Frozen frame
I first met Prabuddha Dasgupta in the mid 90s. And I have never met anyone like him since then. He was one of the most impressive personalities that I have met in my life. His close cut hair (often he kept it long as well), the way he spoke, the way he rolled his own cigarettes, his general air of casual attitude combined with his rather warm, yet strong demeanour was striking enough to make him stand out in a crowd.

The perfectionist: Prabuddha Dasgupta
After a few interactions I have decided that he resembled Harrison Ford. For the last decade or so, I started addressing him as Indiana Jones or as Harrison Ford and he would always smile and say, “I take that as a compliment!” When I met him again recently, he said jokingly, “I am converting myself into Al Pacino now…”
He gave me one of his best interviews while I was working with my earlier publication. He spoke about his entire life… both personal and professional while sitting at his Nizamuddin East house. It took him some time to open up… but after a few cups of tea and few smokes, he was ready to talk… and he talked.

Lakshmi Menon on Marie Claire May cover
And the joke did not end there. About a couple of months back, my wife Neena who edits Marie Claire magazine told me she was off to Goa to shoot for her cover. She told me Prabuddha was shooting. So, when she took off from Delhi, I sent a text message to Prabuddha saying, “I heard you are going to meet my wife Neena in Goa?” After some time I got a call from him. “Yeah I am meeting her… in fact all of them are waiting for me and I am just finishing my hair cut… let me hurry,” he laughed.

Prabuddha Dasgupta asked the Goan football team to play for an hour in the sweltering heat for the perfect shot.
Later, Neena told me how much of a perfectionist he was while shooting. She told me Prabuddha used the Goan football team along with his muse Lakshmi Menon for the shoot and he wanted the team to be panting and sweating like sportsmen after a game. Instead of spraying water and making them look sweating, he asked them to play for an hour in the sweltering heat around two in the afternoon… and shot the images… no fancy gadgets, no poloroids… everything was in his mind…Prabuddha just shot as he saw…
But then, that’s what he was, all his life. He did what he felt was best and it always worked for him. He was reticent yet fearless, perfectionist yet polite and of course epitome of success, yet feet always on the ground…
I will always miss him as a friend and a fine professional.
Hindustan Times



kanishka Reply:
December 24th, 2012 at 12:46 am
Hey Taqiyyebaaz, stop spreading lies and twisting the history.
In 1193, the Nalanda University located in Eastern India was sacked by an Islamic fanatic Bakhtiyar Khilji; this event is seen by scholars as a late milestone in the decline of Buddhism in India. Khilji is said to have asked if there was a copy of the Koran at Nalanda before he sacked it in fire.
“The Persian historian Minhaj-i-Siraj, in his chronicle the Tabaquat-I-Nasiri, reported that thousands of monks were burned alive and thousands beheaded later as Khilji tried his best to uproot Buddhism and plant Islam by the sword in that part of India; the burning of the library continued for several months and the “smoke from the burning manuscripts hung for days like a dark pall over the low hills.”
Do you want me to write about Takhshila (Taxila), the second seat of Buddhism and the oldest university of the universe, now in Pakistan?
[Reply]
ehgrich Reply:
December 24th, 2012 at 1:29 am
In 1193, the Nalanda University located in Eastern India was sacked by an Islamic fanatic Bakhtiyar Khilj
now brhmns are using state machinary to kill muslims those days they were using state power to finish budhdhists.ayodhya prayag kashi were all built by budhdhist.after their defeat they were converted into vedic teples.nalanda was very dangerous for vedics as budhdhism teaches equality.which is nemesis of hinduism.
u people are expert liars and twist the history.vedic temples of those days are still standing in nalanda.brhmns were the chief advisors of muslim rulers.they were the mind of state.
[Reply]
ehgrich Reply:
December 24th, 2012 at 1:37 am
that thousands of monks were burned alive
burning alive is hindu art of killing people.before arrival of muslims in india also brhmns physically liqyidated budhdhists in same manner.nalanda operation was taken at behest of brhmn advisors of ruler.TELL ME ANYWHERE BRHMNS CONDEMNED THIS ACTION.
PLS GIVE ME THE NAME OF ONE UNIVERSITY,ROAD OR HOSPITAL BUILT BY VEDICS DURING THEIR 3000 YEAR RULE..
ADMI KO JAHIL RAKHTE THE AUR BHAGWAN BECHTE THE.
VEDIC PERIOD IS THE DARKEST PERIOD OF INDIAN HISTORY.
[Reply]
Sha Reply:
December 24th, 2012 at 3:31 am
Burning alive is forbidden in Islam. If someone did that then he was not Muslim but a Hindu by Muslim name. So again u burned Nalanda not Muslims.
[Reply]
Roy Reply:
December 24th, 2012 at 8:14 am
@ sha.. few days ago a person was burnt alive in Pakistan as fanatic mass thought he has burnt Quran.