Am I crazy?

The answer to that question is simple: No. But I must be mad, and a big one at it!! But it is a decision I won't regret, even if I had to be madder by about a thousand times over. Some things are worth everything in life, even your sanity.

The other day, I was working up to something when an unexpected call came up. Obviously I took it – my cousin was on the line – and I was told of an amateur photo contest to be held. I had to find out what I could, so called the number he gave me, and a few hours later, I was there, registering my name for the contest.

It was all nice. A few hours worth of photography on the first day when they erect that Yashii a.k.a. Lingo, left with some highs and some lows. The pictures were not as good as I’d have liked, but a few of them were doable. Anyway, I still had the main event, and a week of shooting. Eventually came the second day, when I even shortened a house-warming party of a co-worker. There were couple of opportunities and I had them captured. Since the films are not yet developed, I can’t say what happened to them.

Anyway, there comes the third day, today, and the main day. I was all ready from the moment I woke up. Read a few chapters of a book till mid-day, and then at 1:30, got ready to go out. It was after an hour when I reached the place, Basantapur. It was one thing getting there, another thing finding a place. It was already packed to full. After 15 minutes of fooling around, I got a perfect place, just to be shunted away after a while by the volunteers there. Again fooled around for a while, and saw something strange.

If you remember Basantapur and the place where they have Kumari’s Rath, you must remember a small chaitya, that now has bar’s all around it, I was just around it and looking at Kumari Ghar, when I saw what I thought was Kumari, looking out of the window; only it was not the central gold (or golden, I don’t know) used just by Kumari, but a different wood one, normal one, at the far left side of the house, looking at someone, Ganesh or Bhairab, I don’t know, (I didn’t look carefully enough) ready to enter Kumari Ghar. Took a few snaps of her. Come to think of it, it could have been either Ganesh, or Bhairab, the one who got there earlier, before I was shunted away from my perfect place.

Anyway, 15 minutes later, armed guards moved us again, and I was back at the place I chose some half an hour ago. Only this time, there was this folk, somewhere from Europe, may be Germany or France, and was occupying free space enough for three people. Well, he was the foreigner and I had to ask him if I could use that space. He refused to give that space, but offered another space, saying he was saving the space for someone. Another half hour goes by, and I stand there, waiting for something to happen, and slowly the dignitaries arrive. That was a slow process, almost an hour. And there were this guy’s people. Turns out he is producer for some European TV station/Network or may be news agency, and his guests were none other than the previous Kumari Amrita and her father Amrit(?). And guess what? I was standing right next to her with a camera fully loaded and ready. I would be a fool to miss that chance. But no body around seemed to know. Kumari has been such generalized that people often do not recognize the person behind the name. No one gives a damn, to the girl who once was Kumari, and who now is sitting so close to you, you could actually hear her whispering to her father. Mind that I wouldn’t have cared myself, if I was not told of her identity, but never the less, I felt bad for her. Anyway, she turned out to be very shy, and answered a single word “No” to a question that producer bloke put to her – “do u miss all that?” pointing to the current Kumari, as she was being put up on to her rath, I was lucky I was able to get about 5 of her pictures, all from side, showing only half of her face. Around that time the king arrived, and the festivities started. After about 15 further minutes of waiting, Kumari Jatra started, and to my amazement, the rath came straight towards where I was standing. The rath must have been something like 10 feet away where it stood, to let raths of both Bhairab and Ganesh to pass ahead. And I had a very close view of Kumari, both the current and the previous ones. To shoot inside rath, I over exposed by two stops, but forgot to set it back to zero when I had the chance to shoot 75% of Amrita’s face. It was on 1/8 sec exposure, not sure if vibrations made it any bad. After that king went back, and I was back, all tired with 3 hours of standing up. Two events of the evening, Matayaa and Dagii, would start too late and I was too tired. May be next year, if I am not alone to fool around for couple of more hours, I will shoot that. But this year... no, not this time. It is too maddening to shoot the crowd of people you don't know and receive a patronizing stare back, or the event that those people give a damn about. Worse still, I dropped my stand and might have damaged it significantly. Lemme go check it out!