That's a lot of travelling in a month, which is one of the perks of my job. Don't I completely love it... 3 weeks in Leh has been the most amazing time i've spent close to nature and to think of it I am a complete city person.
The first thing which struck me about Leh was its abundant natural beauty. Imagine watching snow clad mountains covered in fog from your bathroom window while having a shower every morning or driving to bazgo village everyday (my set) through a narrow road in between the huge mountains or through the Indus and Zanskar river beds or passing the huge army cantonment at nimoo village which looked straight out of a war movie. It is unreal!
The next thing which comes as a great suprise is the local people. They are by far the sweetest and most helpful people i've met in a long time. So untouched by commercialism and so very naive for their own good. Michael, Jimmy, Anees, Saleem, the entire staff at Rafica, the monks at Spituk, the people at the bazaar,the kids at bazgo, the old man at the army store.
But most importantly, Leh will be a place where I shot nearly the entire 2 half of h-e-d. A time when i got closer to my unit, learnt a great deal, worked with some good techicians (Raju Khan, Rajiv), did some good work and had a very smooth and good working equation with everyone on set.
Coming back to Mumbai for a couple of days was probably not the greatest idea as I fell terriblly sick and carried that to Manali, Kalka and Shimla. Shot only for half a day at the Kalka station and all I rememeber of Manali and Shimla is the time i spent sleeping in my hotel and maybe the one odd time i got out to visit the Mal road or catch 'Partner' at Ravoli in Shimla. Shimla i found to be the most commercial and unplanned hill station. It has hotels all around and is quite ugly. Maybe we were destined not to climax there (shoot our climax scene) and that is something we have carried forth from our long sched.
Its been couple of days that i've been back and gosh, I feel I deserve a vacation already. Till we climax!
