My life in pictures

As a student I have never been able to ace a subject that never interested me. So once I was done with school, my father and I sat down to have a chat when he told me that, he wanted me to do Engineering and graduate to do a white collar 8-9 job. My exact reaction to his statement was simple; “NO!” He asked me why, and I explained to him that I wanted to do something that interested me, something that made me happy, something that I loved, something creative, something that defined me. And then it all began!

For the past three years I have been studying Media and Communications in an affiliated esteemed Indian college, Manipal University, Dubai. The reason I initially joined this course was to do a lot of creative writing and to eventually become an event manager and a freelance journalist. But by my second year I had totally changed my intentions. When I was introduced to the subject of photography (professionally), and I was amazed as to how keen I was to learn more. It was then when I realized that; how much I enjoyed doing photography. Being able to express through my visual perspective, to convey to others my exact emotion on the subject matter made me happy.

Once I was introduced to the concept of photography, I constantly wanted outlets of inspiration, of how different people took pictures and expressed themselves through a single picture. That is when I came across webpages like Lens (New York Times), Photojournal links, National View (The National), various blogs and individual photo essays sites, finally helping me understand the concept of photojournalism and how different it was from photography. I was intrigued. And I knew this is what I wanted my career to be about, being able to take pictures not for pleasure but for being able to tell someone’s story through picture and text.

The concept of photojournalism is not thoroughly understood in India as opposed to other countries. So I constantly find myself answering questions like “What is photojournalism?” and “Why do you want to do photojournalism? Isn’t it a dying art?” (The latter are reactions of people who have a fair idea of what photojournalism is.)   I reply to them by saying,

“photojournalism is the art of packaging more than thousand words in one photograph. It is the quest of every photojournalist to make its viewers go ‘WOW’ when they see what the picture actually depicts. Yes some say it is a dying art, but I think in this generation we have more people claiming to be photographers and trying to understand the concept of photography as opposed to 10 years ago. And the reason I choose to photojournalism as my career is simple, it is because it is not something easy. It is not about just clicking a button, it is about extreme precision and the ability to find an interesting angle to mundane things, it is about being able to see what others fail to see. Because truly, there is no greater joy when somebody reads or looks at your work and you see the look on their faces, and you know that you have left them inspired and amazed.”

It has been a year that I have been pursuing my interest in photojournalism. Thus to learn more about photojournalism as a real world experience, I interned at The National for 5 months. The National is an esteemed government owned newspaper in United Arab Emirates. At The National I was under a very inspiring mentor Brian Kerrigan. He helped me learn how to be a photojournalist in this part of the world, where people in general tend to run away from the camera. I also continue to pursue my interest by maintaining a personal photography blog and help out my college in covering various events. Lastly, I keep updating myself and seeking inspiration by regularly reading and browsing through various photojournalistic blog and sites.

In the past I have done various photojournalist projects or ventures by myself. I did a photo essay on the fruit and vegetable market in my locality and how it looks when the worker trucks bring in the fresh fruits and vegetable from the docks for the day’s business, then I did a project on various people enjoying a weekend at the corniche. As a part of my college project I prepared a photography magazine and a coffee table book related to organic farming in UAE. My next target projects are, to go to India and shoot portraits of different people and find out their story and compile them in a photo feature, and to do a photo essay on my special needs sister.

Apart from photography, I also enjoy writing. I initially enlighten people about my creativity by writing poetry, and consecutively getting published 7 times in a UK based publishing company Young Writers / Forward Press. In the coming years The Statesman newspaper in Kolkata, India had published my writing about the celebration of Hindu festive cultures in a foreign nation. Recently I was also nominated for The Young Journalist Award at Dubai International Film Festival’12. Apart from that I maintain a blog and have done a considerable amount of interviews with people of various facets.

The reason I want to do this course at (this particular college) is because the course you offer is everything I want to learn in my master’s degree and more.  Moreover I think studying in the States will give me the proper exposure in my field of interest. Also it has always been my desire to study in the States and learn to be self-reliant, self-sufficient and a whole rounded person that everyone wants to be in their lives and I think studying with this institution will help me to get there.

I will currently be finishing my Undergraduate degree and will purse my maters in USA and after I finish my degree I aspire to initially work at any esteemed newspaper as a photojournalist and gain enough experience to qualify myself to be potent enough to apply to National Geographic and years later I want to freelance my gathered and improved talent. Because just as my management professor says, “You are a media person and after a point of time you should be your own boss!”

The Kolkata issue

The ever busy Kolkata

As a kid I have always loved going to India and spending a wonderful summer vacation in my mother land Kolkata, West Bengal.  Till date, when I land in Kolkata and get into the taxi from the airport to home, I sit by the window looking at the view and somehow it leaves me intrigued.

Somewhere at a distance a mother is yelling out to her kid while she is cooking. A stray dogs seems to be barking in front of the meat shop, while the shop’s owner enjoy’s his morning tea. The traffic police is taking care of the busy morning traffic. School kids walking in groups. The street vegetable and fish market is ready to start their daily business. And among all the commotion, the municipality tap in the corner of every street, runs tirelessly, day in and day out.

Kolkata to my eyes is a fast changing state. But somethings never change. Like I said, I have been visiting Kolkata from time memorial, and the landscape of Kolkata has drastically changed over the 20 years, but there is one aspect that remains the same year after year.

We all know that the hand-pumps and the tube-wells near our homes in India are constructed by the municipality for regular supply of water when needed. These were mainly constructed for the poor, so that they can avail water for free. Though this initiative is remarkable on various levels, but I have one question to ask, ‘Why don’t these taps have a knob on them?’

A picture clip form the Bangla newspaper Ei Samay

To the research that I have done, I hear that the water that flows through these taps are pumped from The Ganga on scheduled time, specifically when there is a high tide. But what I fail to understand is that even if the water is pumped at specific time periods, why can’t these taps have a knob attached to them, so that anyone who needs water can use it and close the tap, instead of recklessly wasting water.

When I was looking for articles regarding this topic I came across a website, where a concerned citizen had posted:

Kolkata Municipality’s free-flowing Water taps (May 14th, 2013)

Hello everyone. I am new to this forum and wanted to ask the senior members a question about Kolkata. I have seen some water taps in North kolkata as seen in the image below (Which I got from The epaper Ei samay) from which water keeps on flowing and there is no means (or Knob) to stop the water. I asked a friend of mine that why so much water is wasted… then he said that this is Ganga river water which automatically comes to these taps, when there is high tide in Ganga. I am not sure about this answer of his so can anybody throw some light on this? Thanks in advance.

And in reply another citizen posted:

Water is pumped from the Ganges at fixed scheduled times of the day… it is unfiltered raw Ganges water, so water is not wasted in a sense, its just the electricity bills!This is to the best of my knowledge, someone may enlighten us better.

On reading this comment I was totally applaud. Because according to the statistics provided by water.org, out of the total 1.2 billion people living in India, nearly 128 million lack safe water. And our citizens think it is alright to let water flow, because it is unfiltered raw Ganga water.

According to an article by The Hindu:

India has about 16 per cent of the world’s population as compared to only 4 per cent of its water resources. With the present population of over 1,000 million, the per capita water availability is around 1.170 cu m/person/year. Severe water shortages have led to a growing number of conflicts between users in the agricultural and industrial sectors, as also the domestic sector. The lack of water availability and poor management practices have also manifested in poor sanitation facilities, one among the biggest environmental and social challenges India faces today.

In my recent short visit to Kolkata in April, I was coming back from a gettogether at 12 am. I saw a women washing vessels using the municipality taps. On asking the women as to how often do these taps run, she replied saying that, they run 24 x 7. And that she could avail water anytime she wanted.

A women washes her vessels, using the free flowing water provided by the Kolkata Municipality

Which means that these water taps run the entire day and night without a pause. So, one can just imagine the amount of water that goes waste!

I just don’t understand, on one hand we try to educate our farmers and urban dwellers how to reduce the usage of water, and we do not take care of something as simple as putting a knob on a tap. According to The Water Crisis Project:

India’s water crisis is often attributed to lack of government planning, increased corporate privatization, industrial and human waste and government corruption. In addition, water scarcity in India is expected to worsen as the overall population is expected to increase to 1.6 billion by year 2050. To that end, global water scarcity is expected to become a leading cause of national political conflict in the future, and the prognosis for India is no different.

And yet we are here (ab)using water, thinking to ourselves that, “meh…I am not wasting so much!”  Less do we know that millions of others are probably saying the same thing to themselves.