It was a much longed breather; I was really getting tired of the usual schedule. Life though has become a routine; disparately wanted to break free for few days. Initially I thought to book couple of tickets in Ship. Later I came to know that the process is long and full of uncertainty given the fact that the frequency of sailing is very limited.

Andaman is experiencing heavy downpour this time of the year. We had to play a hide and seek game in true sense to get to the wonderful beaches and many other places of historical importance. Absolute white sand, calm sea, knee-deep water, all shades of blue and green if you turn your head three sixty degrees!

Our very first stop was at Cellular Jail and I seriously do not have many words to describe it. Free people of India should go there and understand at what cost we got the freedom. Most of the people were not talking much; were shocked or deeply thinking at the sight. Come here and you will understand I mean.

People of Port Blair need a special mention. Auto Rickshaw drivers, shop owners, hoteliers, bus conductors, cab drivers, local boys on street; I found everyone so co-operative and eager to help others - we will remember this definitely. Port Blair is a little hilly area with a great sea surrounding this island. Probably this is one of the major reasons why people are so good which is much different from many of the tourist destinations of the world.

Port Blair and surrounding islands are full of historical places. Most of these are someway related to India’s freedom struggle. Our next destination was Havelock Island which took two hours by ship. It was a first time by ship (though a small sized) for me. Another thing, it does not take you to deep sea, you will continue to see land on one side throughout the journey.

Havelock Island has a major Bengali population; during the partition era many refugees were sent here to settle. We had chance to interact with couple of families who are quite happy with their situation. Though right now few hotel chains and large tourism companies are trying to buy as much as land they can. It may not be long enough that the settlers’ lands will be bought or encroached by some other means by this group of businessmen of there are no regulations.

Havelock Island currently caters vegetables in huge quantity to Port Blair and other parts of the group of islands. Farmers told me that the soil is so rich that they hardly use any fertilizers. Havelock and its beaches have got a permanent place in world tourist map for its pristine beauty. Foreign tourists in large number throng this place throughout the year. There is a slight decrease in inflow due to a crocodile incident couple of months ago. Locals were very concerned now as we saw. Snorkeling and scuba diving are not permitted in many of the places now. You can see the news here.

Though Radhanagar is considered to be the most beautiful beach in Havelock; I found the beach adjacent to Dolphin Resort (we stayed in this Andaman tourism accommodation) better.

I experienced snorkeling in North Bay. It was a place where we chased beautiful fishes and corals. We have been to Red-skin Island at later part of the journey when we came back to Port Blair. This one and Jolly Buoy are two beautifully maintained coral islands. Our definition of corals got shaped here ultimately. The different types of coral beds were so distinctly vibrant; we were again at loss of words.

I will go back again to Wandoor and Vijaynagar beaches some day soon. There are a plenty of corners in Andaman where I will like to be lost again.

I am traveling to random places at random paces.
Hardly getting time to take out dedicated slot to shoot.

One more month or so; I will be back and shoot I pray.
Last weekend, been to Puri with office colleagues.

This weekend, visited a nearby place with my group of shutterbugs - Kolkata Weekend Shoots. Enjoyed a lovely sun set, the same event is happening everyday; still we explore it from different angles; every time.

Years back, I went to Benaras (Varanasi) for the first time. It was a wonderful experience. I recall when I was coming back, I walked up to the river and told her that I would come back again and again.

To keep the promise, I went for the second time. This time around the year, weather is very hot. It was really difficult to roam around the ghats. Still, we tried our best.

This time my primary focus was not on the ghats and I was going through the alleys. I walked down the old areas adjacent to the ghats. Went to the place where they were weaving silk sarees.

Very often I was chatting with people and on one such occasion, we met one Bengali poet who had settled in Varanasi decades ago. He runs an inn called Kumiko Guest House near Pandey ghat. He was very friendly and allowed us to see his marvelous house. I was lucky to get to hear some of his poems. Those were very much in sync with the preachings of modern science and the origination of life.

It was only in the evening, I was able to come to the ghat side again… children were playing cricket, guys were flying kites, it came back to life again..

On a distant ghat, little far from the crowd; kids from the alleys have come together to dive into the water and chill.

One of the kids named Kalim got very enthusiastic when he got a glimpse of my camera. I was not in the position of making a choice thereafter. He was shouting at me from different locations and I was running one step to different one to click his diving photos. It is always fun to work with children and they truly made my afternoon!

As the evening approached, people started to gather near the main ghat, Dashashwamedh. The evening prayer (arati) at the main ghat is something which needs special mention. It is a spectacular thing to enjoy and relax for around an hour. It is very systematic and I find it mystic too. I have been watching the arati number of times; in fact all the time. The priests keep on changing some parts of the process to give a new flavour all the time. This time I saw that the young performers were wearing different colored clothes. People from all over the world are experiencing it everyday. They even participate in some of the chantings at the last phase. Another interesting thing to notice is the increasing number of camera or handycams. Last time I have not seen so many photographers; this time I was having a tough time to get a corner.

To be continued…

1. Wanted to go to Sealdah, got a wrong train and got down only at Park Circus.
2. Got a train soon after for Sealdah but missed the train for Gobardanga.
3. Anirban shouted for the next hour and we boarded the next train.
4. Started discussing about wide angle when train reached at Bidhannagar.
5. Anirban tried calling home but phone got disconnected.
6. Took decision within moments and got down at Birati.
7. Next train to Gobardanga was after 20 minutes.
8. Went straight to Anirban’s place, took the lens and got the next train.
9. Took some test shots at Gobardanga. The lens rocks!!

So, is it clear? I bought a Tokina 12 - 24 F4 (IF) DX II wide angle.

One of my photographs took place on the cover of an Assamese album. Thanks for your support. As always, this would not be possible without you guys.

Check out the songs at YouTube - search with this “Ei jibon nohoi xuna bondhu”

Songs by Alka Yagnik, Pulak Banerjee, Kavita Krishnamurti, Debojit Saha, Antara Nandy, Luna Bharali Das & Debajit Choudhury.

Take care!!

My photograph here -

Just on an odd evening, I was browsing internet and checking my orkut account after months. My friend pinged me and congratulated saying that my photograph got hugely publicized. Soon after it came as a shock. I never thought that a company like this can do such cheap things. Within a day or two I started getting lot of phone calls and photographs, videos etc as proof from my friends from all over the country. The photograph is of my mother and I captured that on the eve of Durga puja. It had won a number of competitions earlier. I never thought that I would use for any commercial purpose but this valueless people just did a cheap business.

I posted the event on my photo blog and sent a notice by my lawyer to them. Within days, some guy from their marketing team visited my house and started the usual craps.

I initially thought that I would teach them a lesson but later realized that the whole matter only made me sick, nothing better. I was in fact getting full of hatred for those people; then stopped chasing them.

Some of the banners here -

Got a call from someone on the eleventh hour. Searched a huge pile of backup discs and got few photographs. At last got some of the oldies which matched the requirements. Copied in a hurry and mailed those.

Original photographs were…

Writing is always difficult for me. One, I do not find time. Secondly whenever I find time, I usually get busy with processing photos. This time, my approach will be little different.

I will post all the photographs, later sometime I will come back and push texts in between. So, as you can guess I went to Ladakh. It was a dream which came true. But one week was definitely not enough and I have go back again and again. This time I did not have wide angle lens. I clicked with my old 18-55 kit lens that came as free with the Canon 400D body that I bought some three years ago. So can not really guarantee on the viewing pleasure. But you should get a feel of it.

I would say, Indians who has not visited the place… please do it. Others, please come here in this part of India, you will be completely mesmerized. I was feeling so tiny every alternate seconds, surrounded by great Himalayan ranges.

For other photos from the set, please visit my flickr photo stream @ www.flickr.com/photos/ayankhasnabis

A long gap, almost forgot when I last wrote a blog. I thought of documenting some of the walks and travels so many times but could not manage much time to sit and write. Now sometimes I feel that probably I do not have that patience to recollect and write. Wish there were some device which could record one’s thought and convert into text.

Enough of introduction; had a wonderful Durga Puja!! Just after the eleventh day of Puja, I started for Sandakfu. This is a place in Northern side of Bengal which offers a magnificent view of Mt. Everest. There are in fact very few places in India which offers a clear view of Sagarmatha (Everest).

As the trip to Sandakfu was pretty hurried one, did not get time to do some study on the place overall. This is not exactly my nature. Wherever I go, I try to get some information about the place beforehand.

This time I just packed my bag and dropped at my friend’s place on the day of journey.
She screamed, “Are not you taking a jacket!”
I said “No! Why, is that necessary?”
“Well, Sandakfu is the highest point in West Bengal. It is somewhere around twelve thousand feet. It must be cold.”
“Oops!!!” I was happy though. The facts sounded cool.

I was very happy throughout the day and got it confirmed after a brief browsing that the facts are alright indeed. Managed to get a jacket which helped later when it was sub zero at night…

Train journey was great. One of our friend’s mother joined us for this trip. She is an avid traveler. She goes to lot of places for bird watching. She is associated with a very old club of nature enthusiasts called “Prakiti Samsad”. This club is based in Kolkata. They are the first to publish a nature and travel magazine in Bengali, first of its kind. “Aranyak”, they named it. The magazine is quite informative and the lady is pursuing her hobby very seriously. She writes in the magazine, goes for regular treks to different places in India to get glimpses of different species of birds. It was very different for me and I was completely enjoying the conversations.

Well, we had to hire a land rover from Mane Bhanjan and reached Tumling on the first day. That place falls in Nepal. This is bit funny. I did not even know about this. Well, I really stepped into and spent one night in foreign land. That too without a passport or for that matter any sort of checking. First comes a place called Chitrey when you start from Mane Bhanjan. This place offered us fantastic views.

After Chitrey the road condition is pathetic, primarily because it is a trek route; not a road meant for vehicles. But unfortunately vehicles do ply on that. It feels odd to see some trekkers gasping for breath and vroom crosses few four wheelers.

Next day morning, Kanchendzonga was visible from Tumling. The place where we stayed was tiny but the food that we had was real yummy. Night was cold but the sunny morning cheered all of us. We reached Sandakfu at around noon. Last stretch of road for Sandakfu was exactly similar as Zoro’s mark. It was a real difficult job even for the land rovers. But that machine really did wonders. We all fell in love with this vehicle. Our driver, Pasan was telling that they do not use the 1950’s engines anymore; they had replaced those with Tata Spacio’s ones.

Sandakfu currently has more than one accommodation options, all are at the same place. We ate like gluttons until our stomachs got full with organic vegetables and tasty chapattis. Few hours of chatting and then a long episode of Sun set. I walked alone a little bit far to get somewhat good angle for shooting. Came back only when it was dark and wind started to blow heavily. The place was amazing.

Oh, and forgot to mention. The whole day, Kanchendzonga range (from at least Kumbhakarna to Siniolchu) was visible. This of course added to the beauty but the Everest range was completely covered with clouds. I did not even have the faintest idea how the highest peak of the world would look like, I was only praying to God for a cloud free day.

Next day morning was definitely one of the most cherished moments of my life. It was very windy and cold at dawn. There was a large crowd waiting for a glimpse of the first ray of Sun. I was busy at shooting Kanchendzonga range and trying hard to stabilize my tripod. After one hour or more, someone screamed, “Everest!!”

I looked left and it was a magnificent view. The whole Everest range was clearly visible and it was big in size. Initially I thought that it would be tiny, it would be distant and difficult to get a proper view. On the contrary, it was huge and looked lovely in the morning golden light. I was still not convinced and only believed when I saw a photograph back at Tumling. It had all the peaks marked and that matched my shots. Everest and Kanchendzonga offered us clear views throughout the day. Everyone was very happy and excited.

Back at Mane Bhanjan we had quick lunch with steamed momos. This is one thing that you get everywhere. It was delicious. We started for Darjeeling shortly after. Darjeeling is one of the places mostly thronged by Bengalis. For me it was the first time. Road to Darjeeling was ultra smooth compared to one of those at Sandakfu. We hired a jeep and it took close to one hour and a half to reach.

We headed straight towards the Mall. Checked in a small hotel near the stable, dumped our bags and came out as soon as possible. Excitement was still running high as we saw photographs of everest range at Das Studio. They have a pretty good collection of old photographs on display. Had a great dinner at one of the most favourite restaurants. I forgot the name. They have a huge collection of cookies and cakes too. Later sometime we visited the same place for evening snacks. The place is quite old and had a charming feeling. If you are in Darjeeling, you can not avoid the crowd much though. But I like these places because lot of people essentially means a lot of different activities. This provides good opportunity to observe. When I do not carry camera with me, I still compose frames, think of angles and look for expressions.

Darjeeling is a beautiful place. Sit on one of those wooden benches near the Mall, look beyond the clouds and you will see Kanchendzonga smiling nicely at you. I watched the group of old gentlemen laughing at silly jokes and bathing in mildly warm Sun rays at dusk. Children were having ponny rides. One gentleman was sketching the mountain range on the next morning. I was chatting with some local school boys. My camera was hanging from my neck and couples were approaching me to help them with a snap. It was truly refreshing after the Sandakfu trip. This hill town is quite old. I was completely soaked in the atmosphere.

Next day, we had a quick visit to Tiger Hill, Batasia Loop, Ghoom etc. That was pretty much like the usual city trips. But sometimes these breathers are needed so that I can appreciate the treks and the climbs again. Jokes apart, I will also go back to Darjeeling. The tea gardens are beautiful; these come on the way down to NJP. Tiger Hill was very very crowded again.

It was full of cloud, still people were going mad and every random peak was being pointed as Kanchendzonga.

To be continued…

Nowadays frequently I suffer from a strange syndrome. I feel like rushing towards the outskirts of Kolkata. Feel like going out of the town and then thinking of the city. Let me be straight on this. Whenever I try to think of some new spots inside the city for a casual shoot, I run out of ideas. This syndrome vanishes quickly as I go out of the city; I see some random frames from the city in front of my eyes. Some city street lives and moments get played like a movie in split seconds.

One reason may be that my brain can relax. My mind can think when it is outside its known territory. Is that what you call “out of box thinking”? Ha ha. Leave it here. Now this made me packing my camera bag and set for a random destination on a Sunday.

Saturday late night we were debating on the places, but could not fix anything. Then decided to go to Sealdah station in the morning and take the final call. Sealdah connects the suburbs with the city. And it takes very less time to reach the different places like Sonarpur, Budge budge etc. These places do not have any typical feature though, in terms of generic photo opportunity. But for my style of (I do not know if it is a style at all…) photography which entertains almost everything you see on the street; it does not really matter.

So according to the plan, early in the morning (It was 6:30, but early enough for me) I managed to board a public bus and missed the first train eventually. Got sleepy co-passengers and got down only at Budge budge.

Came out of the station premises and the first thing I saw was a sweet shop. Had my breakfast with few Rasogollas and Samosas. Other fellow photographers were too afraid to try those. Got an auto to the ghat of Ganges.

The other bank is called Uluberia. Crossed the river in a small boat after one hour or so. The Budge budge side does not have anything other than few brick kilns. One blind Baul was our fellow passenger in the boat. So the ride became very enjoyable. Scorching heat could not distract us for the time being. Roamed here and there a bit in Uluberia and then boarded a train to Howrah from Uluberia station.

Got very few frames that day, partly due to the scorching Sun. That did not matter. My soul and body got re-energized after a long gap. Just an outing for four or five hours; it was so refreshing. Ate a lot by the way, usual thing though. This is the reason why I prefer to go out frequently. Huh.. my fitness trainer!