Locks and Doors in Ooty
This was part of an assignment given but we more or less had full creative and technical control. Well, no flash allowed but then, didn’t need it. We were shooting this toward the end of August and a couple of days before the assignment was handed out I finally got delivery of my bike. I had made the mistake of trusting a transport company to get me my bike. They excelled in their lack of professionalism and overall ineptitude.
However bike finally in hand I could combine exploring the tiny streets and by-lanes of Ooty with the assignment. It is fun to walk around in Ooty but it is tiresome always having the 5 kilogram bag with your camera, lenses and other accessories on your back. The locks and doors were all discovered while riding around Ooty except for the next one that I found while on a mini road trip to a village called Achanakkal. It’s hardly 5-6 kilometers from Lovedale.
While the main street passing through Achanakkal had modern doors and locks, a short walk through the village brought me to this specimen. Chipped paint in abundance and more rust than actual lock, I hope this door wasn’t guarding anything too valuable. Not that it would have mattered much given the crime rate here is phenomenally low. Since I was done with whatever I needed for the assignment I decided to move ride on ahead and explore.
I passed some schools whose buses I would regularly see around Lovedale and Ooty but nothing worthwhile. The road leads to Ketty, a place I seem to have developed a vehement distaste for since day one in Ooty. My first day here I took a local bus back to my place in Lovedale from Ooty town. As it turned out the bus was headed no where toward where I needed to be. I wasn’t too worried since it would still have to pass the the road leading to my place. I could always pick up another bus from there.
Imagine my consternation when the conductor refuses to have the bus stopped. Taking pity on me after I unsuccessfully tried convincing the conductor that we had already passed my stop a fellow passenger informed me that this was an express bus that stopped only between major villages and that the Lovedale Junction did not qualify. The conductor even refused to let me off the bus in the middle of the road. To add insult to injury he even charged me six bucks to ride the bus till Ketty, the next stop. Cursing everything possible I had to take a return bus back to Lovedale from Ketty and for all it’s worth left a bad taste in my mouth.
I don’t really hate the place nor do I hold any grudges against any public transport employee since as I settled into my new student life I discovered that people here are extremely courteous and helpful. An essential nicety without the goody goody vibe and having a simple thank you met with a completely unpretentious wave of the hand tends to make Ooty home to the rarest form of humanity.
A year in Ooty…it is not possible to do justice to this place with photographs. Hell it’s not enough to experience the place.