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  • Yellow Fever

    Just a few weeks back, Delhi and surrounding areas were full of these yellow flowers… Seen below are some pictures that I managed to take after finishing a shoot in South Delhi…

  • काला

    तन काला है, मन काला है
    बुढ़ापा जवानी बचपन काला है

    दिन के बाद आती रात काली है
    कभी कभी तो रात के बाद का दिन काला है

    सुन्दरता का प्रतिरूप दिखाता, ये निर्मल योवन काला है

    भय काला है, हँसी काली है,
    काली अँधेरी रात में आने वाला स्वप्न काला है

    ये आम आदमी काला है, ये हमारी सरकार काली है
    ये सड़क पर भीख मांगता भिकारी काला है, वो गोदाम में काला बाजारी करता व्यापार काला है

    परचा काला है, स्याही काली है
    साक्षरता और शिक्षा का बाज़ार काला है

    सिर्फ नकली लेप से पुते चेहरों पर बची कुछ लाली है
    नहीं तो भाई साहब, यहाँ तो पूरी की पूरी दाल काली है

  • Contributor Pie

    This is in continuation with my earlier posts about development and working towards social responsibility. The exercise that I am thinking of working on this time around is going to be about creating a task-force of individuals who are keen on making a difference in whatever little possible ways.

    The previous initiatives were successful mostly because of the people involved, in addition to the cause they were aligned to. And its the people who can and would make all the difference in the times to come as well. From how I see it, everyone who is willing to contribute would fall under one of the three areas. Please let me know of some more that you see, and I failed to document. I’d like to capture those, and then start building the database and classifying the people who have responded so far as per their interest areas!

  • Sustained initiatives would make a better impact

    The progress so far…

    • My first fund raiser involved sale of paintings by kids which had won a prize in the competition organized by myself and a few friends in Moradabad, UP. We managed to raise about Rs. 13000 in a short duration of time and give that money to Sankalp, a unit of ASK India.
    • My second fund raiser was called 30on30…. It was about raising Rs. 30000 by selling 30 of my photographs.. and it went on to raise Rs. 79000 in about a month’s time. This money was donated to Sankalp again.
    • My third fund raiser was called 1ka100. It involved a drive from New Delhi to Mumbai, and involved donations which would support every km of that drive. More than Rs. 70000 were raised and divided in two for two NGOs that the core team personally selected.

    Time to do something substantial again, and this time around it has to be bigger than ever!

    A question that I ask is: If I was able to raise about Rs. 200,000 by taking up a cause and with some outstanding support from a core team.. What could we do with more people leading from the front, and a core team formed which would sustain these initiatives… Reach out to more people, get more people involved, get more speakers, be more active..

    The idea this time around would not be to do a one off drive, but build a model that would sustain itself…

    Next post, I hope to write about a few ideas that I have, and understand your perspective on those…

    In addition to all of these things that I intend to do, taking photographs for NGOs has been and would always be a core of my social responsibility…

  • We the ________ people!

    Why don’t we sit down and try to fill in the blanks?

    We  the corrupt people?

    We the emotional people?

    We the strange people?

    We the Indian people?

    We the undisciplined people?

    We the hard-working people?

    We the rich people?

    We the poor people?

    We the sensitive people?

    We the people who care?

    I like to believe that we do care.. in some form or the other, and someone gets some benefit too! but our care at times is limited to that one week of inspired living right after we see a TV program like Satyamev Jayate!

    Last month including yesterday, I’ve had some long conversations about what does it take for people to contribute to the welfare of society. My conversations were limited to mostly how a larger percentage of people in big corporates  are not willing to donate something as little as Rs. 100 a month to a cause.

    Let’s look at the potential… for a company of about 5000 employees, I would assume that everyone is taking home atleast Rs. 10000 every month on an average. Rs. 100 would not be more than 1% of their monthly salary for atleast 60% of this population. Assuming they are ok with donating this 1% of their salary, we are looking at an average of Rs. 3,00,000 every month which can be donated to a cause. Let do some more maths.. how about looking at the annual potential for this 5000 people strong company? Going by the above calculations, this organization can donate Rs.  36,00,000 every year.

    A couple of NGOs that I know need not more than Rs. 15000 per annum ensure one kid’s education all inclusive (including fee, uniform, books, and food). Time for another calculation… Rs. 36,00,000 could help sponsor 240 kids. and what does this take? Rs. 100 a month from every individual in a company of 5000 out of which only 60% people (3000) are willing to donate. The issue is that these 3000 individuals who are willing to give away Rs. 100 every month are extremely difficult to find!

    There is enough information available with individuals and organizations about good NGOs, which are validated and audited against multiple parameters, and I am sure if we want we can find out atleast one NGO which is doing a good job on the ground. I know of a few personally, and I am in the process of finding out about more.

    If you are reading this and wondering what can you do about it, here is what I think you can…

    • Leave a comment on this post and if you are ok  a way for me to reach out to you
    • Find atleast 1 person other than yourself who is willing to part with 100 bucks a month for an year

    That’s it! I would work towards bringing the right information to the willing donors, and let them take a decision. I have been able to play an instrumental role in raising funds earlier with about 4 projects which were mostly individual driven, and am looking for support to start with another!

    Let me know if you are willing to do what it takes!

  • Chai

    From a Chai ki Dukaan near Jama Masjid, Bhopal…

  • Tajul Masajid, Bhopal

    On my unplanned trip to Madhya Pradesh a few years ago, I managed to visit the Tajul Masajid in Bhopal. Said to be the third largest Mosque in the world, it was an experience which was both peaceful and spiritual for me… there is a certain calm if you visit a religious place early morning before people start pouring in… The kids studying in the Madarsa, and chanting words from Holy Quran was such a detoxifying feeling… here are some photographs from the morning….

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    A little bit of information about the Mosque…

    Imam Sahab of the Mosque

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    Sun rises behind the main entry gate of Tajul Masajid…

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    Religion is more about reflection of our faith and beliefs more than anything else…

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    Its always a lovely experience to take pictures of kids… These are some of them from the Madarsa…

  • Chai ki Dukaan has less bounce

    Bounce usually is a word that a lot of us Indians, who are happy talking about cricket and pitches, refer to when we are talking about a match.

    In Internet terms, Bounce or Bounce Rate is a term which is used to identify a percentage of visitors who visit the site and bounce off, without viewing other pages within the same site… Usually this number should be low, and is a reflection of what percentage of your visitors continued to click on the links on your website, and and were browsing sub-sections of the website.

    For blogs which show complete posts on the main page (such as Chai ki Dukaan), it could be relatively high… all it means is that someone might have read through the content on the main page (which is where the latest content is present) and did not go to archives, or any other links.

    Over the last few months, the bounce rate for Chai ki Dukaan has reduced, which basically means that more people are now staying around and clicking on links which take them to other posts in the blog. This coupled with the average time spent on Chai ki Dukaan (which has shown a positive trend) is a nice thing!

    Thank you everyone who is visiting Chai ki Dukaan and reading through! Means a lot to me!

  • Tea Takers and Tea Makers in Old Delhi

    No Chai ki Dukaan can run if it does not serve fresh tea!!! Here is some fresh tea from Old Delhi’s streets for you…

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    april-15-2012-fatehpuri-9699

    april-15-2012-fatehpuri-9703

    april-15-2012-fatehpuri-9662

    Enjoy!

  • Who! what! Whatever!

    The secret my friend, is in who you are and what you are… most of our lives we spend trying to figure out what we are and what we want to be, instead of who we are and and who we went to be!