In this journey of color & light, grays have been my closest companions.

Within the eyepiece of the Agfa click3 in the 5th standard, I viewed butterflies and the dusty bullock carts of North India. Up close I saw the wrinkles of my parents, aunts & uncles, the shy smiles of my sisters & the twinkles in the eyes of my nieces and nephews …..

I trekked & traveled with my newfound friend. The seasons & the Havelis were my teachers, my books, my instructors. I learnt to compose, light up & click.

Schools & Colleges took me astray for several years as I studied subjects & excelled, but my heart remained with the camera. I devoured every film that was released in the vicinity.

After several seasons & deviations, I landed at the FTII (the Pune Film School) & felt at home!

I could identify completely with the neo realism of DeSica or the poetic realism of Subroto Mitra, Wajda & Jansco, Roman Polanski, & the magic of Storarro, Sven Nykvist, Almendros, I was in the company of greats but felt a kinship with their images and treatments.

The heady dose of world cinema induced an urge to shoot as much as I could of the Indian landscape & people. I shot documentaries about the ordinary & the extraordinary, Tv Serials & shows, features and then Advertising TVCs.

Unlike a feature film where you can return to the difficult shot another day, advertising filmmaking does not allow you another chance. That's what makes the next TVC exciting.

& then life itself-my grays amongst the color of the seasons! The gray areas of any fiction or fact draw me close to life, to the pursuit of truth. Hence, any film that is true to the complexity of living sets me thinking. Spurns me to contribute to the images, lest they move on incognito into oblivion.

Tomorrow's assignment could be a feature film based on the life of R. K. Laxman's common man. Or it could be my own film Bihar in particular.

& on other journeys, I often stop the car & step out to watch either the rains or the landscape along a hillside or a mountain range-amazed at what my camera can never capture-nature itself.