I once saw the sun, but not anymore

As Bangalore metamorphosed from a farming community to a tech-savvy metropolis, out ability to view the solar orb from every roof top in the city soon diminished

On most occasions interacting with old friends from the same fraternity is an enriching experience. During one such discussion a friend asked me if today’s photographer had the wherewithal to capture a sunrise or sunset, as his compatriot could back in the 70s and 80s? I shook my head in the negative.

As Bangalore metamorphosed from a farming community to a tech-savvy metropolis, out ability to view the solar orb from every roof top in the city soon diminished. As realtors and those flogging an Icarus agenda reached for the sky, the city’s skyscape was soon blotted out by concrete giants.

My mind meandered back to childhood days when I watched the sun rise and set from my Baldwin Boy’s School hostel window. Later on, in the 80s and 90s, I would sit on the banks of Ulsoor Lake, along with many victims of Cupid’s arrow, and watch the setting sun.

It was during one of these pensive moments that I captured an image of the sun setting ‘neath the horizon. It may have made the front page, but when I was asked by the editor to shoot another ‘city connect’ picture with a touch of twilight in it, I was nervous. In the 80s the era of the all-colour newspaper was just a glint in a publisher’s eye. I was stumped as to how I was going to get the twilight spectrum conveyed through greyscale.

I left the office at 5.15pm and wandered the streets looking for that definitive, and far too often, elusive, picture. At last, around 6pm when I reached Ulsoor Lake I photographed a couple in a paddle boat, with the setting sun looming over them like a protective saint. It was good enough for me, and thankfully, good enough for my editor too.

Years later, when I returned to the city after a series of jaunts that took me across the country, I returned to Ulsoor Lake. I was hoping to capture the past in the setting sun, and in doing so return to the less frenetic roots of the photographer. But where once I could see the lake sprawled, glistening, before me, I now had concrete behemoths blocking the last rays of a sun bidding us its daily farewell. The colours were still there, the vibrancy still pulsed, but it was no longer seen by any mortal. It was now meant for the stone guardians of the city. I realised then, that in the new Bangalore, nature’s colours would only be appreciated in memory.

I return home and reach for my old photographs, they show a city I once knew and still love. My memories are intact, my son, however, will just have to take my word for it.