So I’ve made a shift! Relocation as they call it.
Relocated to a different city, a different career, and hopefully a different life experience. But every relocation is very much rooted in your locations, if you can call them so. No, I’m not being Homi Bhabha. But locations are not always firm moorings, right?
Now a new hope, a new turn….let’s see what it turns out to be.
Bangalore as such doesnt look as receptive as Hyderabad was to me. Things take pretty long time. We’d applied for a telephone connection [running around atleast 4 offices located at various places] last week. Still we dont have a number. To imagine that in the single window system Hyderabad has, it took just a day to apply and another to get connected!
Oh, but I’m far from disappointed. I’m still looking forward……waiting to see what is waiting for me.
just hang on for a while..
um sure, b’lore will give u much more reasons to be in luv with this place..
but u bet, the initial stint with the government staff.. from telephones to RTOs + the broker crooks (incase u r luking out for a new place) can get d worst out of u…
once u get over it, there’s nothing quite like bengaluru!
hope u have a gr8 time in here! 🙂
Thanks Usha for that comforting response. Somebody also told me that earlier BSNL used to take just an hour give you a connection! Looking forward to see those things!
Don’t think B’lore can offer you anything much,the way it used to . Just another polluted,dry city!
Thanks Arun for the comment on Bangalore. But coming from Hyderabad, I guess, I was prepared for this.
By the way, I saw the photos in your website. Good ones.
But somehow, I’m always uneasy with photos of the *poor* and the *helpless*, as if they are anthropological objects or exhibition pieces for us, you know, not normal human beings like the photgrapher and the viewer. Sorry, I didnt want to sound judgemental, but…
Thanks again
Thanks for dropping by . But the page you visted(my photoblog) is kinda obsolete and i no more update anything there. Instead working on a gallery,where i can upload all the photographs. Currently i update here : arunpillai.livejournal.
Well comming to the *poor* and *helpless* part – Those photographs are not intended to show case their misery or life as such . I like portrait’s and i do click what ever that feel good in front of my lens . As simple as that . That can be any one, honestly anyone and doesn’t really matter whats their society status is (provided they allow me to click) .
Again very much a personal opinion
Arun,
No I didnt want you to take it so personaly. Yes, you are right that you just click what comes before you.
I was just trying to say that perhaps as artisits and photgraphers, one should be more conscious about the exisiting visual tastes, visual habits, prejudices etc of the audience. Fed on a [perhaps even colonial] diet of the powerless before an all powerful lense, the viewers sort of identify these pictures with those which were taken to show case misery. Whether you actally meant it to be that, comes second. The question is how different can one capture? I know we ourselves would have internalized some of those bad frames and angles. I myself do not know the answer quite well.
And let me tell you, I’m saying all these becauseI did like some of the pictures.
Its just a case of you meeting wrong people at the wrong time.You cannot generalize a city based on one bad experience.Consider an analogy.
I go to a bank for some transaction.If the person at the counter is good to me and does my work with a smile,I will make a generalised statement that XYZ bank s good.Actually the person you met was good and not the bank policies in general.
And if you have bad experience,it may be because of the person at the counter and not the because of the bank per se.
I hope you got what i wanted to convey
Libs,
I did not generalize the city based on BSNL experience. In fact what i’ve written in the end is:
“Oh, but I’m far from disappointed. I’m still looking forward……waiting to see what is waiting for me.”
You are right in your analogy. All that I wanted to say is that in the first few days, I didnt recieve the warmth which I recieved when I first reached Hyderabad. People over there were more warm, helpful, open and receptive. Here I always get a feeling of being unwanted: whether it is from the autowallah, or street vendor or the vegetable market or coming to my example, BSNL office. The moment I’m found speaking a different language than kannada, there is a resistance.
But this city has its won merits too…….some parts of it are really clean, systematic and cool. The summer is so much more better….For women it’s much more comfortable to walk in the public without getting stared at…….etc, I told you I’m waiting with expectations.