Remembering Ashok Mehta

Amit Ashar tells Raj Lalwani about his fond memories of the legendary cinematographer, and how photographing Ashok Mehta, for him, was part remembrance and part eulogy.

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There is a moment in the opening few minutes of Gulzar’s Ijaazat, when an oblivious Naseeruddin Shah comes face to face with his former wife, Rekha. They are on a railway platform, right outside a waiting room, a passing train, casting a fleeting rhythm of light and shadow that envelopes the delicate tentativeness of meeting an estranged lover, unexpectedly. A visual can actually move us to such an extreme degree, and it was several years ago when I saw the movie for the first time that I realised the same. If there is poetry in every situation that Gulzar writes, there was poetry in every frame that lingered. I hadn’t met Ashok Mehta at that time, but after that, I never looked at images the same way.