Ganesh visarjan -2012

Many things have been written about Ganesha festival in Mumbai. It is an integral part of Mumbai culture. Immersion after 11 days is a big event. Even one percent of Mumbai population participates in this event, then participation is around 1.3 lakh people!!! It is just an unbelievable thing for someone who has not seen such a crowd. Every road, area, housing society go on procession.Children, teen, teen+, twenty five+ , thirty+ sixty+ all are there in this event. Bollywood music and dance are the major part. Many people use drums and bhajan. BUT DANCE REMAINS THE SAME. You can see in these photos. 

As a photographer, it was challenge to shoot with low light or in focus lights. Shutter speed , ISO and aperture- I played around but not with great success.  I started to shoot with 70-210-3.5-4.5 Canon USM lens, without flash. Most of the shots were blur or dark. I changed to 60 mm 2.8 macro, even that was not very adequate to capture the movements, being a macro lens it hunts lot in dark area and focuses slowly. Finally I used my 580 ex flash with 60 mm macro. For wide angle views, Canon S100 P&S camera. For most of the photos- Camera setting was f 2.8/3.5/4.5-iso1600 (max on my camera),1/200sec and flash was set to TTL (with exposure bias occasionally ).

 My daughter was afraid of the crowd, and hence I made her to sit on my shoulder and tried few shots, but she was moving rhythmically and adding to the camera shake!!. After an hour or so, she was tired and went back to home with my wife. Now I am free (but exhausted) to do bit of photography. My aim as a photographer was to bring the feel of the event and the energy of the people mass to viewer. I don't know how much is achieved. I found it truly difficult to compose and make sharp or intended shots. I   appreciated the photojournalists lot more that day and I saw the photos in the news paper with more respect.

This Ganesha visarjan was held in my residential complex, Mumbai. Total four big mandals are set in different locations. All will start procession around 7 pm and they will cover 1 km in 3 hrs!! and move to sea for the immersion. I did not go to see the final immersion since it was too late and photography in that particular part of the sea was not allowed!!.

Ganesha .............. close up.......

 

Sitting on the lorry and waiting for the journey... crew are checking final arrangements!! 

 He is in his manadal uniform and started the dance and encouraged the children to start the dance...... adults are bit hesitant so.......... 

 Here are girls and old girls dance in mass.

 Hands up in the air and move move and move..........

These few shots to show the crowd, I used slow shutter speed to show the movement.

 These are the children- opening dance-men

 Aarati is offered............

 Common to see the shoulder dance, here is one.............

 Oh, mother is showing her kid the dance and other onlookers

 Good hair style and dance style too

 Elsewhere, out the world ............

 Too bright light.........

 Oh  look at that, bit shy to dance............

 Friends cheer................

 Oh look at me how I lead this dance.....

 Ha ha ha ... dance shout and dance

 His favorite song played and he is singing and dancing along ...........

 He was true character.. tall boy and seen in many photos

 He got this whistle and adding more decibels to already loud music

 Three idiots watching around- may be bit sophisticated fellas- we dance only in pubs!!!!!!!!

 Middle age is the golden age- we dance too

 I liked this one a lot...... happy friends

 Now DJ has given a break and girls are in serious talk ,   what steps for next beat

 Oh these chaps that I am a journalist and posing for a photo

 Tired taking rest on sidelines , meanwhile their friends are doing some twists

 Nasha ( intoxicated by music and dance)

 ha ha ha , go go go

 One more character- he had unique steps by face and feet!!

 This group I followed quite sometime and they were  joy to watch.

Look at the batman -

 Kar ke dhikaya!! we did it ........

 Hidden deep in the crowd- saying wow wow ..

 This one I liked a lot - after many shots of the hands in the air - this one was the best of the lot

 It was a very humid day- after a long dance taking rest - covered with sweat

 This guy seems to be a regular gym goer- he will dance for a while and go to side and do some stretches, checks his tight shirt and get back to the crowd............

 Aajaa, come one .............

 ooooooooooo .......

 Again batman in full swing .......

What happened? some pain, someone stepped on his feet- I checked - nope, his slipper's bar ( Hawaii slipper ) was out, he was trying to insert that back in position..... don't give away to wild guesses as I did!!

 Once slippers are ready - back to dance

 Strange look!!

 Ever lasting ........ anything possible in this dance frenzy

 How about me......

 Posing... for a photo

 Now he is in full swing......

 Chalore , karenge dance , isa vala step then dusra vala step...

 Shoulder dance. bit heavy beats

 One above the other then......

 Surprise ..... emotion - perfect face for the tune

 Twist and turn look at me

 Almost at the end crowd is bit tired now!!!

 Panorama kind of crop to show the crowd

 

 This one is visarjan of our Ganessha in near by well.

Ego

Ego always fascinates and amuses me. Very often I look at my own ego and get surprised about its power and the way it shapes my opinions. Where is it? What is its role? The Indian philosophy has dealt this subject with great detail. Basically it originates from “I” and “I am right”. One day I was going to office by cycle. One dog was sitting on center of the road. As my cycle approached near to dog, it did not budge from its place.  It was sitting as if it owns the road. I was so furious and irritated, took bicycle just near the dog (even though there was enough space). But it was just sitting there and never bothered. Furious Shashi!!!!!!!!!. I went around the dog and proceeded further. Suddenly I realized why so much irritation? Oh, I am the mighty human being, I am on the wheels, one of the greatest invention of man, I am going to “the office”, I do research, how can this dog could treat “mighty me” like this and humiliate me so much? My ego is hurt, I felt like stopping the cycle and beat the dog. I got even furious about the government, how could they leave a stray dog like this, it might bite kids !!!. Well, with in 100 mts I realized the role of my ego, oh look at that it was sitting somewhere deep inside me just sprung up, oh without even my knowledge, it was in charge of my emotions. Consciously I brought back my senses to ground. I forced my being to be humble and sensitive to others opinions and pains. I just narrated one incident. It doesn’t mean that I have won over my ego, it is just a war between both of us and conditioning my senses to be humble; well, this is just like training for running or swimming, having a healthy mental status too need a constant exercise.

This deteriorating dead crab was lying on the wooden plank. It stirred lot of emotions in me, especially concept of ego. The most important one is looking at its claws. In spite of death and decaying body, the claw remained strong and shining. It reminded me of many of us even though we don’t have power to do the things and are helpless; but our ego is much larger than our persona. 

 

 I tried different angles, and luckily I was having an off camera flash (using for the first time). Only constraint was my daughter, she wanted to touch that dead crab with a stick and she was becoming more and more impatient. So whatever 5 min allotted by her, I tried these things. I tried to process them in different ways just to see, how does it look? Here are the photos.