kerouac's "On the Road" and listening to Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road." After finishing "The Road," I ordered the paperback copy, knowing exactly where and when I will read the book's print edition.

Pause. When I say I know where I will read the book, I have a place, a room, and a sofa in mind. When I reach that spot, I will stretch out and read "The Road" in one sitting. This book demands one sitting. The same applies to "On the Road," but the narrative does not tempt me enough to reread the story.

Therefore, I do not know the exact date I will read "The Road." I just know I will read it when I reach my destination.

Both books describe journeys. John Kerouac's tale is semi-autobiographical, and Cormack McCarthy's tale takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, describing the journey (on foot) of a man and his son to reach the southern parts of the USA to reach a warm locale and to find respite from the dangers they face on the road.

Why do you travel or undertake journeys? Many travel because their business demands them to travel and return with riches for their masters and mistresses. These people undertake the journey, transact business, and return without pausing to understand or appreciate the lands they visit or the people they meet. Some rise in the organization, wrap themselves in a cocoon of seven-star luxury and live in their bubble world. Even when they move to another country or county and live there, they shun the 'native' or judge them through the lens of their home country.

Some, like John Kerouac, travel without knowing why they are on the road, and the trip becomes a blur. John Kerouac's narrative did not appeal to me, nor did his lifestyle at the time or his crazy encounters.

I don't wish to experience what Cormac McCarthy described in his book, nor do I wish it on anyone.

But pause for a moment: the journeys described in these two books take place on the road yet differ wildly.

Some people wish to travel on the road and 'live it up,' as they say. Others escape from something – danger, a horrible life - and seek a better future. Yet others travel to conduct business, and others disappear on family holidays, honeymoons, or other reasons.

Every experience is real, and it is not for you or me to claim someone else's travels are inauthentic. Your reality is not mine.

Even when you travel as a group, not only will each of you experience the trip differently. Different motivations drive each of you differently. I stopped traveling with a man because his reasons for travel diverged from mine. The prospect of picking up women motivated him, and I just wanted to photograph the landscape, historical monuments, and people on the street.

On another journey, one member of our small group searched for temples everywhere and wished to pack in as many experiences as possible. In contrast, I wanted to visit just a few places and explore them deeply.

What do you bring to your journeying? Your prejudice, curiosity, respect for strange places and people? Do you wish to remember everything literally or combine the tangible experience with your mental journeys, one superimposing itself on the other?

Your journey, experience, perception, and memory of every trip will differ from mine, and how you communicate your experience will vary. Some people write, others write and take photos, others make photographs, and others make videos, photographs, and write!

If we travel together, we journey along different paths, yet there are many points where we walk together towards that distant horizon.

Travel is as much of a spiritual experience as a temporal one. I'd like you to consider what I just said and ask if you agree.

In "The Road," Cormac McCarthy tells the tale of a father and son, both nameless, walking along the road, each bound to the other, journeying towards freedom, freedom, in the end, meaning something different for both. "I give you my love more precious than money" are the unspoken words between the two, cementing their bond.

They are two anonymous travelers walking together, each treading his path.

Walt Whitman asked, 'Will you travel with me?"

Who will you take on your journeys – friend, family, acquaintance, or will you have your thoughts as your companion?

Let me know your thoughts. In the meantime, keep taking photos. Have fun. See you next time!

On the Road

The Road

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Examine the two images below! They are relevant to the podcast!

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There is no dispute that mobile phones are helpful. Apart from helping you make telephone calls, send inane WhatsApp messages, waste time on social media, and help you perform many chores, you can use them to shoot photographs (and make videos), edit them, and share them to social media.

Yet, they are slow, especially for genres of photography like street photography. A point-and-shoot camera is invaluable.

Listen to my talk!

HDR stands for high Dynamic Range. Please remind me to make a podcast and a video on this topic!

Look at the photographs below!

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I’m working on improving my diction. Once I improve my diction—and it is improving—I will work on adding emotion to my voice. My corporate drone refuses to leave!

I’ve attached my referral link for Luminar Neo. Check it out. Push the button, visit Skylum’s site, download a free trial (if you wish), buy it (if you wish), or ignore it (if you want!).

Luminar Neo

The Skies

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Complex or not?

So I'd use a red or orange filter, darken the sky, and sometimes make it look almost black—the dark, inky sky against the white, fluffy, textured clouds created magic for me. And I nearly became cliched in my photography.

Many years later, I went to live in Shanghai and became used to the dull gray-blue sky, which was flat. There was no drama, no story. It was a rare day when the sky was clear. And then I ran to the rooftop to gawk at the colors of the sky.

Years later, I moved to Singapore and realized, “Hello! The sky can be blue.”

But, to be honest, Beijing also had some beautiful blue skies. I have added a few photographs to this podcast episode, so have a look at the photographs. First, look at the group of similar pictures and then at the photograph I shot in Shanghai many years ago.

Like I said, I was flat. I was lying on my bum, and I had started a visual diary, so I photographed pictures from my study window over seven to ten days. I've chosen to share just about four or five of them. Now, to ensure consistency, I photographed the scene at almost the same time every day. The lighting conditions are the same from the twin perspectives of the season and the sun's angle.

Many years ago, we had trees and open ground in front of our building, but the construction company DLF fully believes in Albert Einstein's dictum. Albert once said nature abhors a vacuum, and DLF abhors empty ground and green spaces.

Whenever they spot trees and open ground, they rush to fill it with concrete to create mini heat islands. But heat is another topic. I've spoken about heat earlier, and I will return to the topic, which is increasingly vital to all of us, especially in the years ahead.

So, have you looked at the images now? If so, you may notice that the clouds significantly affect the image and the foreground. But the construction is ugly.

The two best ones are the ones with the blue sky and fluffy clouds and the photo with dramatic rain clouds. These images, with the beautiful sky and clouds, at least
lift the pictures to some extent. The ones with the flat sky highlight the horror in front of my building. There's one photograph with rain, but the effect of the rain is not so apparent, and this has reduced the drama of the image. The image has low contrast and is relatively flat.

Now, turn your attention to the photograph of the Shanghai skyline. I shot this from my rooftop many years ago, in October. The sky was clear, the sun was angled, and the color of the clouds in the setting sun, combined with the skyline, helped me create beautiful images, even though I used an ancient camera.

Let me digress. Great cameras, sophisticated lenses, tripods, timed shutter release gadgets, filters, and other equipment help you make excellent photos.

However, a photographer once told me that Ansel Adams photographed with a camera that, by today's standards, was primitive. And yet, when you look at his photographs, you will still realize they are magical. There is something that you cannot, under any circumstances, say, “This is crap, or this is going to look crap in five years from now.”

I believe the images he made will be the standard for years to come, yet his equipment was ancient.

Look for dramatic elements in your composition. Pay attention to the light and the clouds.

Photography starts with having a keen eye and not possessing a truckload of sophisticated and expensive gear. Many photographers are trying to lighten the gear because it's just too heavy to have all this costly, heavy crap hanging around your neck.

I shot the images outside my home with my OnePlus Ten G Pro mobile phone, which I set to ultra-zoom. As a result, the buildings at the photo's edges appear distorted.

If my memory is correct, I remember shooting the Shanghai skyline with my Nikon D70 camera, and I have not edited a single image. Everything that you see is straight out of the camera or straight out of the phone.

So remember the key message. Clouds are critical in creating the story of your photograph, especially when you are shooting outdoors. Of course, clouds have no role to play when shooting indoors, but clouds are critical for a cityscape or the landscape. They add life to the sky and a beautiful touch of drama. So see you next time. Keep shooting. Stay well, ciao, for now.

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This little podcast episode replicates a post I made on Medium.com about a week ago.

Over the last two weeks, I read several articles from Indian publications stating we should measure the heat index rather than the dry bulb temperature.

The temperatures recorded and published every day are dry bulb temperatures, which tell you what the ambient temperature is at a particular moment. When the government in India reports the temperature, it primarily reports the dry build temperature.

I live in Delhi's national capital region, Delhi NCR. When I returned to this region in 2012, the temperature forecast for September brought me much happiness. Temperatures in May and June can rise to 42 to 45 degrees Celsius, so when I noticed that the predictions for September were in the 32 to 35 degrees Celsius range, my happiness quotient rose to the sky…..

The audio seems muffled.

Read the article here!

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Hello once again. Rajiv Chopra here. “Thinking Aloud”.

I'd like to spend the next few weeks. And I'm talking about weeks, not minutes, right now, discussing topics that may not appear to have any relationship with photography. I'm going to start discussing heat, and I will also confess to being a wimp. I'm a proud Punjabi, and the British classified us as a warrior class, which feels great. While I'm not an alpha male possessing shades of beta, gamma, delta, and gamma. Did I say that wrong? Let me repeat myself.

While I'm not an alpha male, I possess shades of beta, gamma, delta, gamma, and maybe epsilon. I consider myself resilient, possessing shades of a stoic personality. Ten years ago, I tramped all over Delhi's Walled City, photographing people and the buildings in the area. I continued my work throughout the year, including the summer and monsoon seasons. This year, I rejected the temptation to walk the streets and have not been out since May. The blistering extended heat wave we experienced this year killed many people, with many deaths remaining uncounted. Hospitals prepared ice baths for those with symptoms of heatstroke. And the somnolent media cheered because they had something to write about besides politics. And we experienced this prolonged heat wave. Despite El Nino retreating from our shores.

I despise Delhi's monsoon season: the heat, the humid heat, raising my blood pressure to abnormal, dangerous structures, stratospheric levels,

Shades of humidity exist. And when I say that, I mean that humidity is not just humidity. There are different kinds of humidity. Delhi's humid weather differs from Bombay's. I lived in Singapore for a few years, and the moisture never bothered me. The breeze and the clean streets create tolerable weather conditions. Bombay's dust is unpleasant. But it's better than Delhi's, and the occasional flooding is unpleasant. But you get used to it. The strong wind upends your umbrella, giving you a free street shower, yet you don't suffocate in Bombay. Unlike Delhi. Here in Delhi, the heavy, moist air squeezes your lungs in its remorseless grip, and everyone looks to the skies for relief while dreading the inevitable flooding and road collapses. Accompanying Delhi's showers. Hell waits for you in the corner with Death bearing His yellowing fangs, smiling in anticipation of your arrival at his door. Now, many people must work outdoors, and I've stopped asking them how they manage; their despairing eyes always tell a story that no words can tell.

Most of them say, What do we do? We have to put food on the table. And just the tone in which they reply tells you much more. It tells you a whole story. They don't want to be there. They don't want to be there, but they don't have a choice. We don't have jobs in the market, so they're stuck. I have a choice, and I exercised my choice of staying indoors. Now, staying indoors without air conditioning is not a solution because the indoor humidity can be as deadly as the weather conditions on the road. Your AC builds mounts, and damn! When you see the electricity bills, your blood pressure mounts as well.

So yeah, I've used the air conditioning and know that the exhaust spits hot air into the environment. And it makes you wonder, are you as green as you like to believe?

We've created a few records. The previous year was the world's hottest year on record. This year might be worse, with the two hottest days recorded within days of each other. So it might just be that this year will be the hottest year ever. So what do I do with my time? I curse my cowardice. I write. I plan my photography. And I decided to venture into new domains. Two new domains

Video and audio. Now, you must use your time. Well, I have also been experimenting with AI art, different approaches to editing images, and a few other things. Next year, I will learn Persian and experiment with still-life photography.

I will go back on the street next week.

The desire to go back and do some photography is too strong. The temptation is strong.

But when you are out there on the street, and the heat bothers you, it sometimes becomes difficult to focus on the composition that you have in mind.

But you do what you do. You have to walk out. You have to take the photographs. You have to do something. You can't just sit here and say, Oh, I'm a softie. I'm a softie. And I'm going to sit here in air-conditioned comfort. And I don't give a damn, or I don't give a sh*t about anything else. Sometimes, you just need to learn to re-embrace

discomfort.

So, I want to end with a question.

Do you want to know why I want to learn Persian? It is, after all,

something which a lot of people now regard as a Muslim language. So why do I want to learn Persian? If you're curious and want to know the answer, let me know in the comments, and I will tell you. Maybe I'll make another podcast episode about why I want to learn Persian. I will also discuss how this fits not just with my identity but with some of my ongoing and future projects.

So see you and see you next time.

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Hello. I'm Rajiv again. Once again, I'm thinking aloud. A week back, I spoke about the need to take your time and why you must give yourself the gift of time.

When I made that recording, I may have sounded woolly and vague. So, it's time to become granular.

What do you do when tramping on the streets with your camera? What is the first action you take? Will you whip out your camera from your bag and start clicking? I advise against this, and I will explain why.

You must create excellent compositions, or your photographs will remain masterpieces of banality. The crowd is often the best place to hide your photographs, and hiding your photographs amongst the millions of boring images that fill social media is easy. Every place is different. Allow me to explain with two examples. I've done street photography in Europe, and people there care about privacy. Many street photographers are in your face and sometimes face intense backlash. I have noticed people here in India becoming wary of photographers.

When I walked in the “Walled City of Delhi” ten years ago, no one questioned me despite my holding a big camera—and from a street photographer's perspective, it was a monstrous camera. Many people smiled, chatted, and asked if I was an independent photographer or a photojournalist for a magazine or a TV station.

All of them were relieved when I just said, 'Hah! TV stations, newspapers, or magazines. Nah! They've all sold their souls.’ But in the last decade, surveillance cameras have been sprouting across Delhi. The police are becoming increasingly brutal, and people are becoming suspicious. One gentleman worried that I'd show the photos to the police, causing him to lose business. A woman supervising work on the street asked me. Hostility and anger mounted in her voice if I dared to photograph. I did not. Walk around and become part of the landscape on the street.

Blend in. Talk to people, hang around, smile, and observe the action. And when people stop perceiving you as a threat or an outsider, they relax. I follow a humanist approach to my photography and search for human stories. Yet you will discover that the noise, the dust, the traffic, and the madness of people milling around you make it challenging to take a good photo. On top of that, I've been advised because I tend to keep my camera in my back pocket, and many people have advised me not to do that because my pocket could be picked. It did happen once when I was getting off a rickshaw, and someone took everything out of my bag while I was getting off. So you have to be careful about the stuff that you're carrying as well. There is nothing that allows you to work in peace and silence. And I will come back to the topic of silence later.

Of course, you can take a photo of the crowd, and this sort of image is good, but not every image is crowded and has no central character or story.

I recently took a photograph in Delhi in Mubarakpur with my mobile phone, and that picture accompanies this podcast episode. You can see there's nothing in it—it's just a mess. I took that on purpose to illustrate how you can easily create messy pictures.

You need time to begin isolating images so you can tell stories. Blending speed with a slow approach becomes critical. And that statement, I know, might confuse some people, but it's important. You have to be able to blend speed with a little bit of going slow. Slow down and become alive to the drama unfolding around you. Be alive to the continuous action. Your brain must be silent yet active, and only when you are in this state can you capture critical moments on the street. And it's only when you are in this state that you move fast, because nothing distracts you then.

If you prefer to turn street photography into the fine art of abstraction, you must look for such opportunities. Look for angles, isolated elements, intense light textures, shadows, and patterns. Anything to give life to your intent. Also, remember that if your final image is a color image, your photography will work in a particular way. If your final image is black and white, you will work differently. So, have an idea, if possible, of what the images will look like.

Be clear about what you want. Before I end, let me make one point, which I will reiterate in future episodes.

When you raise your camera to your face, to your eye, you are, in effect, putting a barrier between you and the scene in front of you, whether it's street photography, landscape photography, or travel photography,

If you start by putting a barrier between you and what's happening, your photographs will be horrible. So don't rush it. Take your time, Chill! You have the time.

So give yourself the gift of time. Ciao for now, or see you next time.

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Hello. It's Rajiv here again. I decided to call these podcast episodes, or give them an umbrella name. “Thinking aloud”.

So here's thinking aloud. Take your time.

I have divided this one into two small sections. The first concerns photography, and the second concerns writing. I'm splitting it into two because I take photographs and I write.

So let's start with photographs. Now, most people pick up a phone or a camera and start shooting. It's almost as if there is something inside them that says, Hey, you have a phone. You have a camera. There are people. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Don't do that. Pause. Look around. Take your time. Then shoot.

About a year ago, we were on a trip. A friend of mine approached me and asked me to teach her photography. We were out in nature. So I asked her to sit with me for an hour by the riverside. And she trembled with fear. “One hour?” she said,

One hour without my phone. And she squeaked. And I said, Yes. One hour without your phone. Without a camera. What do I do? She asked. I said, “Just sit.”.

She said, “I can't sit if I have to be sitting. I have to be doing something, and I will go crazy. And if I don't go crazy, I will sit down and chant my prayers.”

Now, the thought of sitting there without immersing herself in nature terrified her. She had no social media, nothing to share, no Instagram posts, Twitter posts, or Facebook posts. What the bloody hell was she to do?

“Sit by the river,” I said. “Sit by the river and listen to the water as it flows. Look around and see the light glistening on the leaves and reflecting off the water. Let the spirit of nature enter you and bathe in the atmosphere. Gaze up to the sky and the clouds, and you will feel the energy. Only then should you take out a camera and start shooting.”

“One hour?” she squeaked again. “No phone?” "Yes," I replied.

She walked away, never to return.

The Japanese have a fantastic concept called Shinrin Yoku-Forest. Bathing.

Unfortunately, most of us are cutting down forests. We are replacing forests and trees with concrete. And all that concrete does is create heat. But when you sit in a forest or by the riverside, you feel peace; you feel the energy. Now, it's only when you give yourself that time to immerse in the energy. It's only when you give yourself the time to observe what's happening around you. Only then will you be able to take good photographs.

Maybe you'll approach photography from a spiritual angle—I don't know—or from a technical angle. But once the energy enters you, you can take some excellent pictures. So take the time. Give yourself the gift of time.

I write.

I must confess that I do not have the skills to write a novel. I write blogs about travel, climate, and business. And, of course, I add stuff about photography. But soon, I will extend my skills to essays and travel books. I own a bunch of fountain pens, and I love them.

Fountain pens help break thought jams. That is a superb new term. Thought jams, traffic jams, thought jams, mixed fruit, jam, thought jams. When I started my substack publication, I used to dash off my posts with a little thought. The prospect of thinking, editing, and rewriting often scared the hell out of me. But I am moving past these old blogs, and now I plan my schedule. I run the post in my head several times, research, and then write.

After that, I edit and rewrite bits and pieces of the stuff.

And there is this famous author who writes these scary novels. Now, his name is going off my head. His professor once told him all writing is rewriting. So you have to write, plan your stuff, do your research, and then rewrite. Writing is hard work. Never assume. It's like a walk in the park with your partner. Walking in the park can be hard if you have a bitter argument with your partner. You can't just pick up your pen and write. Think, plan, write, and rewrite. And, maybe, do it again. And again and again.

Take your time. Give yourself the gift of time.

That's what we have. Most of us claim we don't have time, but you have to give yourself the gift of time. Finally, inner silence. And maybe I'll talk about silence another time. Ciao, Ciao, for now, and see you next time.

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I am speaking slowly to improve my enunciation,, so I may sound like a strangled frog!

It will get better! Listen on!

Hello. I am Rajiv. When I look back at my posts on tramping, I realize with shock that food, adventures or experiences are missing from the narratives. Does this mean I don't eat food or enjoy the pleasures of eating? Of course not. People describe me as a foodie when they feel I kindly towards me. Sometimes they refer to me as a greedy pig who cannot think of anything beyond food.

Food is integral to life, as is understanding the culture of a place.

I believe that you should eat like the locals wherever possible.

Allow me to repeat that line. I believe that you should eat like the locals wherever possible. I have traveled to many countries, and I've lived in a few of them. I've also lived and traveled across India. We all have our favorite comfort foods and meals, and no one can deny this statement. Breakfast is my favorite meal. Breakfast is almost sacred, and I adore eggs. So when I traveled to small towns in China and peered at the options, sadness always overwhelmed me.

I've eaten and enjoyed the thousand-year egg, but I don't like them for breakfast. It's just the way that it is.

I was once in Manila, and I went to the office. This was back in my corporate days. We left my hotel at 530 in the morning to reach the office at about 745. They took me to the canteen and offered me breakfast, and I said yes!!

I love beef, but they put beef and rice before me. I asked for an egg and ask for toast, and they looked confused. They got me the egg, but there was no bread. So I had a fried egg on top of steamed rice.

Another time, I took an early flight from Bombay to Rajkot. Court.

My sales team met me and insisted they treat me to an authentic Gujarati breakfast. Now, what can I say? Given the choice, I will always choose a Chinese breakfast over a Gujarati one.

Traveling or moving to an unfamiliar area or territory will expose you to local food and customs. The locals do not ask you to arrive at the shows. You went there. I have met many Indians in Shanghai who have consistently criticized Chinese eating habits. And when I would spend an evening with these people, I joined them in rolling up my eyes, throwing up my arms, and wondering what the world was coming to. We'd all say, Look at these disgusting, horrible Chinese people. Can you imagine what they eat?

And so the evening would go on. Criticizing Chinese food habits was a great way to break the ice.

But when I was with my Chinese friends and colleagues, I always experimented with joy. So I ate so much food and many kinds of food in China that people began to think of me as almost a Chinese person.

I've eaten many kinds of food in China, India, and other countries. Sometimes my hosts hold me up because the wrong way. Now, once and when I was in the small town of Uttarpara, Bengal, I ate at my distributor's house. The town had no restaurants,so we always ate with them.

We went upstairs to the first floor to the dining area, where our distributors’s sister served us rice with vegetables and fish. Now, I'm a proud Punjabi, and in the proud Punjabi tradition, I mixed everything up. Just as I was about to dig my paws into the food, she shrieked into my ear. Now, I don't remember if she called me an imbecile or a savage, but I recall her telling me I was insulting Bengali food. And another plate arrived, and the rice stood like Mount Everest in the center of the plate, and vegetables and fish surrounded the mountain. I looked down at my plate with trepidation, wondering how to finish the lot. The quantity and eating techniques seem beyond me. Didi, or elder sister, took charge and guided me on the proper eating sequence and technique.

The meal was heavy. The meal was delicious. But I wanted to roll over and go to sleep after we finished the food. But she refused to give me a bed, so I had to return to the office. Now, sometimes you encounter impassable barriers. A few months after arriving in China, I took the organization and my French boss to Bo Ao, a beach resort in South China. The two of us sat next to each other at lunchtime, plunged our chopsticks into the soup, and fished out the chicken feet, complete with claws.

We dropped the chicken feet and they plopped back into the soup, and I looked around the table, looked at my Chinese friends and said, Guys, I have reached my cultural boundary. I said I am prepared to be culturally sensitive, but there are boundaries. Now, my Chinese friends never understood how I always rejected this delicacy until one day I invited them to India to eat goat's brains and they squealed in disgust at the thought of brain curry. And they went, Ew ! Ow! Ew? How can you eat? Bring curry. But they never again questioned my disgust for chicken feet.

Now, let's see. I can't undo the past, but maybe I could write about my food experiences in future posts. And I wonder, should I write about some of my international travel, especially concerning food? Or make a few podcasts about them. And if you like, let me know.

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I am Rajiv, and here's my thought for the day.

Nostalgia.

Merriam-Webster defines nostalgia as a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. And the question is, does our writing fall into the category of nostalgia? I would postulate and say, yes. The reason why I am talking about this now is because I posted three blog posts four blog posts actually about nostalgia or not. Well, let's see. I posted four blog posts, three of them detailing some of my old trips, which I had made when I was a student doing my MBA in Bangalore.

And then I wrote another post talking about travel, writing and asking the question, Why would you want to read my travel writing? What is it about

travel writing? Does have an element of nostalgia. It has an element of self indulgence. That's what I believe because

I am the one who made the journey. I'm the one who went either solo or I went with some friends. In general, I prefer solo travel, but I will not talk about that now. I will talk about that another time.

Is nostalgia bad? Is it bad to remember the past?

Do we remember the past in the same way that a camera records an image?

Do we remember the past in the same way that the Xerox machine makes a copy of an original? I don't think so.

Every time we go back to the past and talk about the past, to recall the past or remember the past, our memory changes. Our memory changes as we age. Our memory changes. as our life condition changes. Our memory changes

as our desire to remember something in a particular way changes.

Change is inevitable. Everything changes. You change. I. change. Cities change. The mountains change

Nothing is static. And nothing can remain static.

When the river flows to the sea, it carries debris with it. It changes the riverbed, it changes people around it. It changes its own path. over centuries

Civilizations have risen and fallen depending on the path of a river. We too change. There is nothing which says that we are the same.

There is nothing that says we are the same. We cannot be the same. We will change.

So when I write about an old trip to Benaras today,

I will write about it in a particular manner. I will focus on certain aspects of Benaras. I will post some images of Benaras that I've chosen.

If I repeat a blog post about Benaras without having gone back to Benaras. In the meanwhile, I will write about it differently. Maybe the political situation has undergone a radical Maybe the images that I have seen of Benares will influence the way that I write about Benaras in the future. So if I write about Banaras today, it will be different compared to how I write about Banaras. One year from now or two years from now.

If in the interim, I make another trip to Benaras. I will compare some of my first photographs with some of my later photographs. I may not even go to the same places the second time around. I might go to the same places the second time around. But if I do so, I might look at everything within with new eyes. I I might look at everything and say, you know what

screw the old. T is how I look at things now. The people on the street,

they haven't changed. 20 years ago, when I was in the street and I photographed people, I wanted to celebrate the poverty. Now, when I'm on the street, I want to celebrate the humanity. Maybe

one year from now or two years from now, I will go onto the street and say, Why in the hell can't people change? Why in the hell can't people progress?

And when I look back at the past, I'm going to say, Oh, hell, Benares was so clean when I went the first time. Why has it become dirty? Oh, Benares was so good. The food was so good. The food was pure, the food was and the people were vi. they did not have these commercial ceremonies, which they have now. And I would ask the question, why can't they go back?

Now, if I am going to allow these feelings to overcome me, then I will fall prey to deep nostalgic feelings and I will portray the past in some sort of idealistic manner which never existed.

We like to believe the past was perfect. The past was never perfect.

Sometimes nostalgia is good, but it has to be kept within bounds.

That's my thought for the day.

In this episode, I discuss privacy. When you are on the street, you will photograph people. You are in their space, enter their lives for the moments you are on the road, but don’t share their lives.

Our bedrooms, offices, studios, and homes form part of our private space, and we protect this with vigor: do we respect the privacy of a homeless person? Every street photographer is a predator, but even predators have their own lines, which they don’t cross.

Where’s your line?

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Share Tramping in India

Share Tramping in India

Everyone starts somewhere, and this dictum applies to me, too. When I started photography, I did not have any direction. I walked all over Bombay, exploring genres and techniques with no thought. Whether it was still life work, sitting in bushes attempting to shoot butterflies or the plants, doing street photography, doing some travel work in nearby areas, or experimenting with rubbish like star filters, I tried everything within striking distance.

People ask me what genre of photography they ought to focus on, and I advise them to spend a few months photographing various subjects. I then suggest they analyze their images to spot a trend. Do their pictures contain a preponderance of family photographs, street imagery, travel, portraits, still life, or any other genre? I agree that shooting landscapes or wildlife is rarely workable for a newbie. However, if you read a lot about nature or wildlife, watch movies, or study them, the chance of you drifting in this direction is high.

I grew up in the Indian hills and loved mountains and rivers. If I were to rewind time, the probability of me becoming a landscape and nature photographer is high. It so happens that I shoot landscapes when I travel into the hills, and I seem to excel at photographing rivers. However, I concentrate most of my work on street and travel photography.

If you will do landscape or wildlife work, be prepared to camp out in the woods. Embrace a specific form of discomfort. I will elaborate on this point later. While I never shied from discomfort, I confess the thought of lugging tents and camping gear in trains and buses to reach my destination never appealed to me. I was also corpulent, and my weight did not help. However, cars were beyond my reach for many years. Even now, cars are exorbitant in India. The situation has improved, and many off-roading vehicles are available these days. We may yet see a new generation of landscape photographers emerging in India.

I didn’t have time, nor did I have the money for extensive travel. My meager salary only ensured I remained stingy with my photography. I shot with black and white film invested in one lens and filters. I was overjoyed when I could afford my first Hoya filters!

One of my colleagues spotted me returning from a day in the bushes, wearing my factory trousers, and certified me as insane.

After experimenting and bumming around for several months, I found the streets and nearby destinations kept drawing me to them. Did I find street and travel photography, or did street and travel photography find me? Who knows? Maybe we saw each other.

The point is simplicity itself: find the genre of photography that speaks to you. If you don’t, you will always try to put yourself in shoes that do not fit. No matter how stylish the shoes are, if they don’t fit, they will bite and deform your feet. Deformed feet hurt impair your balance and a person’s ability to walk; I’ve seen too many people who waddle and cannot climb steps because of their feet.

Find the genre of photography that works for you. Only then will you excel, and only then will you have any chance of finding success?

Discomfort. I mentioned discomfort. Don’t assume street photography is easy or resembles a walk in the park. In South Asia, at least, it is uncomfortable, which differs from pitching a tent in the wilderness. In the wilderness, you may worry about becoming a predator’s meal, but you will enjoy the sounds of nature.

On the streets in South Asia, a photographer must contend with dust, noise, heat, vehicular pollution, crowds, insane traffic, as well as cattle and other stray animals. You need to protect your belongings and your sanity and focus on photography. A street photographer’s gear is lighter than that of a landscape or wildlife photographer, but the challenges are different. Never compare the different genres and assign points to either.

So, I found street and travel photography. Street and travel photography found me. We followed a meandering path towards each other until we collided and walked together.