KALPETTA: “One should do the day’s duty on the day itself. Tomorrow is not yours. It is of the ages. But you need not be there for the morrow”. These lines are from an incomplete documentary namely ‘The Saint with the Camera’, on cameraman Vipin Das who died here a few weeks ago.
Directed by Ratheesh Vasudevan, the documentary delves deep into the psyche of the cameraman who embraced a saintly life at the acme of his career after completing 169 films in all major South Indian languages.
Life was not a big thing for Vipin Das. Nature and its changing colours are more precious to him.
“Do your duty in a perfect manner and leave the venue when your time ends,” he said. “Only the quality of work will survive, not the cap or the pompous dress you wear during shooting, he added.
In the documentary, he lays some outstanding perceptions on the art of filming.
“Filming is not only art. It is science too. It is chemistry, physics and mechanism. Film and film ‘processing and developing’ are the results of chemistry whereas lenses, cameras and other equipments are products of physics. Proper light and shade are the results of apt mechanism,” he pointed out. Early days of struggles were a matter of pride for Vipin Das. For countless days he toiled in the streets of Madras pursuing his dream.
“No one taught me photography. I learned it my own,” said Vipin Das. “The fame I earned later is the result of unmatched hardships I have gone through in the past,” he noted. Like Jesus Christ, Vipin Das has twelve disciples in the quest for better light and shade.
“All of them are great cameramen,” boasts Vipin Das.
He recalls his days in Miami Beach in USA for shooting ‘Ezamkadalinakkere’ where he met Stephen Spielberg.
He was young then. “Spielberg wondered on how we handle the camera sans any modern gadgets for measuring light and deciding filters for each shot.”
Vipin Das reached the district in pursuance of a dream. He wanted to film the changes occur in nature when one season give way to another. It was a few months ago Ratheesh started working on the documentary. He was preparing for the last shots when death came in calling Vipin Das.
It was early for those who knew him. But he knew his time has come. And he left leaving the best frames in the celluloid.
Ratheesh is planning to complete the documentary through memories of friends and relatives of Vipin Das.
