Marine Drive

During the launch of the Hindustan Times - Bhopal Live pages in the month of May 2000. After making various trips to parts of the historical and heritage and cultural sites in Bhopal, I thought of this picture when my then Resident Editor Askari H Zaidi was staying at the Ashok Lake view hotel atop a hilltop right next to the Bhopal Upper Lake. This view from his room gave me a feeling of as though I was in Mumbai looking at the most famous 'marine drive'. So I asked the staff of the hotel to take me to their terrace to have a look at the view and I took some sample shots during the day and made prints of them along with other important places. We had an open discussion on the place we should settle for so that our readers will accept the ad on of the Bhopal Live pages with their main edition of the Hindustan Times which was launched in February 2000. After a lot of hard thought the Resident Editor and me took a call even as some people said that this pictures will not be able to gel with what we want to say to our readers 'HT has arrived - with a local touch'.
So with the place and the venue finally decided I set about looking at the place every one hour to see the change in the light and finally I took a call that we do a late evening or a morning shoot.
So HT designer Manish Choure and me went to the Lake view Ashok had a few drinks with our RE and then went above the hotel terrace and kept taking pictures of the Bhopal Upper Lake with the 8 kilometers lit up stretch of road adjoining to it . Finally it happened in the early morning and I got the perfect lighting where I wanted of the whole photo filled with blue tint. The picture was published in the front page of Bhopal Live. The Hindustan Times got more than 1000 letters and mails from all over the lake city telling us that they have given every Bhopal resident a proud moment to stand up for.
The objective of Askari H Zaidi and mine was achieved after a week long of planning.