Goodbye Guruji, Pradeep Bandekar

'I want to die with my finger on the click button of the camera,' veteran photographer Pradeep Bandekar, who passed into the ages early on Sunday morning told Syed Firdaus Ashraf last week.

The first time I met Pradeep Bandekar was when we started Rediff On The Net (as it was called then) in February 1996.

Pradeep used to come on his motorcycle with photographs of film actors and actresses to our 1,000 square feet office at Boman House, south Mumbai.

He would ask us to select the ones we liked and then my colleagues would scan it and publish on the Web site for our Entertainment section.

In those days, e-mail services had not started in India, so sending pictures on mail was out of the question.

Hotmail was just born and Rediffmail was in the womb, about to be delivered.

Internet connections were painfully slow with dial-up modems making strange noises to connect you to the online world.

Surfing text was a pain and seeing pictures online on computers was worse because of the slow download speed.

Beating all odds, Pradeep would travel on his motorbike from Film City in the far flung suburbs and various film studios to deliver photographs on time.

His daily routine was fixed: He would click pictures during the movie shoots. Then, get them printed at a photo lab and then rush to the Rediff On The Net office to give us the prints.

In those days, I would often ask him how he managed to do this for the last 15 years non-stop and his standard reply would be: 'Mehnat ke baigair kuch nahi hota duniya mein (without hard work, nothing works in the world).'

Then, he revealed the mantra of his success, 'Yahan jo dikhta hai woh bikta hai (The one who is seen, sells). If you are not seen in the field, you will be out of work.'

A staunch believer in Hindu philosophy, Pradeep would be ready with Sanskrit shlokas and one-liners to explain the complex relations of the film world.

I once asked him did he think Sanjay Dutt's love affair with Rhea Pillai would last (this was before they got married).

In those days, Dutt was on bail from TADA court and was dating Rhea.

Pradeep replied, it all depends on Sadhe Sati.

I asked him what that meant.

He explained that a man and woman are in difficult phases for the first 7.5 years of their relationship, and that was especially true for Sanjay Dutt.

He said that any woman who would be able to hold Dutt's interest for more than 7.5 years, he would be loyal to her all his life.

Bingo! How right he was when I see Maanyata Dutt with Sanjay Dutt now.

I told him once I was feeling bad that my favourite actor Govinda's career was stalled.

He told me not to feel sorry for Govinda because the actor had brought himself to that situation.

Indiscipline and not reaching sets on time had put Govinda in the situation where he was then.

'Kaam ko tum aaj izzat nahi dongey toh kaam tumko kal izzat nahi dega (If you don't respect work today, work will not respect you tomorrow),' he had said.

Comparing Govinda with Amitabh Bachchan, Pradeep had said, 'See Bachchansaab's timing. He is never late, even for press conferences. If he is told to report by 7 am on the sets, you will find him at 7 am.'

'The film industry and life is like that: Chadte sooraj ko salaam, dhalte sooraj ko alvida (Salute actors who are like the rising sun and goodbye to actors whose career is like the sunset).'

The actor Pradeep admired the most was Shah Rukh Khan, and always keep his photograph of SRK hugging him on his WhatsApp profile picture.

He felt no other actor before Shah Rukh Khan had the vision to make more money out of his acting career.

'Shah Rukh Khan never felt ashamed to go and dance in weddings to earn money or model for products which were considered a taboo,' Pradeep had said.

With numerous television channels and social media influencers getting invited to media events, Pradeep felt sad about the way movie events had changed in his final years.

'Mazaa nahi reh gaya kaam mein (There's no fun in work any more),' he would say.

'There was a personal rapport with actors in our time. Now, just click pictures and go. A sad future for film photographers.'

Last week, Pradeep called me and we spoke about the good old days of the Internet and how lucky he was that his family responsibilities were over and that he was in the best phase of his life.

Did he have any more wishes?

'I want to die with my finger on the click button of the camera.'

God fulfilled his wish.

Goodbye Guruji, Pradeep Bandekar.