living and loving the life of a photographer

I can't imagine how any social event that runs all night long can actually pull in huge crowds year after year. In that sense, the Fireflies Festival of Music, from dawn to dusk beside a languid lake beyond the back of Bangalore's beyond, defies my imagination. Once again, we Bangaloreans have lived up to our reputation to do by night what the world does by day—making sales pitches, running marathons, and rocking to folk music. Despite being a huge fan of sleep (a metabolic state, not a grunge band), I made the arduous journey to Fireflies ashram in godforsaken Dinnepalya. I was about two hours late, and just in time for the show to begin.

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Fireflies is designed to defeat photographers. The lighting environment isn't exactly a blessing. Harsh stage lights with blackness for backdrop makes our lives less lovable. The seating environment is a definite curse. The stone seats of the amphitheatre seemed to turn colder and harder as the hours wear away. Enjoying a night of music under a banyan tree sounded like fun, except that we were squarely within the shitting field of every critter perched up there. Several hours into the show and I wasn't happy with what I was getting.

Then Bonnie Chakraborty, lead singer of Oikyotaan and a regular at Fireflies, came up on stage and made an astute observation. He said Fireflies is Bangalore's answer to Woodstock, which was a fantastic comparison to evoke because Woodstock, in my mind, was as much a historical event for photographers as it was for musicians. If Bangalore could stake any claim at all to some emerging counterculture, no matter how nascent, then its proponents were sitting on their hurting arses there that night.

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So it had finally dawned upon me (pun unintended for it was nearing 6am) that Fireflies for the photographer was not about musicans. It was about the audience—their hair, their attire, and the way they light up their smoke. Five years from now, would it look the same?

By the way, in case you were wondering, I thoroughly enjoyed the music and can't wait for next year!