Best 20 from 2020
2020 is not just like any other year passed by, we saw so many downs and downs… continuous heartbreaking news across the world and all. Let’s not repeat those now. In short, I haven’t been to many places in 2020 — a few quick trips close to our home, that’s it.
I thought I will make a set of 20 what I liked most among those I took in 2020. Somehow I find the bright ones, colorful ones are more appealing. Even though I have a huge inclination towards black & white photos, but this time my heart is not willing to take any more bitterness and darkness.
I hope, 2021 will heal some of the scars and will slowly fade out the distressing memories of 2020. And we will be more comfortable with the new normals — mask, social distancing, internet-based things and all.
Happy New Year to all my friends… stay safe, healthy, and keep going.
My First Grand Exhibition
Here I am going to talk about mostly how we organized the exhibition Between Here and There where I hosted my first show along with a fellow photographer and dear friend Raj Sarkar from 10th February to 12th February 2017 at Gallery Gold, Kolkata. So, it’s my own personal experience curating a photography exhibition; I will share what are the areas where we faced challenges in decision making, what went wrong or could have been better, and where it went well more than I thought. These details on various important aspects and insights might be helpful when you will organize an exhibition for your own. And this blog post is for my own documentation otherwise I will lose all the details down the line.
Raj Sarkar and Sudarshan Mondal, two different personalities have brought their works together, under the same roof, portraying their thoughts and experiences Between Here and There- this real world and the fantasy, the east, and the west, and life and non-life. The drama and the cinematic glance of the culture, the life, and the love all are composed beautifully in Between Here and There. The synchronicity between the two photographic approaches and the two different minds form a rhythm that is soothing and expressive. The light and shadow play hide and seek in this visual art exhibition – in black and white, and in astounding color. – this is how we wrote the heading text of our exhibition.
As it was my first exhibition, I wanted it to be absolutely perfect from all aspects. Raj exhibited his images before in a few group exhibitions, but for me, it was the first one. When we thought about the exhibition, the biggest fears was how people will appreciate our photography work, whether we will get a reasonable response from the visitors, fellow photographers, senior photographers, critics, and photo lovers or not, whether our show going to be published in leading newspapers and broadcast TV channels or not, whether we are going to have acceptable footfall or not.
These fears are not necessarily a barrier, rather these are the challenges that need to be dealt with the proper planning and tactical focus. Exhibition timing – dates and month, duration – number of days, gallery location and their reputation, advertisement and campaigning, and chief guests selection — all play a very crucial role for successful execution from a logistics perspective.
But, first of all, a definite theme has to be there for the exhibition which will be the baseline for all the decisions. Based on the exhibition theme, you have to come up with the exhibition name or title, and trust me this sounds simple but in reality, it’s a big challenge to find a good name that is refreshing, fresh, modern, not so often used, and totally aligned with your photographs you have planned to be exhibited. It took a good amount of exercise for us to figure out a name where Raj has a completely different genre of photographs than mine.
For obvious reasons below areas came across our mind and we tried not to compromise in any of these areas and worked at our maximum capacity possible to make it happen.
- Exhibition Hall
- Selection of photographs
- Quality of the prints and papers
- Framing
- Brochure
- Invite Cards
- Exhibition Hall Presentation
- Publication in Newspapers
- Honorable Guests
- Email Invites
- Facebook Campaign
- Music in Exhibition Hall
- Hospitality
Exhibition hall
Somehow we chose Galley Gold (located at 11, Abdul Rasul Ave, Near Menoka Cinema, Lake Range, Kalighat, Kolkata, West Bengal 700026), an exhibition hall in the southern part of Kolkata. It has 4 sections inside which seemed perfectly alright for our duo exhibition. But, was it a wise decision? Now the exhibition is over and I think it was not. We could have chosen the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) of Birla Academy of Art and Culture for our show. All the galleries have their own advantages and disadvantages though.
Selection of photographs
This is the most significant part of an exhibition and it’s the reason for all these arrangements. We took several months to figure out what would be best for the show — almost 2 to 3 months, in fact, the mental process started once we booked the exhibition hall. Sequencing the photographs in the walls, taking decisions on their sizes, choosing the right walls for the right photographs – all these took major considerations. I decided to display two body of works mainly and another small one of four photos: Resonance – a body of work of landscape photos (12), Love and Intimacy – romantic and cinematic street photos from New York City (9), and Eye on High – a small set of architectural photographs (4). Obviously, we needed to dig down to get the best body of works that seamlessly goes with the exhibition theme.
Quality of the prints and papers
I chose Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Bright White 310 gsm for my Resonance series photographs. It’s a bright white cotton art paper with an inkjet coating specially tailored for FineArt printing. The lightly defined felt structure and characteristic soft Photo Rag® feel gives every FineArt print an incredible depth and three-dimensional appearance. Combined with the matt premium inkjet coating, this produces impressive FineArt prints boasting vivid colors, deep blacks, and extraordinary reproduction of detail. The bright white of the paper also creates particularly brilliant results for high contrast images. The acid- and lignin-free Photo Rag® Bright White meets the most exacting requirements for age resistance and is perfect for reproducing FineArt photographs and works of art. It complies with ISO 9706 for museum-quality for the highest age resistance.
For my Love and Intimacy series photographs, I chose Canson® Infinity Baryta Photographique 310 gsm. It consists of an alpha-cellulose, acid-free pure white paper with the same barium sulfate coating as for traditional silver-halide and a premium inkjet color receiver layer. It offers the look and aesthetic of the original darkroom baryta print and complies with the ISO 9706 standard for maximum longevity. This museum grade photo paper shows excellent black density and great image sharpness, making it ideal for black and white photography.
We had a few trial runs with different papers before I decided on these two. I realized paper makes a difference, in contrast, black depth, and overall look and feel.
Bivas Bhattacharjee printed our all photographs for the exhibition. And I must admit that we have got the best prints possible in Kolkata. Hats off to Bivas da 🙂
For all non-photographic exhibition prints like brochures, banners, posters, etc., we have printed from Capital Infoart Press located at 11B, Chowringhee Terrace, Gokhel Road, Bhowanipore, Kolkata, West Bengal 700020 and they did a very good job as well.
Framing
Tara Glass Syndicate Art Framer (Kali Temple Road, Kalighat, Kolkata – 700026, Near Kalighat Police Station) framed all our photographs for the exhibition. They are specialized in Museum quality photo framing. We decided to have all handmade white colored pinewood frames with glass on. Finished frames were looking great when exhibited, it went perfectly well with the gallery lighting setup which was warmish.
Brochure
I designed the brochure with Adobe Lightroom using the Book module and exported it as a PDF. And then we took it to the printing house and they transformed it to Adobe Illustrator format and adjusted some parts of it as needed and printed from there only. They bound the prints and cut them in a booklet form. Offset prints are good, but for economical reasons, we went for digital inkjet prints with decent papers.
Invite Cards
We printed the invite cards from Vistaprint using their online utility. I was impressed with their paper and print quality. Moreover, it’s economical. I have printed the visiting cards from them as well.
Exhibition Hall Photos
Below images will give a clear view of how the overall arrangement was and the warmth of it. Dipayan Deb took all these photos and I processed them quickly with Lightroom.
Publications in Newspapers
This is the area where we were bewildered how it will work. But, fortunately, it worked well. Almost all newspapers of West Bengal published about it. And we are thankful to Mr. Arabinda Mandal, my elder cousin’s brother for all his spontaneous help, hard work, and continuous support. Raj used his contacts to make it happen. I am very happy that all worked well, in fact, it was more than my expectation.
Honorable Guests
We are very grateful to our honorable guests for keeping our request and agree to inaugurate the show. Their esteem presence made the show ecstatic.
Sri Bikram Ghosh – Internationally reputed Tabla maestro and renowned music composer
Mr. Hiran Chatterjee – Indian Bengali film actor, writer, singer, producer, businessman, and politician
Sri Soumitra Datta – Eminent Landscape photographer
Smt. Mala Mukherjee – Accomplished photographer by her own right
Smt. Madhuchhanda Sen – Director of Maya Art Space, Kolkata.
Email Invites
There were two-there versions we used for email invites.
Respected Sir,
We, Sudarshan Mondal and Raj Sarkar, cordially invite you and your colleagues/family at the inaugural ceremony of the duo photography exhibition “Between HERE and THERE” at Gallery Gold (11, Abdul Rasul Avenue, Kolkata 700026, opp. to Rabindra Sarovar, near Menoka Cinema), time 5:30 pm on 10th February 2017.
The exhibition will be inaugurated by internationally reputed Tabla maestro and renowned music composer Sri Bikram Ghosh. Eminent Landscape photographer Sri Soumitra Datta and accomplished photographer by her own right Smt. Mala Mukherjee will grace the occasion as the chief guest and guest of honor respectively. Smt. Madhuchhanda Sen, director of Maya Art Space will also grace as a guest of honor.
The exhibition will remain open till 12th February, from 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm.
By profession, Sudarshan Mondal is a senior software consultant and works in IBM India Pvt. Ltd. Sudarshan will exhibit his two distinguished body of works; Resonance – a reflection of the state of mind with nature/landscape photography in black and white fine art format. And another one on Love and Intimacy – with close-up couple shots from the New York City streets, presented in cinematic style. You can preview his work at www.sudarshanmondal.com.
Raj Sarkar is a finance personnel in the Airports Authority of India and a photographer by passion. He enjoys traveling & documenting street life. He will present his two body of works – one of widow Holi at ancient Gopinath Temple, Vrindavan, and a set of his street photographs. You can preview his work at www.rajsarkar.com.
Another email version started with —
With due respect and humble submission, I would like to intimate you that I am going to exhibit my photography works along with a fellow photographer and dear friend Raj Sarkar from 10th February to 12th February 2017 at Gallery Gold (11, Abdul Rasul Avenue, Kolkata 700026, opp. to Rabindra Sarovar, near Menoka Cinema).
Facebook Campaign
We have created a Facebook event page and posted teaser words and pictures over there for almost last one month.
Music in Exhibition Hall
We played music from Ludovico Einaudi’s album “In a Time Lapse”. But in crowded times, we put it off.
Hospitality
We had tea, sweets and it was overall a festive environment. Raj and his family made a huge difference. They provided a very warm and vivid welcome to all our guests and visitors.
Special Thanks
Words are not enough to express my gratitude, I know, and you do not need this either, but I am doing it for myself; your spontaneous help, tireless enthusiasm, enormous support, encouragement, inspiration, and guidance shaped the exhibition and you are the reason for the grand success — it was your show too. Honestly, we can’t have the show without your thoughtfulness support system.
Sampurna Sarkar
Shaswati Mondal
Supriya Das
Debrani Das
Uttiyo Das
Koustav Das
Sangeeta Rozario
Jayati Saha
Jhuma Dutta
Md Ashik
I may have missed a few more names here, but you know you are in my heart and will always be. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to all of you. Thank you.
Anchor
Anchor: The Game of Mind
Everything is in mind – dreams, hopes, desires, love, frustration. It’s the realm of emotions. The mind thinks, explores, imagines, and sets determinations, leads to ideas, develops insights, gives strengths to grow up, sees big, inspires to work, and then rest follows. That’s how if I put it in a very simplistic way. But the reality is a little more complicated. Life is not so simple, and neither is the mind. It’s a complex labyrinth of neuro wires that stores all, in fact, the whole meaning of life. The anchor project explores the same expression with the domestic birds.
As we grow up, we set goals for life, set milestones, based on some reference points, past experiences, dreams that we see over the years, desires that nourished at the core of the heart. Once we achieve or fail, we set another one. Sometimes, we stick to one for some time, and eventually, we move on, that’s how it goes.
In reality, the desires, goals, dreams, hopes don’t hold up always. The world within the mind that we create over the years starts getting decay slowly. Dreams and hopes suffocated within the boundary. It’s like slowly letting go of what we have nourished over the years. And all these happen within the mind.
The mind gets anchored with reality, with the current state of affairs. Dreams find a limitation – it dares to go beyond a certain point. Like domestic birds, they can fly but they can’t fly too high and far away. They had to come back to their old same place for livelihood. Even though they are not caged, but the world for them is not big either.
EKPHRASIS: Lightscribers Annual Exhibition on Photography & Poetry
Recently I have exhibited a few images from this series with a small group of photographers in an exhibition named “EKPHRASIS – Lightscribers Annual Exhibition on Photography & Poetry” at the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata from 20th -27th October 2017. It was a visual collaboration of images and poems. We had great success, appreciated by the visitors and senior photographers from Kolkata.
We collaborated with poet Mr. Supriyo Phani and Mr. Jayanta Joy Chattopadhyay, and they wrote some nice pieces for this photo story. We received a huge appreciation for the evocative lines. It touched my heart.
“আকাশেরও সীমানা রয়েছে ডানার পালকও ভারী হয় ঘুরে ফিরে আবার তখন ঘরে ফিরে যাবার সময় –”
সুপ্রিয় ফণী
These images go good with Ludovico Einaudi’s musical piece “Orbits”, from his In a Time Lapse album. Here is the link from YouTube – https://youtu.be/8103KzF-VxA.
Some images and posters from our exhibition – EKPHRASIS – Lightscribers Annual Exhibition on Photography & Poetry.
Exhibition posters.
Poems that accompanied the images…
Here is one blog post on the exhibition. I have shared my experience in organizing an exhibition.
A Note on Anchoring
Anchoring is a neuro-linguistic programming term for the process by which memory recall, state change, or other responses become associated with (anchored to) some stimulus, in such a way that perception of the stimulus (the anchor) leads by reflex to the anchored response occurring. The stimulus may be quite neutral or even out of conscious awareness, and the response may be either positive or negative. They are capable of being formed and reinforced by repeated stimuli, and thus are analogous to classical conditioning.
You will get a lot more details about anchoring if interested here- https://www.nlpworld.co.uk/nlp-glossary/a/anchoring/.
Varanasi – A Labyrinth of Time
Varanasi – A Labyrinth of Time
Kasi or Varanasi is one of the most ancient, famous, and holiest of the holy Hindu pilgrim centers. It is situated between two small streams that flow into the river Ganges, Varana on its northern border, and Asi (or Assi) on its southern border, from whom it derives its name Varanasi. In Rigveda and Skanda Purana, Varanasi is referred to as Kashi.
The name Kashi is derived from either its original founder or a dynasty that ruled it or the kingdom with which it was associated. According to another theory the place might have got its name from a grass named Kusa that grew wildly in the region where the city was built. Throughout the ages, this city was known as Kasika, Avimukta, Anandavana, and Rudravasa.
According to mythology, it is believed that Varanasi was founded by Lord Shiva. The Pandavas from the great epic Mahabharata also visited this pious city. It is one of the seven cities in which a person can attain Moksha. Hindus believe that one who is graced to die on the land of Varanasi would attain salvation and freedom from the cycle of birth and re-birth. The Ganges in Varanasi is believed to have the power to wash away the sins of mortals.
The archaeological evidence states that early settlements around Varanasi began in the 20th century B.C. It is acknowledged as the world’s oldest inhabited city. The historical remains state that Varanasi was populated by the people of the Vedic age. According to Atharvaveda, the oldest Vedic text, Varanasi was inhabited by the people from indigenous tribes. Recent excavations state the existence of the city must have been from onwards 1800 B.C. During the time of Gautama Buddha, the city of Varanasi was the capital of the Kashi Kingdom and became one of the revered industrial centers.
The famous Chinese traveler, Hiuen Tsang, visited this city in 635 AD and referred to it as a center of religious and artistic activities. During the British rule, like many place names in India, it was anglicized into Benares, the holy city of “Hindoos”.
These few lines by Mark Twain say it all: “Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together”.
In modern Varanasi, as we see today, carries all the traces of ancient history – templates, ghats, heritage buildings, alleys, different kind of religious activities, and its people and in their faith and believe. Here you will be forced to think about history, human expectations, and how ancient Varanasi amalgamated with today’s society and how different it is from the other cities and why. In Varanasi, unlike any other city in the world, burning dead bodies is the main part of business and livelihood.
I have visited the Varanasi trice. For the 1st time, in 2007, I was with my wife and had a pleasant and lovely time, it was just after my marriage, we visited templates, did the shopping, and saw nearby areas. I didn’t explore Varanasi as such at that time. My 2nd visit was in 2015 with three photo buddies and I saw Varanasi with little more details – spent time in the ghats, saw different religious activities, walked in the alleys, eat street food, and talked to few people. It gave me an impression of today’s Varanasi. The chaotic rhythm, the narrowness of the alleys, colors of the street, old wooden doors and windows, carvings on historical buildings.
On 3rd visit, I was with five photo buddies and we walked together in the alleys, spent time in the market place, in the evening we sat on the ghats and trolled in old Varanasi areas for a shot. It’s undeniable that Varanasi has a lot to offer – as I saw more, I wondered. There are many things that attract eyes, many stories that compel to explore, and many coexistences that generate interest to dig down.
When I saw the water pipes in the alleys, somehow it triggered in my mind to make a photo story on this. As if these water pipes are the veins that connect the modern Varanasi with the ancient Kashi. Like they bring water from the deep underground, they are fetching glimpses of the ancient city from the past and establishing a communication channel between ancient history and today’s time. Like the roots of a tree, they are supplying the vital fluids to vibrant the city alive. I actually intrigued with these water-pipes mostly as I saw a resemblance with the roots or chain, or with a network or web that connects to the history of Varanasi and had a thought to depict ‘samyer mayajaal’. Varanasi is a living history, it’s more ancient than any modern city. Here I tried to portray a correlation with this concept and used water pipes as a metaphor. Not sure if it is a successful endeavor or not, but it definitely needs a few more trips and more compelling photos to establish the story.
Varanasi is older than history, true, but in the city’s pulse, the coherence of ancient and modern times fascinates me to explore and understand Varanasi from a spiritual and social perspective. It’s worth going back to Varanasi again and again to find the roots. Varanasi, a labyrinth of time, kept the deep-rooted human characteristics beneath in it over the ages.
Homealone
Homealone – Story of a Lonely Woman
Even after two years, it’s still stuck in my mind… it’s about a woman who stays alone in a mountain wrapped small village near Thangu Valley, North Sikkim in her own home attached with a shop where she sells tea, coffee, biscuits, and cooked noodles and hard drinks like whisky, ram, etc.
Almost two years back, April 2017, I was traveling to Gurudongmar Lake, Sikkim and we, my car driver and I halted for tea and noodles in her shop twice – while going to and coming back from Gurudongmar Lake… it’s somewhere near Thangu Valley on Gurudongmar road, I can’t remember the exact location now, I wish I noted it down or I geo-tagged it.
In April 2017, in the entire Sikkim hard drinks were banned, but I was surprised to see it was available openly in her shop. One reason, it’s very far away from the North Sikkim’s major populations, and over there it was too cold, altitude close to 13000 feet. Being China border very close by, I saw many military camps, bunkers and there was hardly any or a few civilian homes. I think except tourists and army people, no one goes to her shop, there are none actually.
While having noodles and tea, we had a talk with her. I expressed my views on her home, it was neatly decorated as you can see in the pictures and I took a few photos of her room. When I asked her how long she is staying there in that place, she told me it’s about two years and I asked if she was born and brought up there or not, most probably she said she is from Pelling, West Sikkim. She cracked jokes with me when I was taking pictures of her home – she was saying that I can invite her to decorate my own kitchen in Kolkata, she can do it for free of cost and many other things.
When I asked her how long she is staying there in that place, she told me it’s about two years…
My driver was very curious about her and he was pushing me to ask about her personal life, like if she is married or not, where is her husband, why is she staying alone in this place, why isn’t she going back to the mainland, etc. They know each other for a very long time as he drops by there with tourists on a regular basis, even though at that point in time, he didn’t know much about her. He had a lot of interest to know about her personal life, and it’s obvious too; he had very good respect for her courage, staying there all her along for two years is not an easy thing at all.
The environment is not supportive, it’s terrific cold, there are hardly any people to talk to, almost no transport except a few tourist cars and army trucks. It’s still wondering how she manages her home, shop and everything all her alone for such a long time, I think she stays there now as well. If I am fortunate to go there again, I wish I can meet her again. I have noted her name and phone number in my phone’s contact book, I promised her that I will pass her photographs over WhatsApp, but not sure I couldn’t find that afterward, just lost it somehow and I feel bad about it.
Aftermath
What Happened
It’s almost two and a half years back, December 27, 2015, on a fine morning I was looking through the newspaper and shocked when I saw a nearby locality, hardly 20 min walk from my home, was burned out and devastated. There were not many details in the newspaper, as the accident happened at midnight and they didn’t get full cover at that time.
I took my camera mounted with a 50mm lens, boarded on a rickshaw, and reached the spot. When I reached over there, at around 8:30 or 9:00 am, I saw a lot of photojournalists were already there, documenting for their agency, newspaper, or whatever and people thought of me as another photojournalist. Nevertheless, that worked well for me.
What I witnessed you can have a glimpse of that in my photographs posted here, but the stories I listened from them broke my heart and left an enduring effect in my mind, indeed a lesson learned for my whole life.
Sad Stories
One young guy of age around 24 or 25 was saying to me that he traded his bicycle and watch to get a used iPhone 5. He kept that in his home, and it burned out a day after he purchased it. Women were talking about their jewelry and wedding clothes kept with care since they got married, and many other treasured items that are gone. The value of those are not just linked with money, but the memory, lifelong association, and companionship.
Good that no one died or seriously injured, whereas there was a very high probability considering the type of accident and its severity. No one knew what exactly happened, how it happened. But it was suspected that the fire was initiated by a blast of a gas cylinder. Thereafter, other gas cylinders also blasted one after another due to the heat. Local people immediately threw the rest of the gas cylinders into the nearby canal. But it was already too late, as the burning took place very fast. All finished within 5 or 6 minutes.
No one knew what exactly happened, how it happened. But it was suspected that it was initiated by a blast of a gas cylinder. Thereafter, other gas cylinders also blasted one after another due to the heat. Local people immediately threw the rest of the gas cylinders into the nearby canal.
Realization
I realized on the day that nothing is permanent in life, an accident can happen at any time. It’s important to insure your family and keep valuable things in a safe place. Even if you take good safety precautions, unfortunate things still can happen. Aftermath is a heartbroken story. It teaches us the fragility of life, and valuable and important things can go away momentarily.
I realized on the day that nothing is permanent in life, an accident can happen at any time. It’s important to insure for your family and keep valuable things in a safe place.
“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” – Grace Hopper.
Fire does not burn down only the homes, it burns memories, hopes, dreams, and time well spend in there. Even after that, I think life will be back again in track as it was before; women will use gas cylinders again as they used it before, whatever gone will not return, true, but empty places will slowly fill up again. Life goes on and on…
Meghamaya Meghalaya
6 black & white photos from Meghalaya.
In these photographs, there is no direct correlation with the place itself though, the only connection is these shots from Meghalaya. However, the mystic feel, romantic atmosphere, and uncertain trill have an unavoidable invite which goes quite well with Meghalaya’s overall touch.
Abhimanyu Gaud was one of them
I took all these images on Saturday, 9th January 2016 during the Republic Day rehearsal parade of the military personnel. On the following Wednesday early morning, 13th January 2016, an Indian Air Force corporal was hit and killed by a speeding Audi SUV that defied traffic restrictions in the city’s Maidan area during the Republic Day rehearsal parade.
The brand-new sports utility vehicle, which appeared to be an Audi Q7, hit IAF corporal Abhimanyu Gaud, a drill instructor at the rehearsal, at about 6.30 am near Red Road. Gaud, 21, was rushed to the Eastern Command hospital where he was declared brought dead.
21 years old Abhimanyu Gaud was one of them and he died for nothing.
The driver abandoned the car near the South Gate after smashing into a guard rail and fled after scraping off the paper stickers bearing the temporary registration number. Police managed to track down the owner as one Ambiya, 26, son of Trinamul leader Mohammad Sohrab. The car was purchased on January 4. It is said that Md Sohrab was earlier a Rashtriya Janata Dal leader.
Howrah Station: In a Winter Morning
Howrah Station: Busiest Railway Station
There are some photos that remain close to the heart. A few images of Howrah Station is such for mine. I captured them with my iPhone 7 on a fine winter morning inside the station.
Howrah Station is one of the busiest railway stations in the world. It is located in the city of Howrah, West Bengal, India. About 600 passenger trains pass through the station each day, utilizing its 23 platforms, and serving more than one million passengers per day. Howrah is one of five intercity train stations serving the Kolkata metropolitan area (including Howrah and its twin city of Kolkata), the others being Sealdah, Santragachi, Shalimar, and Kolkata railway station.
Howrah Junction railway station is the oldest station and largest railway complex in India with a maximum number of platforms in the entire railway system of India, 23 platforms. The terminal station is located on the west bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the Howrah Bridge.
You can get a more details in wikipedia.
A brief story behind the photos
I went to the station with my mother to help onboard her. She was traveling to our native place. So I brought the platform ticket only. For your information, photography is prohibited in the Howrah Station, in fact, it is prohibited in most of the Indian big railway stations. Particularly in Howrah station, there are a lot of Railway Protection Force with machine guns and they keep a close eye on that and different other security-related activities. I was simply taking photos with my iPhone, but with some care so that no one notices me. Somehow one RPF personnel saw me and they took my phone. It was a brand new iPhone 7. And they took it and was saying they are not about to return it.
After one hour of arguments and tussle, they agreed that I have to write a letter to get it back. So, I had to do that. I didn’t have much choice. And then, I wrote a letter mentioning my address, phone number, and note that I won’t do that again. They checked all the photos I took and asked me to delete all the photos in front of them. After all of these, they finally returned my phone. Once I was just outside the station, I recovered all the deleted photos immediately, and here are some in this blog including the video.
Here are a few images of Howrah Station I took with the iPhone 7 and one video link posted on YouTube.
Video Clip
Here is a video clip (time: 56 sec) I shot with iPhone 7 and then converted it to black and white. It will show the environment and overall background of how I got these images.
I have posted similar images from New York’s Grand Central station. Please find it here –
Eventful Two Days at Susunia
We four, Subir da, Sen Kaku, Aravind, and I, from our residential complex and Gautam Basu, a close friend, and classmate of Subir da (batch of 1990, Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University) went out for Susunia, Chhatna block area of Bankura district with some plans in mind on last Saturday (2nd July) morning and we had a plan to return back on Sunday late evening. We took Gautam da’s Swift Desire and a trunk full of stuff and started close to 7.30 am in the morning.
It was all good until we just crossed Singur on Durgapur Expressway / NH 2 and we got a hit with a truck. A misfortune happened, like all other road accidents. Thanks to God, we are all saved, no one seriously got hurt apart from small injuries that do not even count compare to what could have happened. We just got our life back, and mixed feelings followed. We were a bit scared and happy at the same time.
Anyway, after that, we decided we won’t return back to Kolkata and would do what we had set out for. We contacted a nearby garage (car repairing workshop) and kept our damaged car over there and rented a Tata Sumo for 2 days. And after that, it was all fun-filled events.
On our arrival, the locals of Susunia have arranged a friendly football match between two villages – Susunia and Agaya gram. Agaya won the match, but Susunia played the game throughout well. At the very last moment, Agaya got a winning goal. It was a warm welcome for us. Gautam da distributed 3 footballs and jerseys before the game and they played the match wearing those. And our team distributed pencils to the local kids.
Then we met local people, they told us their stories and issues, we spent time with them and went to an artist’s house thereafter. His name is Nimai Dutta, he received Rashtrapati Award twice, and we saw his picture with Dr. APJ Abdulkalam hanging on the wall of his sitting-room. The house is more like an ashram where he teaches his sculpture-making art to his students.
We stayed at Maruth Baha Eco Park (please note, in Santali language Maruth means Palash and Baha means flower) for the night. It’s a Govt. own property but managed by a private organization. Food was decent, nothing to complain about.
The next day, we went to Chandra gram, Chhatna block to a house where they gathered all the local kids for a friendly examination and they asked us to review how they are learning. We were amazed to see that even after not much Govt. help, they are learning for some people’s special interest and encouragement. Deepak Bit is a primary school teacher and he is one of them for teaching the kids outside his duty hours and without any personal gain.
We had biscuit packets, soaps, notebooks, and pens with us, and we distributed those to them. Soon after, we went to Nedkalna gram to see a similar setup. Mampi Pramanick, a class 9 student teaches local kids outside a school where there is no teacher alongside her own study. It was a remarkable experience. I started to believe our root is not weak; we have people and personalities that are always active for real development without personal benefit.
Our very close friend Gautam da, a 1990 Mechanical Engineer from Jadavpur University is a dedicated soul for the development on those areas, he is visiting the place for last 6-7 years and he goes there almost every month, sometimes twice/thrice in a month. We have seen how local people accepted him and consider him a dear friend. He took us with him to visualize the area and how is their livelihood in general.
We returned safely on Sunday evening, but the memories will stay with us. I hope I will visit the area again in near future.
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ABOUT MY BLOG
Sudarshan is an independent photographer based in Lake Mary, Florida. His works are soulful, transcendental, and have an enduring impact. He loves creating images, storytelling, and the creative process involved. He believes in simplicity, being close to life, openness, honesty, and the value of holding a camera with humor and compassion.
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