Leaving Agra

We are leaving Agra,

this city of four million people in India,

to which people come to see the Taj Mahal.

We’ve done that,

but now we’re on the road, leaving town…

Three men on a motorbike.

Then a family of four,

the youngest a toddler, sitting on the rider’s lap,

holding the handlebars inside his hands.

Women in saris elegantly step

on and off other motorbikes, side-saddle.

A chromed Royal Enfield,

with horizontal crash-bars

like Shiva’s three stripes

glints in the sun.

Roadside stalls with

watermelons and limes,

bananas and lemons,

lot of tiny pumpkins,

and a cart with a man selling pink lemonade.

Food stalls call attention to themselves

with a shiny array of six speakers —

big, blunderbuss mouthpieces like giant trumpets.

A bicycle pulls a homemade trailer

sky-high with sixty cartons of bottled lemonade

(I counted)

and old rod-brake bicycle on its centre-stand

its back rack piled with the neatly folded,

multicoloured rectangles of fabric.

Terracotta pots of all sizes.

It is an ancient tapestry of

commerce and community and eternal optimism.

PHOTO TIPS

+ Don’t be afraid to take pictures through the coach window. If you can place your phone camera on the glass (and it isn’t double glazed), you won’t get reflections.

+ Either allow for tinted glass by adjusting exposure (it is usually around +2/3, in my experience) or fix later.

+ Adjust any colour imbalance to the colour tint (often blue) in the glass.

+ Sometimes you are better shooting at an angle — but try to make sure there is no reflection it.

+ There is “lag” — so be thoroughly familiar with what your phone camera lens is “seeing”, and then look ahead of the coach to see what’s coming.

+ Anticipate the picture.

+ You will find your timing improves with practice.

+ For good videos going slowly through small towns and villages, place your phone on the glass and just record — but make sure the phone is level. Turn on its grid/level in Settings to do this.