It looked promising that morning and I hoped it would remain a bright clear day. Going by the luck we had during our monsoon visit – seeing Kanchenjunga in all her glory – I was pretty sure I would have similar luck this time. Batasia had been visited umpteen times by now and today it had to be different – I just had to see that marvelous train set against the backdrop of the Himalayas. So on a hunch I rode the ‘joy train’ to Ghum that morning and was informed by yet another inebriated member of the railway staff that we would have a ten minute stoppage at Batasia. Great! I thought – this would be that elusive dramatic opening shot I was looking for. But my luck had begun to run out by then..

Continue reading “D4 – The Gloom in Ghum” →

My winter production kicked off in full earnest today – at 0530 in the morning to be precise. For a change I was on time while Roshan lay fast asleep in the comforts of his ‘razai’ and just as we were about to leave he realised he couldn’t find the car keys – great start to the day I thought. Made it to Kurseong station minutes before the departure of the 6 am ‘school train’ to Darjeeling. After much hesitation, I set up tripod at the station and to my surprise no one realy gave a shit which is another reason why I love this part of the country – people don’t object to the use of cameras or crowd around someone filming. Anywhere else in the country and I would have instantly been greeted with the all to familiar, “hanji, permit hae aapka?? ” with a good 7000 spectators watching the proceedings by then.

If my computing skills are anything to go by, we stopped at no less than 22 locations en route to shoot the train from and contrary to what I had imagined, we were always playing catch up. Almost lost the chase on more than a few occasions. That steamer was going great guns this morning and was only 20 minutes late at Darjeeling. I say ‘only’ cause it’s no surprise if it turns up a couple of hours late on most mornings. Managed to goof up a lot of my shots but overall the experience was more than gratifying..

Continue reading “D3 – The chase begins” →

Welcome again and thanks to all of you who had a look at day 1 and posted comments. Apologies for short changing you with that lone photo which was incidentally taken from the aircraft itself – look closely and you might even be able to spot good ol’ Everest in that formation!!

A leisurely start on day 2 thanks in no small measure to the cold which kept me from emerging from my many layers of cover. You can be rest assured the morning shower was even more painfull. The mission today was to location scout for day 3’s train chase. First stop was Darjeeling station.

Continue reading “D2 – Darjeeling Delights” →