Journey To A Beautiful Life

so

till 2012 i was not having a phone with

me

of 2012 was the year when i got my first

second-hand smartphone samsung galaxy y

and the when i entered into this college

i explored the college so

this college is situated in a jungle

it’s a very old college

and we used to go from our hostel to our

to our classes

uh through those small small parts and

the life

the kind of loneliness is a very

negative word but

we used to go to our classrooms and the

life used to witness there

gave me so much creative ability to see

the world to explore myself

to explore my inner heart that i

actually realized

that this was the place where i wanted

to be during all these years maybe this

was the place which was making me

independent

so these are the photographs which i

started clicking through

samsung uh galaxy y from my first

smartphone

there was there was not any agenda in my

mind that i want to become a good

photographer

that i want to click photographs these

are the normal

like what you see in your daily life

these are the daily live photographs

the the photograph at the top is of the

new delhi railway station when i was

coming from

delhi to ranchi the below two

photographs are from ranchi where you’re

actually walking

up through a city or through the roads

of your college and you’re seeing

the the everyday life so these these

photographs are

from that place now i completed my

post-graduation during during my post

graduation in the year 2013

a friend of mine suggested me that

gursham when you

click photographs you upload them on

facebook why don’t you use instagram

so i told him that i’ve tried i’ve tried

it

once or twice but it’s quite complicated

to me

i don’t understand its interface so he

pushed me

he made me understand what instagram is

about the people about the community

that you get like-minded people over

there you see other people’s photographs

you got to learn a lot from them so i

finally came

to instagram and i started uploading

photographs over there

so like every other person every second

third person must have heard about old

delhi its culture

its people its everyday life i started

exploring old delhi

during my saturdays and sundays and i

was completely blown away

by the culture that place had completely

blown away

and that was the thing streets which i

was looking for all these years

so i i kind of understood my taste of

clicking photographs

and the kind of creativity i belong to

was clicking streets people culture

everyday life

so like basically these are the things

which happened on their own

i was not going i was not running after

them but these things

happened on their own one day i was

going through instagram and itc

group of hotels they conducted a

competition

in which they asked to upload a

photograph

and in return the price would be there

was this luxury instantly they were

conducting

so i uploaded one of my photographs and

the other day the manager called me

congratulating me that

you have been selected as uh one of the

guests

to attend this luxury insta meet and

what we were supposed to do

was to click photographs of that event

and whosoever

uh wins that event would get a two-night

stay in one of their hotels across india

so i did that

and i got the best instagram coverage

and in return

i not only got a two nights stay which i

later on

uh converted into a lunch for my family

because they were coming from london

so the manager he he kind of

gave me a proposal to come

with them to go with them to jodhpur so

in jodhpur

rajasthan international folk festival

happens every year in the month of

november or december i guess

so they asked me to to

kind of capture the whole event

rajasthan international folk festival

through my photographs and they were

supposed to feature those photographs

on their website so this was the first

thing when i realized

that the thing which i’m doing for my

passion is actually

giving me something in return which i’m

actually enjoying it right

till now i have not left my job i was

not giving any extra efforts i was not

giving any extra time

i was just doing it during my weekends

and

it actually gave me an assignment with

such a prestigious

such a wonderful company itc group of

hotels

later on same like social social media

is something

which gives you a lot in return while

scrolling one day

there was this competition through the

national geographic channel

in which they were supposed to select 20

people across india

who would become a part of a walk

in which 20 people from different genres

would come together

and explore a place these people would

decide

so this national geographic channel they

asked me to put my instagram handle

on their facebook page i did that

and the day i was leaving early from my

office

i saw this notification in my mobile

phone saying that

the national geographic channel

commented on your post

so i thought that maybe these these

people are stupid it must be a spam

comment or something

when i went to their page it was the

official national geographic channels

page

and i was actually selected as one of

the 20 people

to to become a part to become a part of

them

so like with these things uh

when these things came into the picture

of my life

i decided that i won’t waste my

saturdays and sundays

or like partying around or doing this

and that

i thought that maybe i can i can

channelize my saturdays and sundays

in a very productive way because i love

traveling to different places that was

the thing for me

i started exploring different places

which could be covered overnight you

know

if i if i leave on a friday late night i

can come back on a monday morning so the

places

were like agra pushkar banaras there are

a number of places in rajasthan

in which where which you can actually

travel there on a friday night and you

can come

on a monday morning so i made this so

this was an agenda for me

this was a driving force for me that i

do not have to leave this thing from my

from my life and i would take this thing

a bit further then this was this

photograph

a left left corner was featured in times

of india

and one of their competitions so like i

used to

research a lot what kind of competitions

are there uh

what kind of chances are there in which

i can get visible

and these these things are not basically

i’m not

boasting about my achievements but still

they they kind of

motivate me a lot to to go a bit more

further

and explore more and more options

then one day uh i was coming back from

my office

and i got a call from a cnn

international

uh paying interest in india

and they selected a bunch of people

maybe around five or six of them

and they wanted to they wanted to

portray

india as a cultural place and they

wanted to draft an article in which they

can tell about india’s culture

through some photographs and our

experiences as travellers

so they they told me that it’s not final

we are not finalizing you yet

but we want to learn something about

banaras because there was a place i used

to visit every year

and they asked me some questions about

banaras about

what we call paan about

the ganga the holy ganga and

so they they kind they finally featured

uh on this article with the highlight

scene

india through the eyes and lenses of

instagram users

and my kind of verbal

note was drafted here along with some

photographs

from three different places the

above above ones are from banaras and

along with rajasthan in calcutta

then as i’ve already mentioned my dream

about apple

it’s it’s still my dream it it has not

been fulfilled yet

my dream that maybe someday i’ll get

featured on their banner billboard

then uh i guess one and a half months

before

diwali i received an email from like

from the official apple people

california

uh saying that they want to portray

india’s

brightest festival called diwali and

they are considering

maybe maybe a bunch of maybe like around

10 people

in which the theme was light so they

wanted to define diwali through light

and they were seeking photographs for

the same so

i guess i was having around eight to

nine thousand photographs in my phone

and i gave them around 120 photographs

like all the photographs

which had kind of an a light element to

it

right so maybe after a week i got a call

from their singapore office saying that

their creative director from singapore

he wants to talk to me and he kind of

gave me a very honest feedback that guru

simran we really like your work from the

very first day

you have been uh participating in our

community briefs

so the kind of photographs you have sent

they do depict light but our main focus

is india’s brightest festival diwali

so this was the photographs which by

mistake i did not send them

i again searched my whole around roughly

around 9000 photographs

and after that it took around a month

for them to shortlist this and i guess

three days before diwali i got a mail

that finally your

photograph would be featured on apple

and on the day of diwali

so apple featured six photographers

from india and my photograph was one of

them so

[Music]

talking about the dream of getting

featured on a billboard that was kind of

40 percent complete

still it’s 60 percent left so i still

believe that there is a lot to

explore as a traveler as

a creative person as

like looking into photographs there’s a

lot to explore

now in today’s world solo traveling is a

very cliche

it’s a very cliche term people they pack

their bag they they click photographs

they quit their jobs and then they call

themselves as a solo traveler they call

themselves as wanderers

and they they kind of boast about it and

then

maybe after a month or two they they

seek different companies

should approach them give them

assignments so that they can earn

they ask help from their friends from

the parents that they want to travel

so i don’t understand this concept from

the very beginning

so so like this is my like the main

thing that i want to communicate today

is

that if you are doing a job if you’re

doing a monday to friday regular job

still you can pursue your passion still

you can pursue your passion

and solo traveling does not mean that

you have to quit your job

you have to quit your monday to friday

thing you have to go penniless and then

you are becoming a solo traveler solo

traveling

for me maybe it it means

a lot to me maybe i understand my heart

a lot better

which i don’t understand during my

monday to friday job

i don’t understand during my normal days

my normal life

going solo means you’re actually

learning a bit more about yourself where

you’re heading in your life

what you want to do what kind of dreams

you want to pursue

so for me solo travelling is is

something

very pure i would say so this photograph

is one of the trips i made in 2017 in

the month of june

to kerala so i always wanted to explore

kerala’s monsoon

so this photograph was one of them

so i met so what what comes with solo

travelling

i was going to this place called lep

then i met a guy through instagram he

he messaged me saying brother i want to

meet you i met him along with his friend

and there we decided to do a roller uh

to do a road trip

from lp to walmart it’s in tamil nadu

so these are some memories from there

then i also

got a chance to visit rashtrapati bhavan

this was the very first time

when rashtrapati bhavan allowed some

people

to document their place

through photographs so facebook india

along with instagram india

they kind of i guess selected around

seven people

oh and they asked us to document

rashford like

maybe through our vision and this

photograph was one of them

i purchased the gopro just to experiment

though that that this is not my cup of

tea this is not my cup of taste

and again these things are very

motivating when you

experiment when you give something

something you know kind of

you give certain kind of inputs to your

traveling

and this photograph from rajasthan

pushkar

it won a gopro worldwide award and

it was featured on gopro.com website

so like these these things motivate me a

lot to travel more and more and more

and pursue my passion and getting an

answer from these things is that

i’m not doing anything wrong i’m not

wasting my time here and there

so like this is one of the

those moments then this is one

photograph which got uh

featured by discovery channel in india

on their instagram page

uh from jama masjid old daily

of an evening

now a lot of people ask me maybe

uh obviously all of you will get a job

one day

and a question comes if we pursue our

passion

how how how it pays us right

so since the time uh around 2015 when i

got recreated

recruited into excel a lot of

companies approach people like me there

there are hundreds and thousands of

people in india

who call who tagged themselves as

influencers

as social media influencers so different

companies can contact you

for photographs right and in return they

pay you well

so these are some of the photographs

which i did for some brands

now like these are kind of my personal

suggestions

of understanding your style if someone

wants to become a photographer

he or she should understand their style

if someone wants to click photographs he

or she

should understand their style of work

their style of heart

their style of vision their style of

taste it’s not that if you want to

become a popular photographer

or you you go into wildlife though your

john ray street so

like that will be a huge blunder these

are

kind of some brands with whom i’ve

worked so far

these are some names one plus cairoli

asus so these kind of these people kind

of give me for example

a lot of phone companies over here they

give me phones to review their phone

through photographs

i upload them on my social media

channels they get a sufficient reach

and i get paid well this is how if you

talk about solo travelling expenses this

is how

i along with my day job which which

actually obviously pays me

i get to earn a bit a bit more through

these things this photograph was

featured by

the canon imaging asia

then through solo traveling you can

actually

not only visit just your own country you

can’t

just explore your own country you got to

visit different countries through

tourism boards so this is through

singapore tourism board

they take a kind of people who can click

photographs

who can tell stories through photographs

and so this is from singapore tourism

board

rest all is from visual supply company

that’s

the first application which got

introduced for an iphone

to edit their photographs and they have

a prestigious gallery

in which they curate photographs from

all over the world

and so a couple of photographs

are there which got featured over there

so to sum up uh what my

take for the new future is that i don’t

want to leave my job

even if you’re doing a day job even if

you’re doing a monday to friday job

you can actually continue your passion

you just have to channelize your free

time you just have to channelize your

creativity

and understand yourself better thank you