Mumbai University

At the entrance of Mumbai University






Leaf floats... on the pond in Mumbai university ( and it was amazing to see how foolish fish can really be, they were fighting over a bite of the leaf)

Of the Many Things I've Seen...

..Chaudhvin Ka Chand was the last (last night in fact).

I've seen most of Guru Dutt's later movies which are all dark and brooding with an underlying element of tragedy. It's the happier movies that have passed me by, and CkC is easily happier ( the guy gets the girl in the end). In fact it stands right on the threshold as it has it's light moments though it ends rather unfortunately.

The film opens up in a busy bazzar in Lucknow and captures the essence of the city in the pre-independence time perfectly. Each shot stands out like a painting depicitng that era with precision. Though the movie relects a charming old world and makes you nostalgic for it, (even though you've never inhabited such a world) where friendship is unselfish and love is pure, there are some basic flaws in the logic of the movie. It's hard to identify with the ethics the movie stands for.

Aslam's decision to give up his wife for his friend's sake, makes you wonder why the woman's choice has no relevance in this matter, in fact an analogy is drawn between her and a piece of jewellery, reducing a wife to an object a man owns. And you cannot help but think that it's foolish to give up your life for a woman you've seen only twice in your life and that too from quite a distance. Could love be based only on what a person looks like?

And then there was a morning..

We had planned this for a long time, an early morning trip around Bombay. Some foolish instinct in me told me that it'll be all nice and peaceful and not crowded in the morning. But that was expecting too much from Bombay. It proved again to be one of the most populated, most crowded and most on the go city. So 5:30 in the morning the local train was still full of people.

This snap I took at Haji Ali

London Once More

So it was London once more for me, that too on my birthday, on a cold cold spring morning...

Met some strange characters on the way a guy who left us, a guy who loved photography, a girl who's father was married to someone younger than her, and a woman who's boyfriend ditched her for a prettier younger woman (or so I imagine)