A Memoir

It was 5.30 am...a Sunday morning...one of the most eventful and memorable mornings of my life...OUR life. Mumbai was asleep...but we were awake. Two of my friends (the ones in the photograph) and myself were speeding down the express highway towards town. Destination Churchgate. We were out that early morning to shoot for Bachpan...our music video. I had planned to shoot at some of the locations in South Mumbai...my alma mater. We shot at Marine Drive, The Oval , Afghan Church and..........The TAJ and GATEWAY OF INDIA! This photograph has been taken from the scene that I shot at TAJ...and we did shoot some of the finest scenes there.

3 months later the very spot that you see in this picture became a graveyard of many innocent souls.

I have spent five years of my life in Churchgate. I still remember how I used to feel every morning when I got off at Churhgate station...that walk from the station to my college...that sea breeze... it was a liberating feeling.

I have spent hours at the marine drive staring at the sea. I have introspected as though there was a close friend right beside me.I have written pages and pages of thoughts and reflections sitting there...I have experienced some of the most peaceful moments of my life there...PEACEFUL...

That word seems so ironical today especially while talking about the marine drive...

When the Sons of Satan were fulfilling their purpose of life at these places...I could do nothing but watch helplessly. A part of me was being killed again and again. They say that Mumbai will bounce back in a few days...but there are a few like me who share a special bonding with that place...and we know that it will never be the same again.

Deja Vu...

This is a photograph of the Oberoi Trident Tower and the marine drive taken by me using my cell camera. This is one of my personal favourites. There is something very special about this pic. The angle that I have used to capture the frame and the colour scheme gives the pic a very different look. Whenever I look at the pic, there is something that I feel about it which I have shared with others who have seen this pic. It looks like we have come to the END of earth...beyond which there is nothing. I used to feel very proud of being able to capture it so aesthetically.

But that special feeling has turned into an eerie creepy feeling today. When I look at this pic today, I see the long winding stretch of concrete which seems like a path which leads to the tip of the earth where everything comes to an END...the arabian...dead calm as if it knows what is about to happen ... and the sky which will soon be covered with dark clouds blocking every ray of the sun...and every ray of hope...and finally those three towers helplessly awaiting their doom...

When I look at this pic today, I feel like a numb spectator...yes...numb is the word. Almost the enitre world is watching this tower and two others...numb... Is this a kind of deja vu?

I loved the entire look of the photograph when I clicked it. But today I saw that colour translating into reality. Somethings are better off in aesthetic works of art and should never turn into reality.