Fifty Shades in the Sun - Goa Photodiary

Ever so often, comes along an experience that re-affirms your faith in humanity and gives you a new found perspective on life, going to Goa over new years' was sadly not one such experience. It partly had to do with the fact that it being my first time there, I had mammoth expectations and thought it was going to be a non stop party every where. Much to my disappointment it was not. Over the years I had come to view Goa as 'party central', owing to all the wild stories narrated to me by friends as well as it's projection in popular culture as a one stop shop for all things considered unsavoury in conservative circles. But as it turns out, much to the relief of morally upright forces, Goa is no different from other major cities when it comes to a night of unadulterated debauchery, the only difference being that most places in Goa have the beautiful Arabian sea as a backdrop to their (sometimes shabby) interiors. However Goa was not all bad! It is beautiful, extremely beautiful, and it's amazing how you can end up spending the entire day at the beach doing nothing(unless you consider 'people watching' to be physically or mentally exerting). The isolated pristine beaches of Candolim (North Goa) are ideal for spending countless hours just soaking up the sun and whetting your appetite by way of all the local and not so local delicacies made available by the countless beach front shacks. Goa is the perfect getaway as long as you have realistic expectations and a heartfelt commitment to some serious 'chilling'(read: getting roasted in the sun).

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"A long string of images held together with grace"

The 12th of August 2012, was a sad day for artists and art connoisseurs alike, as Prabuddha Dasgupta took his last few breaths and bid adieu to the world he had once captured beautifully through his camera lens. To call him a mere fashion photographer would be robbing him of his true credentials, that as an endorser and enabler of the human condition, taking photographs "where people could be people" and not cardboard cutouts of popular notions of perfection. I was fortunate enough to be witness to an evening kept in his honour where people(family, friends and people whose lives he had touched) spoke about him and paid their last respect. It was only fitting that the memorial was kept at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi as Prabuddha had spent a better part of his youth living here, as his father was a sculptor who resided in the Gallery premises. Along with riveting speeches by the likes of Mira Nair, the night ended with a montage of Prabuddha's iconic photographs whose impact was further heightened by Leonard Cohen's haunting music. The evening also saw Prabuddha's daughters singing a heartfelt rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine". Prabuddha wanted his photographs to be "a long string of images (that were) held together with grace", and seeing the legacy he leaves behind, I can safely say that he's more than achieved that. They say that the good, die young. I couldn't agree more. R.I.P.

Photographs courtesy: prabuddhadasgupta.com