The name may sound strange to you, nevertheless, it is a beautiful name. PUSHAN. It is the name of a very simple and unassuming professional photographer. Pushan is almost 6 feet tall, lean and blessed with a Bollywood hero-like face. He left everything – his job, money and reputation to become a photographer. His relations & friends seethed with fury at his stupid decision. He never bothered to explain his heart, he simply and silently followed what his heart told him. His better half realized that there is something he loves more than her and she stood by him as his life’s anchor.
I met Pushan through a mutual friend seven years ago, requested him to create an exclusive photo collection for www.lastritesindia.com. I am more concerned with the dignity of the individual in death. Both Pushan and I went all the way to Allahabad (during the Maha Kumbh Mela) and to Varanasi to catch the images of the inescapable event i.e., the death. We were looking at the Faces of Death in Pushan’s photos.
This was when I understood fully the photographer Pushan. With his camera and the Lense bag on his holder he was always on the move. I had asked him: “Pushan! Do you think and click or click & think”? ‘Neither’ he said. ‘It is more to do with your intuition”. He had and of course still has that intuition, the sixth sense while taking a picture. “What is a picture? It is but the intricate play of the shapes and light” said Pushan while having dinner that evening at Varanasi. Understanding light is the key that differentiates a good photograph from a photograph, Pushan digested this truth in his being and launched himself as an enviable professional photographer.
Let me tell you sirs, Pushan delivered the best of the photos. When I say the best… simply the best. His picture – each of it – is worth a million words. Each of the photographs tells me a different trait of his personality. Through his photography we can understand that Pushan is a diehard romantic photographer; has the ability to arrest time in his photos. Time stands still in his photos. The time does not fleet when Pushan is around. In a way time scared of Pushan! Past present and future dissolved into one in Pushan’s photography. Both at Varanasi and Allahabad, I felt, even the Gods were madly scrambling to get photographed by Pushan!
Do you know what kills a quality professional photographer? Those same things together committed a terrible crime; they separated Pushan and photography. The body and soul. Without photography Pushan is a Zombie. His walk talk and laugh are soulless. When I met Pushan 5 years later, two days ago I could see a sea change in him. He is now working as a software professional in some famous MNC serving the European customers! I asked him with a painful heart “What are you doing Pushan! Go back to your passion. Live Life”. His photography equipment is now lying securely zipped in a bag dusting away. Come back Pushan! With your passion you can win the world, make us proud. Please.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
