Welcome to the ‘Learn Jainism’ blog

The idea is to keep people up to date with important new developments in how Jainism can be taught in schools.

You will find out about new materials on the ‘Learn Jainism’ webiste as they appear and about new books in the ‘Discover Jainism’ series. The second book in the series ‘Jain Tales’ will be appearing in the next few weeks.

There will also be news from the JAINpedia project.

This is the link to ‘Learn Jainism’ and this is the link to the JAINpedia project.

“Where are you from?” A persistent question asked of most accented or vaguely foreign looking inhabitants of the US.  Most answer obediently with Argentina or Ghana or, “my parents are from Sri Lanka.”  But there is the occasional impertinent reply.  An Egyptian-American with deep black sockets for eyes and olive skin responding, “I’m from Detroit” leaves an interlocutor thwarted and a bit frustrated.   “You know what I mean.  Where are you originally from?” or some variant, and then another parry, and yet another inquiry about her parents or her name or her gorgeous eyes.

The problem lies with the question.  What’s really being asked is, “What’s your story?”  The answer isn’t Detroit.  But nor would Egypt be a satisfying response.  We’re looking for stories to connect what we see and hear to what we don’t know about a new acquaintance.  My standard answer is, “The skin is from India.  The accent is from Chicago.”  That’s at least an opener.  But India and Chicago aren’t yet stories.  They are place markers.  They say nothing of the sugarcane fields of my parents’ youth, or the pilgrimages to Palitana, a Jain temple on a mountain in the dust of Saurashtra, or the mill in my mother’s basement where she grinds her own wheat and rice to make dohklas.

HUSH is about storytellers and their stories.  Join us every Monday for a new tale.  Next Monday, we will begin at the beginning.  Namely, the state of Gujarat and the story of a shepherd turned child prince willing to try anything put on his thali (plate).

Success story of a genius fascinated by light • Rajiv Jain • Award winning Indian Director of Photography • Cinematographer • DOP

Success story of a genius fascinated by light • Rajiv Jain • Award winning Indian Director of Photography • Cinematographer • DOP

Exceptionally gifted in overcoming technical hurdles and shady atmospheres, in twenty five years Indian Rajiv Jain has become one of the most sought-after DoPs, after having had a quite unconventional career. Rajiv hasn’t let the fame go to his head though and remains modest. Following his studies in drama at the Indian drama school Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (Bhartendu Natya Academy), Rajiv Jain did some stints as a camera assistant. Very quickly boredom got the better of him and he started to work on television sets where in twenty five years he would experiment with everything and develop his working style: quick, efficient, conscientious. His curiosity led him to make clips, advertisements and short films, for example A Wonderful Love by Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi which was a great success. Now Rajiv is best known for his work on Satish Kaushik’s controversial film Badhaai Ho Badhaai, as well as on Chandrakant Kulkarni’s Mirabai Not Out, Ram Shetty’s Army, and Chandrakant Kulkarni’s Kadachit.

Cinemania: You have made above 1500 commercials, seven features and there is already a “Rajiv” light, isn’t there?
Rajiv Jain: Yes, it’s quite a surprise. It all began with Manika Sharma who had specific demands for the making of Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree. She also wanted her film to resemble an everyday occurrence as much as possible, with natural images, but a potent universe. She contacted me after having seen the feature from Badhaai Ho Badhaai where the natural image was natural but typical. That’s what she wanted, but without the light. I had to reconstruct a whole new approach with the light, which is a rather rare thing to have to do on a feature. We did use natural lights in the field; I used a lot of sodium light bulbs as lights. I worked a lot with the decoration in order to create a luminous image. With Manika Sharma on Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree, it was the same principle: we only used the light of the sun, by using reflectors, mirrors, in order to direct it where we needed it. The Ordeal was a combination of these two approaches, without direct sources of cinema light, everything coming from the windows. We tested plenty of things. With the constraints, I realised that there were other ways of lighting. There was a reason why I used several sources! If I use little light, everything is decided on from the outset and I work a lot with the art director. When I also work on digital calibration, I know it’s not necessary to be able to see everything.

You only work with artists whose universe is very strange.
The people I meet have demands, dreams, different and extreme preferences. So each time it’s a new challenge – I have to invent a new system. There’s a real role to play, and that I like, because I wouldn’t want to make a film where there were no images to write. And as I get bored very quickly, I don’t like doing things twice! People say to me that I make a lot of genre films, but I don’t think so. Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree is an atmospheric film with a Tex Avery type animation.

Are you are weighed down with projects at the moment?
I have two films lined up, yes. But I’ve chosen them well; I prefer to take things slowly. I’m particularly fascinated by one of them, the fourth feature by Raj Kaushal. He wants to make a rather odd film and is looking for things that don’t exist. Recently I was in Mumbai to do tests with a new HD camera in 4 K. I was able to see the entire digital process, from the capturing to the projection of the image. I almost fainted! It’s very fine; the image is completely smooth, very new. I really want to make this film; I think it will be very passionate visually.

Rajeev Jain, Cinematographer of Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree spoke to Cinemania.

Cinemania was a reference and educational application produced by Microsoft and published annually beginning in 1992. The software was mainly a database of films, in a similar fashion to the Internet Movie Database, and gave descriptions of the films and who starred in them. Most of this information was not readily accessible before broadband internet.

Tags: indian, cinematographer, director of photography, rajeev, rajiv, bollywood, india, jain, kalpvriksh, kenya, kenyan, mumbai, videographer, dop, dp, dubai

Rajiv Jain, Indian Bollywood Cinematographer – Profile Interview Series Vol. #4 Rajiv Jain Cinematographer Extraordinaire by Aason Hyte Army, Badhaai Ho Badhaai, Carry on Pandu, Kadachit, Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree, Mirabai Not out and Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi. But the partial reason for these films’ successes is the talent that goes on behind the scene, and noted cinematographer Rajiv Jain is the genius behind the camera of these motion pictures (among many others). Rajiv, a graduate of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (Bhartendu Natya Academy), first had his hand in Photo Studio work in Lucknow, where he worked as a camera operator for Short films, which began his path into his work as a director of photography. Now, his vast experience has made him one of the cornerstones of film photography in Indian cinema. His constant output of hard work and his deep knowledge of old and new technology has made him one of the most respected cinematographers out there. In 2010, Today, Rajiv Jain is still working on new projects, and is sought out by filmmakers, both major and independent, for his watchful eye. I had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Rajiv about his career (and also talk shop, so be forewarned that there’s a bit of tech-talk in here as well) while attending a film forum dedicated to his work at this year’s Kalasha Film Festival, Kenya. Aason Hyte: So I’m just going to let this tape roll and feel free to just say what’s on your mind- Rajiv Jain: I’m not good at making stuff up, so… AH: I am interested in Cinematography, and when I found you were coming to the Kalasha Film Festival I thought it would be a great idea to talk about your career and your immense body of work. I’ve been very curious as to how you got your start in this industry, your education, and so forth; basically how you wound up as who you are today. RJ: It would be easy to tell you about my drama school background since, simply, I did not go to any film school. The way that I learned to go directly to the movies and see what somebody else was doing on screen, and then going out and trying to do it myself. And that was it. I also bought the manual that the ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) puts out, which is known as the bible of filmmaking. I read the manual and referred to it when I ever had a shooting problem and thought that I needed help on. AH: When you first started watching movies, besides going to see a great story, were you noticing things like framing, lighting, widescreen formats… RJ: Not at all. At first, I wasn’t interested technically. I just went to the movies like anyone else. But I was impressed by them. I was about five years old when I saw the first sound movie ever made and I was impressed by that. But at a very subconscious level, I suspect, even though I used to ride along in a cycle and hear my father sing, it was just an experience that was buried in my psyche somewhere. I didn’t start shooting motion pictures until I was about 28 years old. AH: What was the first actual job that you had in this industry? RJ: A guy by the name of Mukul S Anand… AH: Oh, I’m a fan. RJ: Absolutely. I decided to shoot some commercials under him. AH: What would you consider the most difficult aspect of your job as a cinematographer? RJ: The harder films are usually the big ones that require controlling a lot of people and a lot of cameras, and over a large area or sometimes many locations. Keeping that organized is something that some cinematographers are not capable of, so they do smaller films. Smaller films can be just as difficult for them, because the pressure of a small film means that they may not have the time to properly gather their footage, and that’s another definite pressure that’s equally challenging. AH: Would you say have a personal style to your work, or does it depends on the director for each project? RJ: I think everybody cannot help but have their own style and it comes from the personality; it comes from what they feel is beautiful, it comes from what they think a good composition is; how they see the world cannot help but invade what they do. AH: How do you feel that the advance of technology has affected your job? By that I mean newer film stocks, the advance of high-definition, the digital revolution…. RJ: All of the things that you mentioned definitely affect my job, and affect what I do and how I do it. It’s a challenge for me to keep up information-wise to know what these things all mean. If you’re talking about digital photography, the challenge is to know how to get the best quality and which system is best to use. Some of these systems use compression, there are several kinds of compressions; it is important to understand what that is and what it means. For example, the new Red cameras do not use compression at all, but records onto a hard disk and adds the corrections later. They claim by that to get better quality, and so on; the point is that it is important to understand all of these things, to make a decision on your own part if you’re shooting digital, which system you want to use. Panasonic has a system where they use curves to correct what their camera does so it looks more like film and that is quite impressive. AH: Where do you stand on high-definition versus 35mm film? RJ: It isn’t a matter of just having an opinion, but your opinion must be based on fact. And the fact is that film is probably about twice the quality that the best high-definition has. Film still is the best. Part of the reason is the latitude that you get on film far exceeds anything that you can get on high-definition video yet, at this point in time. Someday it may get better, but at the moment, film far out-reaches the quality of the amount of information that can be captured in one little area. Film still stands as the leader, and the new stock that Kodak is putting out has an extra stop of latitude towards to both top and bottom. It’s absolutely beautiful. AH: What’s your favourite kind of stock that you’ve worked with? I know we’re getting REALLY technical right now, but I love it. RJ: I stand with Kodak film and their new stock that has the extra latitude, you can get it in both their 500 ASA film and you can get it in their daylight stock as well. It just keeps getting better. AH: How about release prints? Do you have a favourite? RJ: It depends. Kodak has more than one choice of stock to print for release. For example, one is softer, one shows more detail, and so forth. You have to choose your stock in accordance with the picture you are releasing. There isn’t one best one. It’s one that shows off your product the best. AH: Do you have a personal preference in which aspect ratio to shoot in for each project? RJ: It doesn’t matter too much in which aspect the director decides to shoot in. It’s a different composition; you compose differently in one format against the other. Close-ups are easier in the spherical 1.85:1 format, and in any of the widescreen formats you have to do it a little differently. They both work and they both have their own challenges. If you’re showing a large horizontal view and you want the widescreen to show the territory, then that’s a good choice. If it’s a little, tight, personal film, then maybe not. AH: Where do you stand on the Super 35 widescreen format? (Super 35 is a spherical widescreen process where the film’s negative is shot in the 1.85:1 “Flat” format and then optically converted to an anamorphic release print. RJ: Super 35 is a great format. It’s one of the best choices that you can make today, and the reason its better now is because of digital intermediate printing. AH: Exactly, which was actually my next question, how digital intermediates have changed film processing in the labs today. RJ: It changes in this manner; If you’re shooting in widescreen, Super 35, because all of the projectors and houses that are distributing film have to squeeze the image in order to use their lens — which is a little stupid but it’s a money thing – you then have to go through one step further away in film in Super 35 to get it back to a squeezed image. You no longer have to do that with a digital intermediate. AH: What’s great too is recently that digital intermediates have recently gone up to 4k resolution as opposed to 2k resolution, which greatly enhances print quality. “Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree” and “Carry on Pandu” are examples of films shot in Super 35 and DI’ed to 4k resolution and they look absolutely breathtaking on screen. RJ: Oh yeah. You’re doubling your image quality, digitally, but they still have to back off the film quality a little bit… AH: But I still want it to look like film. You’re going to a theatre to see FILM, not digital. A lot of the films shot in HD look a bit disappointing to me [when transferred to film…] RJ: Digital both in sound and in picture has a harsher quality, and in fact sometimes the detail lacks the softness that you get from a lens, especially a lens that’s out of focus in the background and sharp focus in the foreground, which tends to bring that image forward and focus your attention on it better. In situations like that, sometimes the digital doesn’t feel quite as right, it isn’t quite as natural; and by natural in the terms of a wood in a tree or the feel of someone’s hand. That kind of human experience, you’re kind of further away in digital sometimes than you are in film. AH: And you’re still hard at work. What are you working on right now? RJ: I just finished a picture in Kenya with Her Brow entitled lets go and we’re editing that right now. It’s being put together as we speak. AH: Who would you say are some of your favourite cinematographers? Do you have any major influences to your work? RJ: Subroto Mitra is one of the greats – AH: Oh, absolutely. His work on Pather Panchali, my favourite film, is unforgettable. RJ: But as for Subroto Mitra, he’s one of the many great cinematographers out there, although I don’t want to put one above the other, and the reason I don’t is because as great as Subroto Mitra was, he was different from the other cinematographers out there. Subroto Mitra likes to come up with new formats and new ways of developing film and he’s done a lot of that over the years. A lot of other people have tried it, but again, it depends on who you are and what you think is great. If it’s worth the effort, if you see the difference, then great. A lot of times, when you try to take someone else’s technique and reproduce it, you’re not after the same vision and you fail. Frankly, I’m very inventive about the things that I do, and I would rather pursue ideas of my own simply because I know what I’m after rather than copying someone else. AH: What would you say is your favourite photographed film of all time? Or even your favourite movie? RJ: I’d rather not have to make a choice because when you say favourite, it’s almost like voting for the best actor of the year which I think is totally ridiculous because one is as talented as the other. You may like it better because of the script or the director directing the actor, but it is really unfair to say “this one is better than the other” because it would be equally nonsense for me from all of the great movies that have been made out there and go “I like that one better than ANY other one!” AH: I like that answer. I always ask this out of all of my interviews and I really admire the different, broad answers that I get. I either get a brilliant response like that or I get somebody who says “I see hundreds of films a year and THIS one is my #1 of all time”. And while I choose Pather Panchali as mine, it’s just an answer to a question; really, it’s the one that I choose even though I have about 100 favourite films of all time. RJ: Absolutely. At any given moment if I’m sitting in a theatre and I’m inspired I would feel that way at a time, but to sit down and think about it, it’s apples and oranges. Different movies are great for different reasons! Author’s Bio: Dr. Aason Hyte is a professor in the Department of Sociology and the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. He worked with UNIFEM in the conceptualization of its Biennial Review, Progress of the World’s Men and was the coordinator of UNIEM’s Progress of the World’s Men 2000. He is the principal author of Progress of the World’s Men 2002: Volume 2: Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals. Dr. Aason also currently serves as an adviser to UNIFEM on gender responsive budgets. He is the author of many papers and presentations on gender and development, and co-editor (with Careen Grown and Neuter Caraway) of two special issues of World Development. Tags: bollywood, cinematographer, director of photography, dop, dp, dubai, india, indian, jain, kalpvriksh, kenya, kenyan, mumbai, rajeev, rajiv, videographer

Angel -The Golden Retriever

A golden retriever fended off a potentially deadly cougar attack when the animal began approaching a boy in a small town in British Columbia.On Sunday, as the dog recovered from a vicious fight with the cougar, Austin Forman, 11, recounted his dog’s bravery.Forman said that he was collecting firewood in his family’s backyard in the community of Boston Bar, about 200 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, when he spotted the cougar in the woods nearby.”I was really scared,” he said. “At first I didn’t know that it was a cougar … But as soon as it went under the light, I saw that it was a cougar and I knew at that moment that I had to go inside.”The cougar then lunged at the young boy, but the dog, named Angel, leapt to protect her master.”The dog obviously knew something was up because she ran towards me at just the right time and the cougar ended up getting her instead,” said Austin.Angel and the cougar fought in the family’s yard, with the cougar clenching the dog’s head in its jaws.When Mother Sherri Forman heard the dog whining and making unusual noises, she knew something was up.”We knew that cougar was killing our dog,” she said, adding that the family quickly called 911 for help.In less than a minute, RCMP Const. Chad Gravelle arrived to scene and found the dog locked in a vicious struggle.”I could see that the cougar had the dog in its mouth, like around the dog’s mouth,” he said.Gravelle then fired a round at the cougar’s hindquarters and scored a direct hit, killing the wild animal.Jay Forman, Austin’s Dad, described the dog as a smart puppy that is only 18 months old.”She’s very smart — just incredible,” he said. “She’s still a pup. It is truly amazing that she jumped in front of that cat to save the boy’s life.”Meanwhile, the dog is recovering and is expected to pull through after a visit with a vet on Monday. Date: Sun. Jan. 3 2010 11:02 PM ET

(Audrey) Directly across from the Red Fort in Delhi is a sizable Jain temple. The temple itself is fairly non-descript but behind the temple is a fascinating sight—a bird hospital. Jainism is a religion as old as Buddhism (the founder was a contemporary of Gautama Buddha), which makes it about 2,500 years old. One of the central tenants of the religion is non-violence to life in all its forms. As a result, Jains are strictly vegetarian (and not in the namby-pamby “I eat fish and wear leather”-Western sense, but rather serious vegetarians), and they seek to avoid killing life whenever possible. At this particular temple, that has taken the form of a bird hospital which treats injured birds from all over the city.

The bird hospital may not immediately conform to Western expectations… the birds are kept in cages. If they have serious injuries, they are often in quite small, individual cages.

For those well on the way to recovery, there are larger, group living environments—

The Jains allow tourists to go through the bird hospital because (a) they’re nice and (b) they kindly ask for donations to keep the bird recovery program afloat. The hospital is multiple stories and has thousands of birds in convalescence. Most are pigeons, some green parrots, and this visit I even spotted one owl! This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to one of these—

It’s an interesting thing… I confess to not buying into non-violence towards animals, whether justified from eastern or western, religious or secular perspectives. For me, the bird hospital is interesting as a cultural experience and, frankly, kind of as a zoo. Anybody who has been to a zoo in the west knows precisely how difficult it is to actually see the animals (the Delhi zoo is a little better with their birds at least). I guess it works out for everyone though. I get to see some cool birds, and the bird hospital gets my monetary donation on the way out. We’re working across cultures and values here without even fully realizing it.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi

He was an impassioned and articulate man, a respected teacher, beloved father and grandfather — but none of these explain the unique distinction of Tsutomu Yamaguchi (left), who has died in Nagasaki aged 93.He was the victim of a fate so callous that it almost raises a smile: he was one of a small number of people to fall victim to both atomic bombs dropped on Japan.On August 6, 1945, he was about to leave the city of Hiroshima, where he had been working, when the first bomb exploded, killing 140,000 people. Injured, he fled to his home — Nagasaki, 180 miles to the west. There, on August 9, the second bomb exploded.”I think it is a miracle,” he said on the 60th anniversary of the bombings in 2005. “But having been granted this miracle it is my responsibility to pass on the truth to the world.”In 1945, he was 29 and working for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. His three-month secondment to a shipyard in Hiroshima was due to end on August 6, when the American B29 bomber ‘Enola Gay’ dropped a 13-kilotonne uranium atomic bomb.He and two colleagues staggered through the ruins where the dead and dying lay all around. They reached the station and boarded the train for Nagasaki. Reporting to work at the shipyard on August 9, his story of a single bomb destroying an entire city was met with incredulity.Then the second bomb landed. The next thing he remembered was waking to hear cheering at the broadcast by Emperor Hirohito announcing Japan’s surrender.

Hakani

(Pic on the left) Hakani, who lived in the forest for three years after being abandoned, aged two, by her tribe. She was adopted by Marcia and Edson Suzuki

Babies born into some Indian tribes in the Amazon are being buried alive, a practice that is being covered up by the Brazilian authorities out of respect for tribal culture.The tradition is based on beliefs that babies with any sort of physical defect have no souls and that others, such as twins or triplets, are also “cursed”.Infanticide has claimed the lives of dozens of babies each year, say campaigners fighting to end the practice.Babies who are girls, who have some disability or who have unmarried mothers are all in danger of an early death in a shallow grave in the rainforest. Others are suffocated with leaves, poisoned or simply abandoned in the jungle.According to Dr Marcos Pelegrini, a doctor working in the Yanomami Tribe Health Care District, 98 children were killed by their mothers in 2004 alone.Campaigners say that the true figure is obscured by officials who often record cases of infanticide as simple malnutrition. At the same time, family anguish over infanticide has led to many adult tribal members committing suicide.Attempts to change tribal attitudes and counter official indifference are being led by a Brazilian couple, Marcia and Edson Suzuki. They have worked with one tribe, the Suruwaha, for 20 years.Mr Suzuki, the founder of a campaign group called Atini – Voice for Life – said: “We are fighting against doctors and anthropologists who say we must not interfere with the culture of the people.”Such attitudes are exemplified by Dr Erwin Frank, an anthropology professor at the Federal University of Roraima State in the Amazon. Speaking of the tribes, he said: “This is their way of life and we should not judge them on the basis of our values. The difference between the cultures should be respected.”Like other tribes, the Suruwahá considers that if a child has any deformity or disability, it does not have a soul and so – as an animal – should be killed.Some tribes also believe it is a curse to give birth to more than one baby at a time. In the Suruwahá tribe, a pregnant girl will walk into the jungle by herself to give birth.She then cuts the baby’s umbilical cord, buries the placenta and returns to the village with her child.Sometimes the woman will simply leave the child in the jungle to die if it is a girl or if she is not married.The Suzukis recounted the harrowing story of one girl, Hakani, who they saved from death and adopted.Born in 1995, Hakani – which means Smile – was still unable to walk or talk by the age of two, prompting tribal leaders to conclude she had no soul and to order her parents to kill her.They committed suicide – eating a poison root – rather than obey the order. Hakani’s 15-year-old brother was then told he had to kill her. He dug a hole to bury her next to the village hut, which is where the tribe usually buries animals, and hit her over the head with a machete to knock her out.However, she woke up as she was being placed in the hole and the boy found he could not go through with the killing. Hakani’s grandfather then shot her with an arrow. He was so upset he tried to commit suicide, too.But Hakani survived, although her wound became infected and she was left to live like an animal in the forest for three years.At the age of five she was very undersized, still unable to walk and abused by other Indians. She survived only because a brother smuggled food to her.The Suzukis begged Funasa, the Brazilian government’s health department, to let them take Hakani out of the tribe to get medical help.”Funasa could not help because their official view is to respect the culture of the people and let the children die. If we took Hakani out we could be sued,” said Mrs Suzuki.Warned that they could be responsible for the child’s death, Funasa eventually relented. Under the Suzukis’ care, Hakani was walking and talking within a year. While she suffers from hypothryoidism – an underactivity of the thryroid gland which affects brain development – she is able to attend a mainstream school.Brazilian politicians are currently debating a Bill to outlaw infanticide. It is known as Muwaji’s Law, named after a Suruwahá woman who refused to bury alive her own baby.

Dr Reddy's

 Dr. Reddy’s labs (DRL) has been working hard on its vision to move beyond Generic.Balaglitazone is result of this vision.Positive test results indicate a move in the right direction.If things fall in place DRL is looking at a revenue stream of 2 – 3 billion in the 1st 5 years of launch.Currently the Anti Diabetic market is stagnated with old molecules.  Patients have to some extent become immune or respond less to the current drugs on offer a new drug us always welcomed.

Shooting Stars: Interview with the India’s Greatest Living Cinematographer Rajiv Jain Technical aspect of filmmaking from Exposure to Set Operations and Formats Rajeev Jain – ICS WICA Indian Bollywood Director of Photography / Cinematographer / DOP The Complete Interviews, Vol. II UMA: Can you talk about your inspirations before you got into cinematography? Rajeev Jain: Seeing colour television for the first time started my fascination with the technology of light and photography. These studies were enriched by meeting a remarkable DOP named KK Mahajan, Mr Mahajan introduced me to filmmakers like Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mani Kaul and Buddhadeb Dasgupta. And I soon realized what a phenomenal art form this marvelous technology could be. At about the same time, when I was 13, I was gate-crashing the set of Shatranj Ke Khilari in Lucknow, which Satyajit Ray was directing and Soumendu Roy, was shooting. Roy was lighting this enormous interior, shooting Arri IIC on what was probably ASA 125 color negative. He seemed to be everywhere at once, fine-tuning the frame with the operator, adjusting the positions of the background players, tweaking the light from at least a dozen babies. As he led a beautiful actress Shabana Azmi to her mark and subtly adjusted the shadow on her forehead, I thought to myself that this man has the very best job in the history of the world. UMA: If you had to label one quality a DOP really needs to be successful in film, what would it be? Rajeev Jain: I think, for lack of a better term, it would be a point of view. Everybody sees the world from their own perspective and this uniqueness is what the DOP brings to the film, respective of the story, of course. It’s tough now because so much of the industry is driven by economics, which means you’re a hero if you can throw up a few soft lights and knock off a whole bunch of shots. This goes against having an idea and feeling of what is absolutely right for that story you’re telling. But, if you choose carefully and find the right director, your way of seeing will leave an impression. UMA: Was there a key moment you can point to when you knew you would end up being a Director of Photography? Rajeev Jain: Well, there was a moment alright, but it was pure chance. I had no plans to be a Director of Photography-none whatsoever. UMA: Your work has always felt so pure to me, almost spiritual in a way. What is the most important quality a Director of Photography should bring to a film? Rajeev Jain: The most important task of the Director of Photography is to create an atmosphere. To interpret the mood and feeling the director wants to convey. I mostly perform this task by using very little light and very little colour. There is a saying that a good script tells you what is being done and what is being said, but not what someone thinks or feels, and there is some truth in that. Images, not words, capture feelings in faces and atmospheres and I have realized that there is nothing that can ruin the atmosphere as easily as too much light. My striving for simplicity derives from my striving for the logical light, the true light. UMA: If you had to pick a single quality a DOP needs to be successful, what would it be? Rajeev Jain: Taste. Which really means the ability to know what scripts to work on, what feels right as far as composition, lighting, everything that goes on during a film. Taste is an instinct and it should guide you toward the projects that are going to provide a great experience. I’ve been lucky as far as the films I’ve had a chance to work on, but part of that is my ability to go with what feels right-to trust my taste and see where it’s going to take me. UMA: I’m wondering what director you never got to work with that you would have liked to, living or dead. Rajeev Jain: I think, of those no longer around, it would be Satyajit Ray. His ability to tell a story visually was just incredible. And as far as those still around, it would have to be Adoor. These are directors who do not rely much on the spoken word-their talent is very pure in the visual sense, and that interests me the most. UMA: 25 years have gone by since you were that little kid standing on the railroad tracks in Etawah. Can you point to one thing you’ve learned as a DOP that helped you travel down those tracks better than any other? Rajeev Jain: Light. For everything we do as human beings we are affected and defined by light. A Director of Photography is a master of light. We need to think about light, to learn to see it in all its different moods and approaches. It is absolutely, the most important tool we have to work with as Director of Photography and, I think, as people, too. It was always the one thing I was so aware of when I was staring down those railroad tracks as a child and now years later. The light. UMA: So, is that shot one of your all-time favourites? Rajeev Jain: No, not really. The problem with singling out one shot is that it goes against what I believe movies should do. A film is a sum of its parts and one shot is only as strong as what has come before it. The Pather Panchali points that out really well. It’s mostly done in these very straight-on medium shots. Towards the end of the film, after death of Durga, we see Apu brushing his teeth, combing his hair… going about performing tasks, which would have involved his sister or mother. Sarbajaya (mother) has a lost look… Harihar returns, unaware of Durga’s death. In a jovial mood he calls out his children. Without any reaction, Sarbajaya fetches water and a towel for him. Harihar begins to show the gifts he has brought for them. When he shows a sari that he has bought for Durga, Sarbajaya breaks down. We hear the high notes of a musical instrument “Tarshahnai” symbolising her uncontrollable weeping. Realising Durga’s loss, Harihar collapses on his wife. We see speechless Apu, for the first time taking the centre stage in the story. Till now the story was seen through the point of view of either Sarbajaya or Durga. It is only in these final moments that we see Apu as an independent individual. That frame, which is amazing, would not have meant nearly as much if the whole film hadn’t been done in this eye-level, medium shot approach. To pick out a single shot in a movie is to deny that the shot is important because of the style already established. UMA: Can you imagine a life without cinematography? A career path completely different from the one you took? Rajeev Jain: Certainly not when I was younger I couldn’t. But later in my career, after I had done Theatre and Still Photography, I discovered this desire to go study physics. I was in love with Einstein’s concept of relativity-it was the greatest poetry I had ever read. The concept that any matter is contained in energy and energy in matter shows the power of intuition by one man. At the time I had a family to support and I realized my path was in cinematography, not physics. But the instinct was there, nevertheless. UMA: Form and content working in harmony. Rajeev Jain: Absolutely. Like light and darkness, what appears to be in conflict can sometimes lead to a seamless union and hold great power on the screen. Tags: rajeev, rajiv, jain, cinematographer, director photography, bollywood, india, indian, mumbai, dop, kalpvriksh, videographer, kenya, kenyan, dubai Rajiv Jain Cinematography: Theory and Practice Rajeev Jain is a 2 time Award winning Director of Photography & has been nominated numerous times, most recent nomination for “Outstanding Achievement in Single Camera Photography” Spring 09. Over the last 25 years, Rajeev has built his reputation working in both film & television. He is considered a pioneer in the world of High Definition Television, as one of the first DP’s to work in the new medium. Rajeev’s close collaboration with Indo Studio (the first HDTV production company in the South Africa) during the nineties makes him one of the few DP’s that has worked with every generation of HD camera since its inception. The scope of his work includes Documentary, Commercial, Reality, Children’s Television, & Independent films. Rajeev Jain has created a masterpiece. “Rajiv Jain Cinematography: Theory and Practice”: is his third interview with me and for the aspiring or experienced cinematographer – the best reference interview I have ever done. Anyone that aspires to this highest art of storytelling should have this article on their shelf. He writes “At the heart of it, filmmaking is shooting, but cinematography is more than the mere act of photography. It is the process of taking ideas, words, actions, emotional subtext, tone and all other forms of non-verbal communication and rendering them in visual terms.” Through both verbal metaphor and pictorial example he takes the keys to this art from their hiding place under the bed and hangs them right there on the peg on the kitchen wall. All you have to do is take them down and apply them. Learning the language of visual art is more than just learning the difference between subjective and objective camera angles, or knowing what the director means when he says he wants “a choker.” When you have finished the first chapter you will have a good enough handle on the terms a director and cinematographer bandy about on the set to sound like a pro. By the time you get to the fifth chapter “Cinematic Continuity” you will have been exposed to enough graduate level theory and practice to start you on the road to mastery of the form. I especially enjoyed Rajeev’s explanation and examples of continuity. Music Videos and Bollywood songs has had such a profound effect on new filmmakers that many of us from the ‘OLD School’ have a tendency to wonder what’s going on sometimes. There is such a lack of “continuity” in so many of the montage sequences you see now days that it was refreshing to see so much time and space dedicated to such an important part of storytelling. Glossary Terms Cut (intercut, cross-cut) A cut marks the abrupt transition from the end of one shot to the beginning of the next shot. A shot is said to be intercut into another when the film returns to the first shot, as when we see a close shot of a character’s face, then a flashback memory that the character is having is intercut into the facial shot, and when the flashback is over, the film returns to the facial shot. Cross-cutting occurs when the film cuts back and forth between, or among, parallel actions, as in a chase scene. Deep focus cinematography Keeping the focus and clarity of the image constant from objects appearing close to the camera to those far into the rear of the frame, which enables the viewer to see more space within the shot, including the background details and actions. Dissolve (match dissolve) A transition from one shot to the next in which the images overlap for a time, sometimes used to ease the visual abruptness of the transition (as from a darkly lit cave scene to a brightly lit snowfall scene) and at other times used to suggest an association between two images (as from a letter addressed to a character to a shot of that character reading the letter) A match dissolve is one in which graphic elements of the two images match, as with the close shot in Psycho of the murdered woman’s eye and the shower drain. Editing (montage and cutting) The ways in which several pieces of film are joined together. Montage is the French term for editing, or cutting, but also carries connotations of the creation of meaning through editing patterns. Hollywood Montage commonly refers to the rapid cutting together of multiple shots, often using many dissolves, to create the effect of the rapic chronicling of the passage of time, as from a character’s youth to maturity. Establishing (or master) shot An extreme long shot that shows (or establishes) the entire space in which the ensuing scene will take place. Many scenes begin with such shots to orient the viewer, Sometimes there are two establishing shots, one exterior and one interior. Eyeline match The establishment often through cutting, of the direction of the character’s gaze. At times a shot will show a character looking, and a second shot will show what the character is looking at. At other times the term is used to refer to the directionality of character’s lines of vision within shots. Flashback A jump in narrative time from the present into the past. Rather than proceeding chronologically through the story, flashbacks allow filmmakers to jump back and forth between past and present events. Formalism A film theory that emphasizes the formal properties of cinema that shape the way movies are made. Formalists recognize, for example, that organizing screen space is an artisitic activity that differs from our daily perception of real life. Major formal theorists include Sergei Einstein and Rudolph Arnheim. Invisible style A norm of filmmaking in which style is not usually noticed, based on the assumption that narrative is always more important than style and should dominate it. Such devices are not crossing the 180 degree line and cutting on action, reaction, and dialogue contribute to this invisible style. The 180 degree line An imaginary line drawn between the camera and the actors/action which the camera does not cross in order to prevent viewer disorientation and maintain an invisible style. Realism A film theory which emphasizes the recording nature of cinema, as well as the connection between the camera and what is in front of it in real life. Major realists include Andre` Bazin and Siegfried Krucauer. Scene A scene is a narrative unit determined by unity of time and space. The events in the scene occur in one place at a time, A later scene, for example may occur in the same place at a different time. Shot (close shot or close-up, medium, long, two-shot, tracking, and dolly) A shot is an image in the film uninterrupted by cuts or other transitional devices. The terms close shot (or close-up), medium shot, and long shot indicate the distance of the camera from the central object being photographed With a person, a close shot generally shows the face and perhaps the shoulders; a medium shot shows the person from the waist up; a long shot will show the person’s full body. A two-shot is one that features two characters equally. Tracking or dolly (or dollie) shots are ones in which the camera moves. It was traditionally mounted on a moving platform, or dolly, and would follow or “track” a moving object, such as a walking character or galloping horse. Tracking or dolly shots can also move through a set (like a hounted house) in which nothing is moving, giving a complex depth to the shot. Shot/reverse shot editing A pattern of editing which shows, first one character and then a cut to a reverse shot that allows us a nearly opposite view, typically another character who is talking or interacting with the first. Many scenes simply go back and forth between such shots until all significant dialogue has been spoken and the action has occurred. Stylistic norm The stylistic features of filmmaking at a particular time. Departures from the stylistic norm can be used to good effect by creative filmmakers because they come as a surprise. Master of Light: Conversation with Contemporary Indian Bollywood Cinematographer – Rajeev Jain ICS WICA EXCLUSIVE! Rajeev Jain (Indian Kenyan Director of Photography) Indian Kenyan Cinematographer Rajeev Jain talks about joining Heart Beat FM and explains the meaning of the “Heart Beat FM wide shot” in M-net’s exclusive interview. Rajeev Jain is kind, genial, funny, intense (in a very good way) and incredibly smart. Oh, and did I happen to mention, that he is a world renowned director of photography. Though he is a lot like his good friend, Matthew Robinson, he is his own personality, an individual and, a darned nice guy. As I talk with him it becomes clear why these two men work together so often and so brilliantly. They are like two halves of a whole. As Rajeev said to me during our interview, “Sometimes Matthew and I think so much alike, it’s scary.” Now that I have interviewed them both, I can see what he is saying and, it’s a very good kind of scary. So, what do you talk to a famous director of photography about? Well, we talked about a little bit of everything. We talked about the support site and his work. Rajeev is at the Kalasha Film & Television Awards in Nairobi, Kenya where he will soon be attending the closing ceremonies and we are struggling mightily with a bad SKYPE connection. Our originally intended vocal interview quickly becomes one done by text type messaging to remedy the problem. And, Rajeev, with all he has ahead of him at the festival, doesn’t hesitate for a second to spend the extra time necessary to type instead of speak the interview. I’m most appreciative. I owe him a great debt for the generosity of his time and spirit for this interview. Oh yes, and a glass of Vodka. Q: What made you agree to come on board? A: It’s actually a cute story. I had done THE LONG ROAD for three years and I left that show because I was living in Nairobi that time and I was tired of flying back and forth to Dubai and Mumbai. I was looking for something in Nairobi because I wanted to stay there. So when they called me up I said, “No thank you. I’m not interested.” And my gaffer said, “Rajeev, reconsider that. Have them send you the script. I’ve seen the script. It’s what you’re looking for.” So, I sat down and my gaffer and I read the entire script basically in one sitting and I turned to him and said, “You did a really bad thing here. I can’t say no to this show now.” He said He knew what He was doing. Even though He didn’t want to live apart and it was really hard. [To his gaffer] Isn’t that how it happened? He said yes. He’s smiling. Q: You were the DP for the whole season. What’s it like to work with a director who has a different vision almost every week? A: Since I shot every episode, I did not have a chance to prep with director. So he would come up with a concept and come on set and rehearse the scene. If it rang true to me and I felt it was the way to go, I’d say, “Great, that’s a good idea.” If he wanted something that felt tangential to the style of the show we were trying to maintain, then I might make a suggestion to try something else. If you’re a smart director you listen to the people that are there all the time. I tuned in very quickly to what Matthew Robinson wanted. I would call Matthew Robinson and ask if he saw yesterday’s dailies, and what he thought of them. And that would give me a better idea as to whether I was on the right track or not. And after about three or four episodes I got what he was looking for, not 100 percent of the time — nobody can do that — but a good 80 percent of the time. Q: What would you consider the signature Heart Beat FM shot? A: The wide shots people refer to as Heart Beat FM shots. Directors will say, “Let’s do the Heart Beat FM wide shot,” which in television is not something that you very often see. Matthew Robinson really likes holding things in wider shots and I happen to really like it also — it puts your character into a place or a locale, which tells you something about the character. So I look at it as a storytelling device. The other kind of shot that’s somewhat characteristic of the show is when there is something big in the foreground and then something further away in the background wide. We call it wide and closed. You might keep the focus on the money, let’s say, in the foreground and our characters are in the background, either out of focus or much smaller. Q: Do you ever get so caught up in the acting that you forget to pay attention to the technical side of things? A: That’s what I am supposed to be paying attention to. My job is not just to do lighting and set up shots but to make sure the lighting and the shots reflect the scene in the most effective way. If I’m moved by what I see, then I know we’ve done well. I have people that operate cameras and lighting people and rigging people. All those people keep an eye on the technical stuff for me, and I’m concerned with the storytelling. That’s what interests me about the job: Efficient, effective storytelling. Q: What is your favorite scene? A: I can’t tell you because it’s later in the season. You’ll know it when you see it. It gets crazier as the storyline develops. Here’s one thing: What Matthew Robinson and the writers do is drop a single line in an early episode and then not mention anything about it until nine episodes later, and then all of a sudden there’s an episode all about that single line. It’s intriguing to me to work on something that is so well planned out and circular in terms of its storytelling. I think it’s just brilliant. The Shape of Light – Rajeev Jain Paints with His Camera Rajeev Jain (Born: 1968, Lucknow) started working as a director of photography in 1993, after serving an apprenticeship as camera assistant and camera operator. Since then Rajeev has worked as director of photography with some of India’s most esteemed directors, in some cases establishing a close and intimate association. We met up with Rajeev Jain in India, on the occasion of a five day seminar organized by the Delhi Film Club on The Shape of Light, an event which saw the participation of hundreds of students, filmmakers from across India. How has cinematography changed in the last fifteen years? I went to the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (Bhartendu Natya Academy) in Lucknow during the period of the new wave. We were witnessing a cinematographic quality which had ‘unchained’ itself in many senses in films from the period until the end of the 1980’s. Even the montage was much more liberated, and Cinematographer/ Directors, with Gautam Ghose at the forefront, were searching for greater liberty. Even when it came to shooting, using hand-held cameras, using natural lighting, or lighting in a way which seemed natural, such as through open windows, etc. In other words an absolute freedom whether with camera movement or lighting. And in our country? In India there was still a more classical style of photography, and I am making reference such as Subroto Mitra, Sudhendu Roy, who worked with Satyajit Ray up until Agantuk (1991). Meanwhile other new cinematographers with different ideas were also emerging, like Ashok Mehta (36 Chowrangi Lane), especially with black and white. But this black and white image with its own proper aesthetic beauty had a characteristic quality of merging lighting to atmosphere or ambience. Hence from this point on maybe cinematography acquired a more important significance, a complete symbiosis with the film and the narrative. Can the meeting between director and director of photography influence the career of one or the other? During the seminar a meeting of a good director of photography and a great poet. With the cinema of Ray, on the other hand, there was without a doubt a decisive turn with the arrival of Pather Panchali (1955) onward. Which filmmakers have made a particular impression on you? The rapport with Shyam Benegal on Tota Maina (TV Series) certainly was for me an event which I remember with great emotion until this day. I meet people who confide with me that they decided to become a director of photographer after seeing that serial, or directors who decided to enter cinema thanks to Tota Maina. For example, one day there was a kenyan boy who happened to be at my house that decided to come to India to make Tv seial after seeing Tota Maina. So it has been an important film for many people, and much more for me because I was lucky to work with Shyam babu. How did you meet? It was quite by accident. He was looking for a director of photography who was also mentally prepared for this adventure, and through various sources my name came up. A friend of mine who worked as assistant director introduced me to Shyam babu. I remember when he called to tell me that Shyam Benegal wanted to meet me. We met at his office for tea, and at the end of this encounter he takes out a script and offers it to me. I can feel the emotion of that moment right now. Can you tell us about the TV Series’s ‘dynamic photography’? Shyam babu used to tell me that TV uses time like a narrative element, while the photography normally remains constant for the duration of a sequence. It is precisely time that the ‘dynamic photography’ exploits to render a different consistency to the film. An example is the atmospheric conditions within nature: if during a cloudy day the sun comes out at a certain moment this will modify the condition of the light. In an interior space if someone enters a dark room and turns on the light this will change the condition of the light. However, this is all tied to precise actions. This discourse is amplified in Tota Maina, where in addition to variations in natural light were added variations which correspond to emotional motivation rather than any sense of logic. During some scenes you also used different shutter speeds, sometimes barely noticeable. During the filming Shyam Babu would ask for certain precise frames a slight increase in shutter speed, hardly noticeable, and therefore far from the slow motion effect we have been accustomed to seeing in many TV Series. This was solely to have greater suspension, therefore always in the service of a certain atmosphere in the serial. Technically this variation in speed consisted of a slight adjustment of the diaphragm. Shyam babu was very precise and exacting with his choice of photography, and not only myself but the whole troupe was so impressed by his personality that we complied voluntarily with his every request. In the course of this seminar you have lamented the fact that it always gets more difficult to shoot a film in India with careful attention to the cinematography. For what reason? Principally because there is a lack of respect for the profession in India. In the few films I have shot with foreign crews and production I actually discovered a greater professional respect. Then certainly there is the lack of preparation, because if films are not well prepared you will end up improvising on the set. Another reason is the understanding of shooting schedules, because if you shoot a film in ten weeks or in five weeks the result will be clearly different. With the advent of digital editing there is also the tendency to pass the complete negative through the telecine and then in AVID, without printing the so called ‘dailies’ which I think are very important for controlling possible technical problems. This happened with a film shot abroad, where an entire scene had to be reshot after only discovering an exposure problem during the montage. Strictly technically speaking, why is it that Indian films are no longer made with the same care as they once were? Maybe what is missing is an actual love of cinema. The problem is that there are no longer understanding producers who invest in projects they care about. We no longer have the person who loves the film so much that they want it made as fine as it possibly can. The operative now is to make the film only with the budget in mind, sometimes regardless of whether the film is good or not. Making of Ras Star – Indian Kenyan Cinematographer Rajeev Jain RAS STAR IS CURRENTLY FEATURING AT THE INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN FILM FESTIVAL. Raj next job was on a short film, Rasstar, based on the life of Kenyan rapper Nazizi, which was aired on M-Net. Synopsis: A teenage rapper, Amani, from a staunch Muslim family teams up with her brother Abdosh, an emerging con artist to figure out a way to make money and get her into the talent show finals. As the story unfolds, Amani and her brother get caught up with a local gangster and a stolen phone incident and use her brother’s glib tongue to get them out. Through absolute blind luck they manage to find the money they need only to come to blows with their Uncle Shaka, the family patriarch and Mlandimu, the local gangster who finally saves them. Rajeev Jain, a well-versed Bollywood Cinematographer and Director of Photography, discusses his new Award-winning film, Ras Star, and the unique camera approach he used specifically for this film about one young woman’s quest for life. With a background as director of photography for features such as Army, Badhaai Ho Badhaai, Carry On Pandu, Kadachit, Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree, Mirabai Not out and Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, Rajeev has had more than enough experience behind the lens to make the leap to cinema. He also has cinematography credits for the Award winning Kenyan TV Series Heartbeat FM. Where are you from and how did you become a cinematographer? [Raj] I am from Lucknow in the North West of India. My first degree is in Science and it took a while to find my way into a more artistic world. After several meanders I ended up at the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (Bhartendu Natya Academy) studying drama. I managed to direct a few short plays and did camera for many more. Since then I have enjoyed both documentary and drama camerawork with each informing and advancing the other. How did you approach the cinematography of Rasstar? [Raj] Through discussions with Wanuri, finding films we both liked visually. We wanted to find separate looks for each story and a different look for the present day. We found a visual ‘theory’ for each section ( for example a deep red and black colour scheme for Amani story, long lenses for Abdosh story and very wide lenses for Mlandimu). The looks had to be able to implement quickly (then aided in the grading) because of the very tight schedule. We then applied the visual theory to a shot list (which we often had to do this the night before due to locations changing or not being found yet) What was it like working with HD for the first time? [Raj] With a 35mm camera you are looking directly through a beautiful lens and seeing the scene in colour and can trust your eyes as part of the photographic process. With an HD camera you are looking at a tiny black and white image through the viewfinder so you need a large (ideally 24″) HD monitor to properly judge what you are filming. This is huge and totally impractical with such a small crew and low budget so we managed with a 14″ monitor a fair amount of the time but up a mountain or on a remote beach only a small battery monitor is possible. This was very frustrating and led to some things that could have been better. HD is horrible looking if any area is overexposed. This proved most problematic in outdoor which we chose to shoot on very wide lenses meaning there was a lot of sky in the shot. Unfortunately the skies were particularly flat and overcast but relatively bright white. The biggest advantage to HD was being able to travel a lot lighter with a couple of zooms up the town for instance and being able to film 2 hours worth of material with no worries ( which would have been roughly 12 huge cans of 1000 feet of film to carry and load). It also meant Wanuri and I could go off at weekends and film city shots and pickups very easily. Does storytelling matter? [Raj] Storytelling is a huge part of life from an early age. It’s a way of finding meaning in the world. For a child it’s a way of understanding the world through metaphor – not that a child thinks of it in that way. If the world blew up and the few stragglers met up it wouldn’t be long before they gathered around a fire and someone started telling tales to make sense of things. Stories entertain, provide an escape or catharsis, stimulate thought and debate and make you laugh. What was the best thing about making Rasstar? [Raj] The best thing was being up in such a beautiful part of the world working on a script that used the Kenyan slum as part of the story. What was the worst thing? [Raj] The first day of the action sequence in market. The crowd took so long to get onto the location that we on the camera crew were reduced to making beards out of moss and a feature length documentary on clouds (some very fine clouds though). Can you tell us a couple of interesting/little known/behind the scenes things about the making of Rasstar? [Raj] Wanuri is certainly one of the hardest working directors I’ve worked with but I think I found her limit one Saturday night. We were filming in pub (climax performance) and pick-up shots and had a choice to go to the local pub where some of the crew were tucking into lamb shank and downing some fine beer or head off. The light looked too tempting though so we headed off towards and thank goodness we did because the light over was astonishing. Deep red light was bouncing off them making them glow against the black background. There were so many midges we had to set the camera running and run around to draw them away from clustering around the camera. We shot for ages and the light was low but still great approaching. I tried to get one last shot with long DJ console in the foreground when Wanuri suggested we had enough and should go, words I never thought she’d say! (The shot was a nice one and made the final film). Have you worked on anything since Rasstar? [Raj] Since Rasstar I’ve filmed the film Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree. It was a great experience to film in such a remote and interesting place. Mahableshwar I’ve filmed a half hour comedy for Channel : ‘The Smallest Man in Town’ and I’ve also filmed and edited a half hour documentary in Dubai about a cleaning lady who works in Dubai. I have recently been Dop on a low budget feature “Carry on Pandu”. My Cinematography Style | by Rajeev Jain | Indian Bollywood Cinematographer FIRST OUTLINE: For some time, I’ve been meaning to put in writing my views on cinematography and my aesthetic style and now, here it is. This doesn’t mean I follow them dogmatically – it’s simply what works for me in broad strokes. As an Indian cinematographer, I should be able to give the director or production whatever look I’m asked. But within the visual and aesthetic constraints of any production – or the occasional lack thereof – an element of me is always there. Rules were meant to be broken – but only when you have a full understanding of the rules. While I can’t claim to know all of them, I’m learning with each production. Here are some of my thoughts… The aesthetic of a project needs to be established early to the audience. It’s distracting to introduce a new aesthetic or editorial style too late in a story without a proper justification or motivation. Often the coverage for a scene, whether a single person or an exchange between people, can have shots of the environment that the actors find themselves in. These are reflective moments for the audience and the images may not necessarily be pertinent to the dialogue that is taking place. It’s a very Japanese thing – a device often used in anime. I liken it to the wondering thoughts that happen during a conversation. Coverage without purpose is wasteful in time and resources. It’s better to spend extra days in pre-production to focus on what’s necessary to tell the story then to shoot a bunch of footage that ends up on the editor’s floor. What’s more, sometimes playing the scene from the master is the right choice. Let the actor’s act and let the audience hold the moment by taking in the scene and by letting it breathe. The advantage of using just a master is that it lets the actor’s determine the pace of a scene instead of the editor. Another area that gets too little attention is on atmospheric shots – those shots that fill the space between scenes. It gives the audience some time to breathe and to think and can be a moment for the music to affect the audience. I find graduated filters too fake and unnatural. It doesn’t focus our attention and instead, usually calls attention to itself. I don’t think I’ve ever used them and have yet to be criticized for my decision. Light for the scene, not the actor. This is true for me most of the time and I’ve found it to be a view held by many European filmmakers. But, this can be a touchy area. The actors are paid well because audiences want to see them. And on more than one occasion, an actors facial expressions or gesticulations have created a stronger impact on a scene. Still, there are those times when a silhouette says more than seeing an actor’s face. Techniques such as handheld, dolly, Steadicam, and cranes must all be thought out carefully. Camera moves should be dictated by the scene and work to enhance the story at that time and as a whole. Movement for movement sake is sloppy. Each has a special and specific emotional connotation to the audience and should be used to move to follow or capture an emotion, or reveal or emphasize an emotional change. One way of looking at it is that the closer the camera operator is to the camera the closer the audience is in the scene. Hand held is the most intimate, while cranes and cable supports place the audience the furthest away. Most directors cut too soon both on set and in editorial. On set, wait to say, “Cut”. Sometimes an actor can give a gem of a moment at the end of a scene if you wait. It’s worth it and I’m surprised how often a director will use that moment in the final cut. It’s nice to hold on an actor at the end of certain scenes to allow the audience to take in the moment and reflect. I love the eyes-of-god shot – with the camera straight down. It’s so different from what we see in our daily lives. And yet, I’m not a big fan of extremely low-angle shots. They tend to be a “student filmmaker” aesthetic. Low budget looks low budget, often because it is. If I can make a contribution to a production by making it look like more money was spent on it then that’s a good thing. For example, often I avoid handheld in low budget projects because it can look like, well, low budget. I know there are times when “shabby chic” is cool, but most of the time directors and producers are looking to impress a distributor or agent or a judging board. Santosh Sivan can use handheld for a whole movie because he’s Santosh Sivan – but if you’re not him, shooting handheld can sometimes be looked at as being lazy or sloppy. Consequently, some of my decisions are made to avoid that view. If I can help a production meets their needs and look like a bigger show, than so much the better. People change and so do their views. So I’m sure my views are likely to change, too. Till then … Cooked Art: Cinematography … by Pocket – Sized Indian Cinematographer Rajeev Jain I love films that are made like artwork; each scene is masterfully photographed for brilliant composition to create lines of action, symmetrical balance, with a fine use of space, texture, colour, and perspective. Here are two movies which I recently saw again, and depict wonderful visual language. So what the hell is a cinematographer? If you want to get into semantics, it means ‘writing in the movement.’ But their job, mainly, is to have control over the camera and lighting crews in a scene, and therefore have a lot of creative input into the final image. Though if you consider the fact that the art director is responsible for the mise en scene, the storyboard artist plans out the shots and what is actually happening, and the director is going to want to have a piece of the action, then it’s no small wonder how films end up looking great. Here are some of the guys that managed to do this (in my little opinion) What qualification did you study at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts and when did you finish? I went straight from high school to Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts and did a 2 year Diploma in Dramatic Arts, majoring in Lighting and graduating in 1985. The courses are run differently now. It is run more like a film school than an art school, which I think is excellent! It allows students to make earlier decisions on their chosen field within film & television, be it a cinematographer, director, producer, editor etc. It also better prepares the students for working in the industry. It is teaching so much more than just how to make films. What did you think of the facilities you recently saw at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts (Bhartendu Natya Academy)? The facilities at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts are fantastic; I would say world class even. The main production studio is very well equipped. The post production facilities such as the edit suites and sound mixing rooms are just like what is being used in much of the Indian film and television industry. I am also particularly impressed with the production value of the recent student films at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts. I think the standard of work is quite high. I think it is fantastic that the students get to shoot projects Film is the international industry-standard format for feature films, as well most overseas television drama. It is rare for students to get the opportunity to work with film now that the digital formats are becoming more and more prevalent. If you are able to shoot and work with film, then you will be able to work in any format that you come across out there. It doesn’t work the other way around. What I mean by this is that the principals of filmmaking are the same whichever format you shoot in. However, shooting film requires a different approach, both technically and creatively. These principles can be applied to shooting digital, but shooting film requires a greater understanding of lighting and exposure. The digital equipment at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts is of a standard and quality that will enable the graduates to go out into the industry and understand pretty much the workings of any other piece of equipment they will come across. There is no reason why the quality of the student projects can’t match the high quality of professional projects because the equipment they are using is the same. I am also particularly impressed with the production value of the recent student films at Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts. I think that the standard of work is quite high. What was the first break or job that was key to setting you on your way in your career? I have had a number of breaks I guess and many of them lead onto one another. A series of fortunate events you might say, but if I was to think of one particular big break it was one night when I had just finished editing my new cinematography show reel. (A show reel is like a portfolio of work, a cut down of my best cinematography edited to music.) Just as I had finished, an email came through to me that was forwarded by someone that I barely knew. The email said that a Kenyan production company was looking for an Indian cinematographer to shoot part of an international film that was to screen at the World Expo in Nairobi, Kenya and they wanted to see show reels. I went to the post office the next morning and sent mine off express mail. I received phone call only days later confirming that I had the job. I was flown to Nairobi and I worked with a full professional crew on what was my first major job. The people I met on that project liked my work so much that I got a call a month later and they flew me to Darussalam to shoot some commercials. I eventually returned to India with a new and improved show reel. Having international work on the reel raised my profile further and got me bigger and better jobs and an agent and I was away… A case of the right timing I guess! What qualities do you think are needed in order to make a career in the creative industries? The quality that I admire in successful creative professionals is the ability to take pride in one’s own work. Whatever your creative pursuit, I think that if you are doing work that you really enjoy and that you take great pride in, then you is lucky enough to have one of the best jobs in the world. I also think that challenging oneself by working outside of your comfort zone is important and realising that to succeed you have to be consistent, positive and work really hard. Whichever creative field you are in, it is going to be a hard slog to get your career underway. With creative careers you are judged on your body of work and your track record. The first thing one need to do is create a portfolio, or in my case a show reel, and then prepare yourself for criticism and knock backs, never giving up and use those knock backs as incentive to work harder and set your standards higher. I also think it is important to do ‘passion projects’ that allow you to experiment with ideas or further your experience. By passion projects, I mean ones that you do for the love of it and not the pay. I shot a lot of ‘freebies’ to get my show reel up to scratch and to get experience before I started getting paid for my art. Also it’s important to work on your network of contacts. You never know when that person you might consider as a rival might actually be the one to pass some work your way or introduce you to new collaborators. The film industry is too small to make enemies. We should be like a support network and learn from each other in order to continually make better projects. For you, what are the ‘must see’ benchmark films in terms of either outstanding or pioneering cinematography? Well for starters the cinematography on the recent Indian feature films Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree – Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away and the soon to be released Carry on Pandu are quite outstanding. Ha! No, seriously, some of my favourite and most influential films in terms of cinematography are not the ones with the big crane shots or the world’s longest steadicam shot, but the ones that create a real mood and atmosphere. Films that convey emotion to an audience and help to communicate the subtext of a story by saying more about the characters than dialogue alone ever could. I think the most influential films for me would be anything directed by Satyajit Ray (Aparajito (The Unvanquished), Parash Pathar (The Philosopher’s Stone), Jalsaghar (The Music Room) for his use of mood, atmosphere and cinematic techniques of storytelling. Also, classics such as Pather Panchali (Song of the Road). It took me a while to realise why it is considered the best film ever made. The use of deep focus in this film is not just a technical achievement, but also a storytelling one. I also really liked Shakha Proshakha (Branches of a Tree), Agantuk. They are both quite rough and hand held at times, but very beautiful and you really felt like you were ‘inside’ the movie. That is what I was trying to create on the most recent film that I shot, Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree. I want the audience to feel like they were there in Kalpvriksh, with the characters, to feel it, smell it and taste it. Key lights: Defining moments in cinematography since the Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree An interview with Rajeev Jain, Indian Cinematographer and owner of Rajeev Jain Films, Cinematography and Grips – Dubai – Mumbai – Nairobi. Q: What is your job title? Where are you employed? A: Director’s director of photography, director of photography. I have my own company, Rajeev Jain Films, Cinematography and Grips, and I’ve been doing it for about twenty-five years. Q: How long have you been a cinematographer? A: I’ve been doing it for several years, but I started my own company. Q: What type of training did you have to become a cinematographer? A: I went to the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts. I had a two-year diploma degree in theatre arts. That put me into a position to see how the industry has changed a lot. Coming out of college, kids should just start their own company. First, they should decide what they want to do in the industry and then go for it. The sky’s the limit depending on the career path you choose. Q: What do you like best about your job? A: Working for myself. Having the freedom to make your own decisions, to make your own path about what you want to do. But you can go for a month without working if you’re on your own, so definitely put yourself on a business path as well as a creative path. Take businesses classes, not just liberal arts. The film industry is a business, just like the music industry. You have to be a self-starter. Q: Describe your typical day on the job. A: Which job? Normally when I’m not working, I’m in my office doing paperwork. From your office, you might have to go somewhere on location and that can be anywhere from two days to thirty days. A lot of our stuff is remote locations. Every job is unique. As soon as you think it’s typical, it changes. Q: What career were you in before becoming a cinematographer? Do you feel that it helped prepare you for becoming a massage therapist? A: I was doing theatre, photo journalism, working at a local channel and making a decent earning. I found myself incorporating paramount to my words, and when I started taking pictures and filming, I realized this was what I’m most passionate about. But when you have a creative bone in your body, like writing, it’s easier to expand into other aspects of a different creative trade. Q: What traits do you feel are necessary to be successful as a cinematographer? A: Everybody takes different paths to be successful. But you have to keep up-to-date. Editing and graphics has changed so much. The whole dynamics has completely changed. You have to be totally flexible and stay with the current trend. Q: Would you say it’s imperative to have a college education for a career such as this one? A: I don’t think it’s imperative, but what I got out of college is I networked a lot. I don’t think it’s a hundred percent necessary. But, of course, you should have a good school to teach you what you need. When you’re in college, you need to start working on building a portfolio and college can help with that. If two people went for the same job and they both had impeccable portfolios, but one also carried a four-year degree, you can bet that person’s going to land the job. To be in the industry full-time, not just freelance, means it’s important to get that degree. Q: Would you recommend this career to someone else? A: Yeah. I can’t think of anything better to do. I see things that people don’t see. Is it for everybody? I don’t think so. You have to have thick skin. You have to work for months on end. Don’t set your expectations too high. Be realistic. My first recommendation would be to go to college and get that full-time job. Get a feel for what the industry is all about. It’s hard to just have a good portfolio, unless you’re an amazing cinematographer. Doing it without college is extremely hard to do. Q: What is your next career move, if any? A: Retire and go village. No, but seriously, I’m going to do more projects. I want complete control of my future projects. Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree – Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away – Rajeev Jain Cinematographer Two-time Winner Indian Cinematographer Rajeev Jain ICS WICA Creates Special World of Light, Shadows in his recent film Kalpvriksh the Wish Tree Yours Dreams Are Just a Touch Away Rajeev Jain has a way of seeing that takes an image to its outer limits. In his years as assistant, electrician, grip, and in the past 16 years as director of photography, he has developed a visual sensitivity and expertise. Rajeev takes his inspiration from directors such as Satyajit Ray (Pather Panchali) and cinematographers Ashok Mehta, ISC (36 Chowrangi Lane) and Binod Pradhan (Parinda) for their use of colour and lights and shadow to amplify the emotional content of stories. I find the ability to allow the characters to operate in shadow is a real art, he says. Ashok Mehta allows his characters to function in darkness. He lights everything so the blacks are really rich – yet you can see everything. His work in Kalpvriksh, a film by director Manika Sharma exudes a period quality with an edge. Rajeev was especially intrigued by the non-narrative, fragmented script, because it offered a myriad of visual possibilities. Shooting primarily on Kodak to give contrast to the exterior scenes, Rajeev experimented with warm and blue filters to get the look he wanted. The result is a stark, almost surreal journey into the minds and actions of the film’s bizarre characters. Up-front collaboration on any film is essential, Rajeev emphasizes. It’s important for me to go through the script scene by scene with the director Manika Sharma, Rajeev says, to try to see what is in her mind. I want to know what the scene is saying, who the most important character is at that moment, and how the characters move through the scene. We also share photographs and movies, which gives us a visual base to work from. A graduate of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in Drama and a beginning still photography, Rajeev took a course in filmmaking. Intrigued by the film medium, he saw the possibilities of combining his interests with film in commercials. Searching for a way to learn camerawork, he offered his assistance (unpaid) to director of photography Subroto Mitra to learn the craft. He taught me about his SR package, what the lenses were, and how to load magazines, he said. Then he started me by working on Shyam Benegal’s documentary on Nehru. In 1996, Rajeev got the first opportunity to shoot a film, Army, with Mukul Anand. After eight weeks of stressful shooting – his every move was watched. After 6 more features, then came Kalpvriksh in 2007, allowed Rajeev to explore a new visual technique to add nuance to the story. The film includes a dreamlike journey that Rajeev wanted to give a dreamlike quality. We tested filters and a bleach bypass process to give that section of the film its own special look,” he says. “Instead we decided to use a swing tilt, a view camera attachment that allows the operator to change the plane of focus. It let us throw different parts of the frame out of focus, which is difficult to do in a wide shot because of increased depth of field. Rajeev is currently finishing production on Carry on Pandu, a feature being shot in Mumbai, as well as doing Commercials. Full of Surprises! Rajeev Jain, Indian Cinematographer / DOP, Talks About… KALPVRIKSH (THE WISHING TREE): YOUR DREAMS… ARE JUST A TOUCH AWAY… Like any artist, Rajeev was born with innate talent burnished by experience and cultural influences. Born in 1968, his first introduction to movie magic came while observing his uncle as a projectionist at Ravindralaya Theatre, Lucknow. “I remember sitting in that little projection room and watching films with my uncle,” the Indian cinematographer recalls. “It was like watching silent movies because you couldn’t hear sound in the booth. I just saw the images and would try to understand the story. My uncle would show us Charlie Chaplin movies, which, of course, were silent. There is no doubt that he put his dream of becoming a cinematographer into my heart.” Originally from India, cinematographer Rajeev Jain ICS WICA studied at the Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in Lucknow, India. The day after completing his studies, Rajeev went to work as a trainee on an anamorphic picture. He contributed to ten more movies as assistant director of photography before becoming a DOP. “From that moment on I considered the camera to be like a pen that you use to draw images,” he states. “Operating a camera is mainly about composition and rhythm. I also operated the camera for Bollywood songs. It was very primitive. While we were shooting, someone with a watch was timing every pan and zoom. He would say, ‘You have 5 1/2 seconds to do that zoom.’ It was a great lesson for me, learning to make each element of a shot work in that amount of time.” I thought it was fascinating that film speaks a common language that everyone in the world can understand,” he recalls. “That’s especially true for cinematographers, because we are communicating with the audience non-verbally.” “To me, making a film is like resolving conflicts between light and dark, cold and warmth, blue and orange or other contrasting colours. There should be a sense of energy, or change of movement. A sense that time is going on — light becomes night, which reverts to morning. Life becomes death. Making a film is like documenting a journey and using light in the style that best suits that particular picture… the concept behind it. The first important decision regarding the visuals was to shoot in anamorphic (2.4:1) format, as they had done on Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree. Rajeev explains that Manika likes to manipulate the subjective and objective viewpoints, sometimes in the same frame or even at the same time. In a simple example, a shot will begin on a subject, and then an actor will step into the frame, creating an over-the-shoulder shot, changing it from subjective––in which the viewer sees what the character sees––to objective. “One of my first suggestions was shooting Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree in Super 35 format,” Rajeev continues. “I felt that would give the film an edge that you don’t expect to see in Drama. I felt we could use the wider frame to create a claustrophobic feeling in the Shabana’s cave and more interesting composition showing Shabana in the world.” She, director Manika Sharma, designer Mansi and other members of the creative team discussed the possibilities for composing Kalpvriksh – the Wishing Tree in widescreen format, while drawing upon such visual references as another drama with an improbable theme. Though Manika storyboarded scenes, Rajeev utilized the sketches primarily as a communications tool. While shooting, the director remained open to veering from the storyboards to take advantage of unexpected opportunities. “Our production designer Mansi and costume designer gave us rich sets and costumes. Even though pushing two stops in the development sometimes is not as faithful to colours, their collaboration with this technique allowed us (especially in the dinner / fantasy sequences) to have a warm and yellow-looking scene, as if all that was lit was candle light,” he says. In one dramatically lit scene, the school principal (Mahabano Kotwal) is sitting on the chair, looking out a window at the falling rain. “The whole scene was lit with one hard day light, an ARRI 6K,” says Rajeev. “We brought one light through the window. In order to light the door, we used a 4 by 4 mirror just out of frame to the right. The light is modulated by the rain on the window, and it stretched over to the book. We were ‘gathering chestnuts.’ It was serendipitous, and it all worked out with one light.” “For fill light on this movie, we used either very, very little or absolutely none,” he adds. “I find that with the film stocks we were using, if you’re overexposing a little bit, you can read the shadow detail incredibly well. When I saw the picture at Theatre on the 70-foot-wide screen, on the dark side, which is dead black, you can actually see hairs going into actors’ heads. I found it very interesting. I hope it works on a subconscious level for the audience.” Even though Rajeev knew that he could not shoot wide open at a T2 or a T2.8––because the Super 35 format chosen has a shallower depth––he still wanted this tool to give the story a greater stage presence. The bigger negative allowed him to push the envelope. And, he knew the grain would still be acceptable, if he stayed within the T2.8 to T4 ranges on interiors. “We could still use real sources and it wouldn’t be hard for our camera crew to follow focus,” he says confidently. Like many of his colleagues, cinematographer Rajeev Jain has many concerns about changes that can be introduced to imagery during the post process of our electronic age. Such considerations only become intensified when one is dealing with a profusion of visual effects, which was the case with Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree. “I tried to make a concerted effort to stay as involved in postproduction as possible – which is sometimes tough because it’s ‘off to the next job’ – to work with the digital effects and optical house to ensure that there wouldn’t be any problems with the answer printing process. “You don’t see any lights in the master shot,” he says. “The master shot that we started out with was an impossible shot to light. We were jammed back in the corner with a 35 mm lens and there was a two-way mirror in the background. So we used a technique Rajeev Jain called a ‘driller.’ Simply put, you’re normally shooting horizontally across a room, and there are horizontal surfaces, like the tops of mantels and tables. If you come from directly overhead with a light and drill it down onto that surface, it works quite well. It doesn’t seem wrong. If light comes from a place that’s not normal or usual, people seem to accept the element that’s being illuminated without really figuring out what’s going on in terms of a source. Shadows go straight down, so they don’t end up looking strange or calling attention to the source. You see it on the table and then it comes off the table and lights the faces to a degree. It’s interesting because you’re not lighting the people at all. You’re lighting the environment that they’re in. Anamorphic gives you the space in the frame to do that,” Rajeev says. “Manika has no problem filling an anamorphic frame in a contemporary picture. The story also has an elegiac aspect, so it seemed better to tell it without rock video cutting and frenetic camera movement. With the amazing cast, we knew this film would be about the performances. All those ideas––as well as ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’––factored into our decision to shoot anamorphic.” To determine a visually appropriate approach for the various moods needed in Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree, Manika and Rajeev chose to forego in large part the usual business of viewing other films during prep. “We used a lot of book work, referring to other kinds of artists working in two-dimensional forms, still photography and drawings mainly,” Rajeev relates. “This was a nice and different way to prep. Looking at movies to see how a particular sequence worked is great, but this approach started me on this incredible round of self-education, covering still photography from 1890 up ’til now. Now I can’t stop myself from buying the books. It is amazing how much visual reference source material is out there when you go back to basics. These were great jumping-off points for us. The cinematographer also had to avoid telltale reflections of camera gear and personnel on the water surface. Along with a disciplined crew, that required careful light placement and camera angle selection. He discovered that putting the plastic at the right distance from the lens for tighter shots from Shawn’s point-of-view rendered slightly distorted images with a hint of grain, which amplified the look that he and director Manika desired. Rajeev also occasionally added reflections of characters and objects on the water’s surface to draw attention to the barrier separating the boy from other people. Sometimes the camera takes a subjective, spectator-like stance while other times the audience seems to share Shawn’s life-in-the-bubble experience. “There was no simple formula for deciding when to put the audience inside the bubble with Shawn. It was a question I asked the director for each shot in every scene. Are we with Shawn inside the bubble, or are we outside looking in?” I didn’t believe this and obviously neither did neither director Manika Sharma nor producing company Rhombus Films. Another picture shot in an old house in Bollywood required us to actually operate two generators to power all of the lights. By the time we were done, however, I was able to shoot two-thirds of a long sequence by dollying along with the reflections seen in a long fishpond at night (Shabana’s cave). “I think it’s a visual reflection of the fact that one’s position in life can change almost instantaneously,” he says. “It’s extremely effective visually. It seems to work on a number of different levels. Using this different approach seems to freshen up all your overs and reverses. There’s a very interesting scene between Shabana and kid that was staged on an under the tree, and there’s a sense of disquiet and possible aggression. It’s very ambiguous, yet the spatial dynamics really underscore the feeling.” There is a great advantage in working on location versus a studio. For example, the muslim house I mentioned had real marble floors. An experienced DOP knows how to utilize this reality something he can only simulate in a studio,” mused Rajeev. Reflectors were used extensively throughout the film, usually on the fill side to pick up some ambience or an edge of the keylight, and to redirect some of that light to the fill side. In most cases it was very subtle, however, just reflecting in the shine of the skin. “We used the reflectors as almost more of an eyelight,” Rajeev says. “There is such tension between these three characters. There are a lot of internal emotions beneath the surface of this movie. I felt that the audience needed to have access to the internal life of the characters, so I tried to keep eyelights going, especially when we’d get in close. Often it was done with a small reflector thrown in at the last moment. One of the most important aspects included previsualizing the character of Shabana herself. “To nail her down, we started off by working on storyboards with an artist,” says Rajeev, “who drew terrific boards and is a brilliant artist as well. We told him our thoughts on how the Shabana looked and he set to work. Manika credits him with creating a good part of the final look, since his drawings were used to communicate to hair, make-up and wardrobe departments what Manika wanted for his look.” Part of Cave ‘ guise involved the use of a wig that often obscured the actor’s face – which on occasion made for a less than ideal lighting situation. “During hair and make-up tests, I saw that while Shabana looked amazing, they were going to be difficult to deal with for 2 weeks. She had a big headgear and a huge costume also, so there was a question of whether we were ever going to be able to really see her. I told Manika that at times she was on the verge of becoming a headgear with hair. Being very sensitive to the needs of actors, Manika didn’t want to get the hair out of her face, so we tried not to mess with her and solve it on our own.” On Kalpvriksh – The Wishing Tree, Rajeev opted for Vision 200T (5274) for everything but night exteriors, explaining that the smooth grain of this non-intrusive emulsion records deep blacks, true colours and a wide tonal range. Rajeev shot day exteriors on Eastman EXR 100T (5248), using an 81 EF filter to half-correct and retain the cool blue of winter. Daylight-balanced 250D (5246) Vision stock was selected for day interiors, while he exploited Vision 500T (5279) on most night interiors and exteriors. Since shooting, the cinematographer did extensive tests with different materials to search for the right thickness and translucency. “It’s the same as using a cheap filter on the lens and we realized that any distortion or loss of focus would be magnified when the lab optically ’squeezed’ the images into the 2.40 aspect ratio. In addition to selecting the right plastic, it was important for us to record a strong negative with properly focused images. We were shooting through filters at least 90 percent of the time. While shooting forest scenes with the lead actor, Rajeev employed what he calls a Nine-light sandwich. “Others might call it a book light, but in any case, we were bouncing a Nine-light Maxi Brute off a piece of bead board, then letting the light pass through a diffusion frame usually fitted with either 216 or light grid. The resulting soft light striking He had a very beautiful quality, plus some serious pounding of foot-candles. This soft light had enough to punch through Shabana’s hair, and I could control the amount of light just by clicking off various globes. But it also required a lot of flagging and took up much space.” On other occasions, Rajeev illuminated the Forest by directing the light from more extreme angles. “I came in much lower and more frontal with his key than I would have normally, but the approach succeeded in letting her hair fall naturally, so, while it was tough, it worked. It did make me thankful for the scenes when Shabana is dressed up with her hair pulled back, since I could get a nice edge on her through side lighting.” When kids arrive at tree before the climax, production established the famously setting by filming the actors in front of blue screen and green screen. Those elements were digitally composited with stock background plates culled from Ladakh. Harry and Arjun from Red Chillies’ in-house facility supervised the visual effect shots. “I don’t think these scenes could be any more believable if we had travelled to Ladakh to film them live,” marvels Rajeev. “How can you miss when you begin with 70 millimetre background plates? We matched everything to those plates.” There were a few daylight scenes in there, so we decided that cracks in the cave roof let hard sunlight in,” he continues. “I put some signs of this in on the walls behind the actors and let some light bounce off the floor. For the most part though, the cave scenes are set at night – lit by firelight or lanterns or the imaginary glow coming off, which isn’t plugged into anything. For the Water, I chose to use a slightly blue key light on the actors but didn’t put any flickering movement in because I felt that it was distracting. The only flickering on their faces comes from the actual water. What I did add was a slight flicker effect on the walls, which I found to be more pleasing while lending a bit of realism. Front-end lab work was done by Gemini, which provided film dailies. “After her experiences in the commercial world where you work on a monitor all the time, Manika loved watching film dailies – it opened up a new world for her,” says Rajeev. “For example, there is a shot of a Shabana delivering a line at the end of a long shot under the tree. When Manika saw it played back on the [video tap] monitor, she didn’t feel good about it. She seemed too small in the shot. She remarked that maybe her line would have to disappear in editing. After some time, Manika saw it projected on a big screen and loved the shot.” When asked if such glad tidings extend to the on-screen drama as well, Rajeev smiles, and says, “Would you be surprised if I said there is a happy ending?” The cinematographer does not use diffusion on the camera lens, instead preferring to soften his subject as needed by selectively affecting the light source. “I’ve never liked it in films when the overall resolution of the lens changes visibly during cuts in to a close-up during a scene,” he declares. “The whole business of putting heavy diffusion in front of the lens to make [an actress] look ‘better’ is just crazy to me. I don’t want to see the cinematographer’s effort to make someone look good. Instead, I want to see the character look well, and I think that happens when the actor is both integrated into the scene properly and lit in a flattering manner. My solution is to soften at the source of illumination, and let the image be as clear as possible. Some people think Primo lenses are too sharp, but I love all that perfection. When you combine years and years of research and development on the film stocks from Kodak, with what has gone into these Arri lenses and the lab work at Gemini, and then put all that into a film being projected properly on screen, the result is such awesome perfection! So I take a lot of pride in delivering a really perfect negative. We may want to mess it up later, and that’s fine, but I believe in starting with something well-exposed and sharp.” With all the many visual treatments necessary to depict the Shabana’s perceptions, Rajeev and Manika needed to settle on parameters early on for the more elaborate manifestations requiring visual effects. “We’re telling a story that is seen in part through the eyes of a crazy person,” offers Rajeev. “She’s an incredibly brilliant crazy person, but crazy nonetheless, so there’s a sense of the fantastic about these visions, but they are not in the tradition of science-fiction movie effects. We had submitted a wish list of visual effects for budgeting, but it came back priced four or five times higher than we hoped. This meant we had to pull back, and that decision ultimately worked better for the film we wound up making. Most of the effects are things we did ourselves, with practical light cues, or as a combination of those cues with digital enhancement.” I’m glad that this movie’s look seems interesting to the eye, but I’m also pleased that the visuals don’t supersede the story. Early reviews are praising Shabana’s performance as one of the best she’s ever given, so it wouldn’t make sense to do anything that took away from that aspect. Lots of films now seem overwhelmed with effects, but Manika isn’t one to tell that type of story. When Indian Cinematographer Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA is asked if, he would do anything differently today, the master artiste replies, “Ninety-nine percent of the time when I see my old films I am serene. It was the best I could do at that time of my life with what I had to work with. What’s important is your life and how you evolve as a human being and as an artist. Q & A with Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA Indian Cinematographer on Film Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree – Your Dreams Are Just a Touch Away Indian Director of Photography, Rajeev Jain, ICS WICA is a Cinematographer based in Mumbai, India. Rajeev specializes in shooting television commercials in the 35mm motion picture film format as well as HD Digital formats. Rajeev started in the early days of the music video revolution, before venturing into narrative filmmaking. His eclectic body of work includes Army, Badhaai Ho Badhaai, Carry on Pandu, Kadachit, Kalpvriksh – The Wish Tree, Mirabai Notout, Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi and Rasstar . QUESTION: Where were you born and raised? RAJEEV: I was born in Lucknow, India. There was no seminal event that happened to me as a young person that made me want to be a cinematographer. It certainly wasn’t the quality of the light in Lucknow. I remember it was gray; was stained brown from the traffic and the sky dark. But as I say that, I realize the suppressed palette of the place did affect me emotionally. Saturates leaped out against that neutrals, as in a dream or a post-industrial nightmare. QUESTION: What did your parents do? RAJEEV: My parents were just ordinary folks. I don’t think they were particularly ambitious for me. Their main concern, I think, was that I wasn’t an embarrassment. We moved to the Etawah and then back to Lucknow, where I completed my education. My degrees were in Theatre Arts. QUESTION: Did you have a career goal at that point in life? RAJEEV: I wanted to be a writer, but like Mohan Rakesh I thought too much and wrote too little. That is too say I was more a reader then a writer, more academician then poet. I got very interested in semiology and structuralism (the study of how language encodes ideas). Initially I studied how the spoken and written language worked, but then became more interested in how codes worked in other languages, like the language of film. My interest in film language led me in a rather convoluted way to cinematography. QUESTION: That’s interesting. Can you be a little more specific? RAJEEV: I became very interested in understanding how in altering light, composition, camera angles and camera movement a cinematographer alters an audiences perception of the visual event, and thereby the audience’s emotional response. It is a difficult thing to quantify. I remember specifically thinking back to seeing Pather Panchali when I was a child, and how its images had always remained in my imagination, not only for their pure beauty and sublime scale, but because they affected me emotionally, striking some unconscious but responsive cord. Later I saw Ray’s “The Apu Trilogy”. I had much the same response, but now my understanding was informed by my studies. It would be accurate to say that the cinematographers of these two films, Subroto Mitra, were those who most influenced my decision to become a cinematographer. QUESTION: How did you make a connection between words and photography? RAJEEV: In writing essays and articles about film. I realized that film images worked very much the way the spoken/written language works. You want to express certain ideas. There are culturally agreed and understood codas. These shapes, which we call letters, have agreed upon pronunciations. These letters form words. These words have agreed meanings. But it is of course arbitrary. The word “cat” has no innate “catness” about it, but on hearing this word the listener forms an idea in their brain. A cat. We can then add adjectives, and qualifiers, to make it a black cat, or an angry black cat. These words are codes, but not universal codes. They are specific to a culture that shares that language. Photography in some respects is a much more complex language system. The denotative (specific) or connotative (symbolic or implied) meaning of an image can be ambiguous, but also complex. Perhaps the best literary analogy is the Haiku poem. The fewer words have greater potential meaning — the more words that are added in longer literary forms, the more specific the meaning. An image offers both specific and non-specific meanings. It can work on many layers, conscious and not. QUESTION: Did you have any mentors or were you totally self-taught? RAJEEV: I’ve learned a lot from other DP’s. But it’s mainly from studying their work. Ashok Mehta and I talk a lot, and he’s given me a great deal. But I was self-taught. I studied art extensively, particularly early 20th century artists, and late 19th century artists. I learned a lot about light from them. I’ve stolen an idea from every good film I’ve seen, probably. Particularly the work of Subroto Mitra (ISC), Ashok Mehta (ISC), Binod Pradhan, and Santosh Sivan (ISC). QUESTION: Do you think of yourself as an artist, a technician or both? RAJEEV: I think that’s a very important distinction. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but if you consider the nature of art, it is meant to give us new eyes to see the world. I want audiences to respond viscerally to what our intentions are for a film. I think that cinematography works very much like music in that it is difficult for us to measure or quantify why audiences respond to what we do. So it is an art. And its practitioners must therefore be artists. QUESTION: Tell us more about your analogy of music and cinematography. RAJEEV: I can sit in dailies and I can see the other people watching the film with me respond physically and emotionally to the images; but it is very difficult quantifying what they are responding to. If you watch people listening to music, they may also respond, but you would hard put to quantify why they are responding. QUESTION: I’ll borrow a phrase from Subroto Mitra, who said, cinematographers are the authors of the images. But, that isn’t widely recognized. RAJEEV: Part of the problem lies with our collective culture. Films are reviewed as theatre rather than as a unique art form. Critics will talk about scripts and performances. They talk about things they understand, but they understand them because their own cultural antecedents are principally in traditional theatre, though they may not recognize that. In this context, cinematography and music aren’t understood, except to say they were beautiful, because there is not a particular language developed within criticism for their description. Unfortunately, many reviewers don’t recognize how decisions made by the director, cinematographer and composer made a profound impact on the visceral reactions and intellectual responses of audiences. I’m not saying that cinematographers aren’t recognized. We are, at least within the industry, but not in the consumer press. I don’t think I read a single review that mentioned the significance of Subroto Mitra’s (ISC) decision to use 16mm film and other formats in certain scenes in The River, yet that made a profound impact. I consider that a significant artistic decision worthy of comment, in fact, essential to an audiences understanding of the film’s artistic treatment. QUESTION: The collaboration between directors and cinematographers is unique. RAJEEV: An important thing about that collaboration is that cinematographers have to integrate their vision for a film with the director’s vision. QUESTION: Do the many music videos you shot influence you today? RAJEEV: Not really. None of my films look like music videos, but the great thing about music videos was that we could experiment with different lighting, film stocks, lenses and filters. We would decide to try putting four filters on the lens, force process the film, or put a negative through a reversal film postproduction process to see how it comes out, and then try it again the other way around. It was a great way to learn. QUESTION: Are there other cinematographers whose work you follow? RAJEEV: I can mention all the obvious names, but the truth is I learn from all cinematographers. I can watch a television program shot by a 29-year-old cinematographer and find something that he or she did that is quite interesting. I’m constantly learning from other people. I still read every magazine and journal about cinematography and photography that I can lay my hands on. I still study art. I collect books of photographers and paintings. But it’s not just the good work that others do that I learn from. I learn from my own mistakes that I have had ample opportunity to make over these last 20 years. When my son Adam was in the seventh grade, he wrote an essay in which he was required to say who his hero was. He said it was me. “My father is my hero because he messes up all the time, and he lets me see it.” So I feel o.k. about messing up. I think that’s a hugely important lesson to learn. It’s o.k. to mess up, and you will sometimes mess up if you’re willing to push the limits of your craft. QUESTION: Did any other mentors influence your thinking? RAJEEV: I was a graduate from the University of Lucknow for a short while. That’s where I met Renu Saluja who was a really important mentor. She pointed me down some really interesting avenues as regards film theory. QUESTION: How do you decide that something is a film you want to do? RAJEEV: Early in my career anything that was offered was a film I wanted to do. Today, two things are likely to affect my decision. One is my first meeting with the director. That relationship is like a marriage only, oddly, much more intense. You have to decide whether you’re going to be able to get along with that person for the long time that you’re going to be together. I think I have gotten along well with over 90 percent of the directors I have worked with, and many have remained friends. The second thing is the photography. I’m always interested in doing new and different things. If the project is very much like what I have done before, and the script is not great, then it is less likely I will be interested. Sometimes a project comes along that is just so interesting it is impossible to resist. QUESTION: What do you tell students and other young filmmakers when they ask you to share the secret of success? Do you tell them the truth about the odds? RAJEEV: I think you have to be patient, and not let yourself believe that things are going to happen quickly. You need integrity and honesty about who you want to become. That way, even if you fail, you can fail with some dignity. If you compromise and fail, what do you have left? Quick notes by Indian Cinematographer / DOP Rajeev Jain on Cinematography and aspiring Indian Cinematographers: A quick “filler post” while I try to get something actually substantial written: The most hits I get for my blog are from people searching keywords like “Indian Cinematographers” “cinematography career path” and “how to be a great Cinematographer.” I can really only offer my own personal experience. Rajeev on advice for young, aspiring Indian cinematographers: An advice for all cinematographers is to be very aware of the digital era that ìs right on top of us, but still stay true to film at this stage and maybe experiment with both. We’re at the crossroads of film into digital. I’ve just had some tests with film compared to digital and film is still better. Film still holds more information than digital cameras do even though they’re getting better all the time. But the way to go now that’s very smart filmmaking is to shoot on film whether it be 35 mm or super 16 and do digital intermediate and put it together on film at the end. I’ve done it with my last three or four films and I’ll be doing that again with my next one. It ìs really smart filmmaking to be able to use the digital technology to manipulate images. (In regards to helping me make decisions on the day of shoot), I saved shooting Kalpvriksh Öon average about 10 minutes a day by making decisions like: There ìs a flare coming off a window; send the grips up to get rid of it. We hadn’t got time. I can fix it digitally. It ìs very easy later on. There ìs hot light coming off the top of the Muscos light ñ big flares. We cant get rid of the flares at the top edge of the frame. Don’t worry about it. If you’re going to have to set giant flags, it ìs going to take 20 minutes for us to do it. Forget it. I know I can fix it digitally. Every now and then I make decisions like that knowing that I could make corrections at a digital intermediate. That ìs a very smart way to go. It is more expensive than conventional timing but it ìs getting cheaper all the time. It ìs just going to be the norm very shortly. I think (it ìs good) for young cinematographers to embrace that (and) to visit the digital houses (which) are more than happy to show people around (and) to show them the tricks of the trade. It ìs truly a unique experience. Once anyone has done it, they’ll never look back. I haven’t done commercials for a long time and I just tend to go from feature to feature. (But) most cinematographers who shoot commercials if they follow them through certainly get to see the digital technology work if they’re going through the television process. Now on to the master of the camera, Rajeev Jain: My favourite Indian Cinematographer’s are: Ashok Mehta (36 Chowringhee Lane, Moksha, Bandit queen) Binod Pradhan (Parinda, Devdas) K K Mahajan (Chorus, Maya Darpan, Uski Roti, Sara Akash) Santosh Sivan (Dil Se, Iruvar, Kalapani, Perumthachan) AND Subrata Mitra (Pather Panchali, New Delhi Times) You should definitely check them out. I’ve written about a couple of them. As for a career path, I am still figuring that out myself. I remember listening to Cinematographer Ashok Mehta about how he got to the point of finally shooting features. He worked as assistant camera and camera op for a while until he got a steady gig shooting those commercials. He eventually worked his way up to Cinematographer, and has shot quite a number of films, including 36 Chowringhee Lane and Bandit Queen. It took him around 10 + 30 years to get to the level he is at currently. And that’s the big number I learned as well. It will take you about 10 years on average to become “successful” (in big Bollywood terms) in your field. All I can advise is get onto set. Get on a camera crew, whether it is PA, assistant camera, camera op, or the person who cleans dirt off the camera cases. Watch the Cinematographer. Listen to the Cinematographer. Ask questions of the Cinematographer and camera crew. Whatever you’re doing, even if it’s the most inane and boring job on set, do it spectacularly and be incredibly happy to do it. People will notice your attitude. Make friends, but especially with the camera crew, not just the Cinematographer. (Also make buddies with the assistant director. They can give great recommendations.) Learn everything you can. Get a camera (still SLR or camcorder) and explore your own style. Try something new every day. As for how to be a great Cinematographer: Remember you are telling a story. And serve that story with humility, loyalty, creativity, passion, and open eyes. And either make sure you know what you’re doing, or get really good at winging’ it. (Another post on “knowing [sort of] what you’re doing” is in mid-write, as well as some reflections on being a Indian Cinematographer thus far in my journey. Should be interesting.) For cinematographers who are just making films, they may not have had that opportunity but I’d strongly recommend going to a digital house. I’ve done all my work through Prasad. They have the resources of all the greatest optical engineers and designers, (as well as) electronic experts from Panavision. Prasad is truly wonderful Öbeen a huge help to me shooting to know that I have a good lab and great cameras. I think that aspiring cinematographers have to be aware of both formats ódigital and filmó, but I tend to be (Pause) not ignoring the digital cameras, but I’m putting it off as long as I can. (Laughs) I’m a little bit guilty of not really following up on the latest technology as far as digital (high definition) cameras are concerned, but I have done tests on them. I’m still a film man. I love film. Author Bio: Uma Therman Gender: Female Occupation: Film Journalist About Me: IT’S ALL ABOUT CHARACTER AND STORY. Uma Therman , I am a highly experienced film journalist, with total dedication to the craft, huge enthusiasm for telling stories and world-class technical expertise. Tags: rajeev, rajiv, jain, cinematographer, director photography, bollywood, india, indian, mumbai, dop, kalpvriksh, videographer, kenya, kenyan, dubai

Burj Khalifa tower

The tallest building in the world has opened in the Gulf emirate of Dubai on 3rd Jan 2010.  But the 828-meter tower formerly known as the Burj Dubai has been renamed the Burj Khalifa, to honor the leader of neighboring Abu Dhabi, who gave Dubai $10 billion last month to help repay its debts.

Not only does the Burj Khalifa have more usable floors than any other skyscraper ever built, but it also has the world’s highest observation deck on the 124th floor and the highest swimming pool on the 76th.

The building is so tall that it is ten degrees Celsius cooler at the top than at the base.

For 25 years, residents of Tajnagar village near Gurgaon lobbied for a railway station in their village. When their demand was not met, the  villagers decided to take matters in their own hands — they pooled in Rs 21 lakh and built a railway station on their own.

On Tuesday 5th Jan 2009 , the result of their efforts — perhaps the first railway station in the country on which the Railways didn’t have to spend a single penny — will start operations.

 ”We have hired a vehicle to spread the message that the station is getting functional. It’s no less than a festival for us and we are organizing a puja at the station. All passengers will get prasad,” said an elated villager, adding that the station will benefit people from other villagers as well.

 It all started about two years back, when the panchayat passed a resolution saying that since the Railways was not able to build a station for them, they would do it themselves. And with their own money. Soon, an 11-member ‘gram seva samiti’ was constituted and it started collecting money from villagers.

 ”Most of the 3,000-plus people living in the village are agriculturists. But such was the burning desire to have a station in the village, everybody contributed according to their capacity. Ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 75,000 they donated money for the station and we started construction in January, 2008,” said Ranjeet Singh, former village sarpanch.

“There are a large number of people in the village who need to go to Gurgaon, Delhi and Rewari. There are students who go to colleges. Till now we had to either go to Hailimandi or Patli to catch a train. Both stations are 6km away from Tajnagar. We thought that when the railway line passes through the village, we should have a station here. We have been raising the demand since 1982, but the Railways told us that they do not have funds. So, finally we decided to craft our own destiny,” said Hukum Chand, a member of the committee.

 The villagers then asked the Railways if it would agree to stop a few trains at the station if they constructed a station with their own resources. To their surprise, the Railways agreed to make seven passenger trains (in both directions) halt at the station if it was built according to its specifications.

 ”The Railways decided to make it a halt station because a number of people would benefit from it. Financially too, the idea looked viable,” said Anant Swaroop, Northern Railways spokesperson. He added that a station master and ticket collector had been appointed.

 The station, which took one year for completion, has two platforms. It has a kachcha platform, water and electricity, and a ticket counter. It would be inaugurated by Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjeet Singh. Villagers said as a skeleton station was ready now, they need the Railways’ help to make a concrete platform, a waiting room and an overhead shed.

Mrs Hermanstorfer with Coltyn

A FATHER is claiming a Christmas miracle after his wife and newborn baby apparently came back from the dead.Mike Hermanstorfer told how his wife Tracy went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing in a US hospital delivery room on Christmas Eve.Doctors performed an emergency caesarean section to try to save the baby’s life but then had to give Mr Hermanstorfer the heartbreaking news that his son had not survived either.As the father held his son in his hands, he felt the boy begin to move.And at the same time Mrs Hermanstorfer, 33, began to breathe again.”My legs went out from under me,” her husband said. “I had everything in the world taken from me and then, suddenly, everything given to me. It was the hand of God.”Doctors at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado, said there was no logical explanation for the recovery of the mother or her baby.”She was dead,” maternal foetal medicine specialist Dr Stephanie Martin said. “She had no heartbeat, no breathing, no blood pressure. She was as grey as her sweat suit and there were no signs of life.”The baby was basically limp with a very slow heart rate. We did a thorough evaluation and can’t find anything that explains why this happened.”Mr Hermanstorfer said his wife had begun to feel sleepy as she was being prepared for the delivery.Doctors and nurses began CPR in an attempt to restart her heart. Mr Hermanstorfer recalls a doctor telling him: “We have been unable to revive her and we’re going to take your son out.”They began a caesarean section to remove the baby and did not use anaesthetic on the assumption that the mother was dead.Some of the medical team stayed with Mrs Hermanstorfer to continue efforts to resuscitate her, while others began massaging baby Coltyn.Mrs Hermanstorfer said she recalled nothing of the incident. She plans to tell Coltyn about his birth when he is old enough to understand: “I’ll tell him that he had a tough time coming into this world; that he’s my miracle baby.”

NITISH KUMAR (Chief Minister-Bihar)

Bihar is India’s new miracle economy. In the five-year period between 2004-05 and 2008-09, Bihar’s GDP has grown by a stunning 11.03%, way beyond  the definition of 7% growth for a “miracle economy”.In this period, Bihar – traditionally a laggard state that actually saw a 5.15% negative growth in 2003-04 – is the second fastest growing state, just a shade behind Gujarat’s well-publicized growth of 11.05%.The latest CSO data gives out this dramatic story of Bihar on steroids. This high growth period also coincides with Nitish Kumar taking up the reins as chief minister from Lalu Yadav. It can, therefore, be said that good governance can work miracles for even the most backward of states. Not just Bihar, most of the traditionally backward states, including Orissa, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, have done well in this period, indicating a more inclusive growth at an all-India level.There is no official data on poverty beyond 2004-05. So, the CSO data on the economic growth of the states, highlighting the fact that five of India’s most backward states have grown at a rate beyond 7%, provides pointers to some kind of poverty mitigation. Apart from Bihar, the growth rate of the other four are: Uttarakhand 9.31%, Orissa 8.74% and Jharkhand 8.45%. The all-India growth during this period was 8.49%.

Here is a born survivor. A baby, born in a train toilet, slipped through the filthy discharge chute onto the tracks. The distraught mother flung herself from the speeding train in complete darkness to rescue her baby. They were both found a few minutes later, shaken but alive.This was the second time in one-and-a-half years, that such a miracle has taken place. On February 28, 2008, a newborn girl survived a fall from a train toilet in Gujarat. After toying with the names Jodhaa (valour) and Karishma (miracle), her parents named her Radha. Rinku Debi Roy and her husband Bhola haven’t decided on a name for their little braveheart yet.

A newborn girl, buried alive by her family Thursday morning, miraculously survived and is recovering in a hospital in Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. The two-day-old baby was rescued by a farmer on seeing her hand protruding from a pit in which she was buried by her maternal grandfather and his brother. The mother of the baby was also allegedly involved in the plot. The girl was buried at a deserted place about a kilometre from Otkur village of Mahbubnagar district, about 170 km of Hyderabad, but was rescued by the farmer, who was going on his tractor to the field. Doctors were surprised as to how the girl survived despite being under the pit for three to four hours. Police said that Abdul Raheem, the maternal grandfather of the girl, was feeling already burdened by his seven daughters including Mehrunnisa and fearing that he might not be able to take care of eighth girl in the family decided to kill the baby. He told police that the decision was taken with the consent of Mehrunnisa. This is the first child of 21-year-old Mehrunnisa, whose husband Abdul Ghani, a native of Maharashtra who had allegedly deserted her.

Habib Hussain

Habib Hussain of Moradabad, who hid in a toilet on an Air India flight from Saudi Arabia to return to his own country, says he did so for  his two children, his pregnant wife, and an ailing mother. After his bizarre experience, Habib says he has realised that `aadhi roti’ (half a piece of bread) at home is better than one in an alien land. He also said Indian labour is sold like cattle in that country. He had sold his two `bigha’ land for Rs 1.25 lakh and left behind just about Rs 11,000 for his family after paying the agent. He now tearfully says, “There was no point in staying in Saudi. I just had to return. My wife was two months pregnant when I left and will have a baby any time now. My family was hungry here; I was hungry there. I was better off earning Rs 80 a day and feeding my family rather than living on a promise of Rs 15,000-20,000 and not getting a paisa.

Akrit Jaswal

Akrit Jaswal (born April 23, 1993) is a Indian adolescent who has been hailed as a child prodigy who has gained fame in his native India as a physician, despite never having attended medical school. He gained fame for performing surgery at the age of seven.He is a Hindu Rajput of Jaswal clan from Himachal Pradesh India.
For full story click here
http://www.unp.co.in/f8/akrit-jaswal-the-genius-wonder-kid-36313/

Pratyush Nigam

Fifteen-year-old Pratyush Nigam from Hyderabad, despite suffering from a rare genetic disorder — spinal muscular atrophy — is a computer wizard. He became a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer when he was just nine. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi presents the National Child Award for exceptional achievement and a Gold Medal to Pratyush Nigam for his excellence in computing despite a rare genetic disorder.India’s exceptionally talented children, who were honoured with national awards, included the world’s youngest web designer, two Guinness record holders, a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer, an extraordinary sportsperson, artistes and budding scientists.

For full story click here http://www.thehindu.com/2009/02/06/stories/2009020660411200.htm

Gomukh temple,Mount Abu

Far from the throngs of tourists at Mount Abu, the only hill station in Rajasthan, a flame has continuously flickered in a deep valley for nearly 1,200 years. Legend says the sacred fire is burning since the days of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The place is called Gomukh, for the constant stream of water flowing through a marble-sculpted cow’s mouth. The 800 steps carved out into the valley in the Aravalli hills pass through a thick forest. The only sounds to be heard are from birds and animals as the area is part of a bear sanctuary, some of which even drink water from Gomukh.

Vimla Devi

From the outside, Vimla Devi is just another woman in mofussil India. The slender, talkative 39-year-old is self-reliant, earning just about enough to sustain her family. Her daughter is married and Vimla is already a grandmother. What”s more, this single mother of three is also a ward member in her village panchayat, having been elected unopposed to the post.Vimla at work in her stitching classroomFor Vimla, being a widow in a backwater society alone was reason enough to be socially ostracised. Adding to that was a stigma that ensures discrimination even in urban India”Vimla is HIV-positive.But that hasn”t deterred the HIV-infected widow and her Dibhar village in Bihar”s Gaya district from scripting a story of hope and victory.Vimla has been living with HIV since March 2002 when her husband Amar Dayal, a truck driver in Kolkata, succumbed to a prolonged “mysterious” illness. That was when Vimla, a Class VIII dropout, was diagnosed with the virus. Her youngest son Shakti, 10, also tested positive while Vishal, 16, and Riya, 19, tested negative.Though her in-laws did not discriminate against her, some of Vimla”s relatives did. “My husband”s death left me penniless and totally dependent upon my in-laws. My children were suffering too,” she recalls. It was then that she decided to break out of her despair and start life afresh. She gathered her meagre savings and set up a stitching training centre, the only skill she possessed. Using a poorly ventilated room in the village market, she taught a dozen girls the nuances of stitching clothes. Initially, she gave lessons for free; now she charges Rs 600 per pupil. The coin finally flipped for the better in 2006 when the entire village decided to back Vimla in the panchayat elections. Other women aspirants for the post were asked to withdraw their candidatures. Vimla won unopposed, personifying the extraordinary story of an ordinary woman.Today, Vimla still lives with her in-laws. Her HIV-infected son Shakti studies in the local school as does Vishal, thanks to the villagers who ensured their admission. Despite her suffering, Vimla has no regrets. Her only complaint is against local government authorities, “who have done precious little to ensure village development”. Her village still does not have electricity. For this woman of substance, a new fight has just begun.

Surekha Yadav

In her canary-yellow sari and gold earrings, with a pair of thin-framed spectacles perched on her nose, Surekha Yadav could be any woman stepping down from the train at Mumbai’s main railway station. But the 44-year-old mother-of-two stands out from the crowds on the platforms at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) as she doesn’t just travel on the trains — she drives them. Yadav was the first female passenger train driver on Mumbai’s Central Railways and has become a standard-bearer for women in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

Apart from being India’s first “motorwoman”, Yadav has also been part of the attempt to curb another problem: complaints about sexual harassment — or “eve-teasing” as it is known in India.