Trending work
What people are watching
YouTubeThe man who rebuilt a cinema in Bhuj1.4M views
ReelThree days with a brass worker in Moradabad892K views
YouTubeWhy this family still prints by hand2.1M views
ReelThe last clockmaker on the street640K views
YouTubeA week inside a working loom shed978K views
ReelChai, at 4am, with the night shift1.1M views
The numbers
Reach, in plain figures
About
Who is behind the camera
I started filming in Jalandhar in 2019 with a borrowed camera and a question nobody seemed to be asking: who keeps the old trades alive, and what does their day actually look like. Seven years on, the channel is still that. I shoot long form on YouTube and short pieces on Instagram, mostly in Hindi, sometimes in English, always on location.
My story
How this started
The first film took four months and eleven minutes of usable footage. I had no lights, no second camera and no idea what I was doing, and the man I was filming, a sixty year old letterpress printer, kept asking when I would be finished so he could get back to work.
What changed was not the equipment. It was learning to stay longer. Now I spend three or four days with someone before the camera comes out at all, and the films are better for it. The trades are disappearing faster than anyone writes down, and a film is a way of writing it down.
Brands that work with me get the same thing the films get: time, and a reason for being there. I turn down most of what comes in, and the ones I say yes to usually run for months rather than a single post.
Stay long enough and people stop performing. That is where the film is.
What I am building
Where this is going
The next things on the list, and where a hand would help.
One million on YouTube
The channel is close. Every film shared is a film someone else finds, and I would like to reach it with the same kind of work rather than a different kind.
A proper sound kit
Location audio is the weakest part of what I make. A better kit means the interviews hold up on a television rather than only on a phone.
A course on documentary basics
Framing, interviewing and editing for people starting out with a phone. Free for anyone in a government college.
Join the waiting listA second pair of hands
Looking for an editor in or near Punjab who cares about this kind of work and wants to grow with the channel.
Write to me
Collaborations
Brands I have worked with
- Fujifilm India
- Royal Enfield
- Zomato
- Paper Boat
- Tata Tea
- Bajaj Finserv
Gallery
On location
Writing
In my own words
- The man who rebuilt a cinema in BhujThe projector had not turned for nineteen years when I met Hasmukh bhai. He had kept the key in his shirt pocket the whole time, which tells you most of what you need to know…Read
- What I carry, and what I stopped carryingFor three years I travelled with two camera bodies, four lenses, a slider and a drone. I used the slider twice. Now it is one body, two lenses and a recorder, and the films are…Read
- On staying longerEverybody performs for the first hour. The second hour is when they start checking whether you are still filming. Somewhere in the third, they forget. That is the whole method…Read