People Places Art & Culture

As I stood outside the Jahangir Art Gallery on a cloudy June afternoon, searching for art work usually displayed by armatures on the pavement art gallery, I heard a voice behind saying - ‘its shut’. Not sure if those words were meant for me I turned back to find a dark man, sitting on the parapet with twinkling eyes and a bright set of teeth. Smiling at me he said, ‘The pavement gallery is shut due to the monsoons’.
This is how I first come across Patrick – a Mumbai born and bred, Goan photographer. Little idea did I have that I would be spending the next couple of hours checking out his portfolio of work and sipping hot chai at the ‘samovar’ canteen of Jahangir.
Pat loves capturing poses and printing them in just black & white. From the Naga sadhus of the Kumbh mela to the hippies whom he met at the Anjuna flee market of Goa.
Untamed and amorphous, Pat is like a free bird who has always lived life in his own terms. Attributes which every city dweller working in a MNC through Monday to Friday, likes to associate with on a weekend or over a holiday! But every profession has its own merits & demerits. Making a living through selling photographs is not as easy as drawing a salary at a corporate job at the end of every month. Happy-go-lucky, creative and eccentric – Pat epitomizes the philosophy of taking life with a pinch of salt. He is an immense source of inspiration to somebody like me who never had the courage to pursue a carrier that your heart says a ‘yes’ but mind says a ‘no’ to.
My dream of becoming an artist and yet not striving hard enough to take it up professionally, due to the uncertainty that this field projects in terms of establishment and financial stability, seemed so immaterial when evaluated with respect to the ‘joie di vivre’ that Pat symbolizes. He is my motivation behind picking up a brush and dabbing colors on a canvas after all these years. He is my hero, a local encounter that changed my life.