The man who shot terror's ugly face

Seven years ago, the teenager fled Assam and came to Mumbai to escape the extremist insurgencies and daily killings in his home state.

But on Monday, August 25, K K Choudhary, a tourist photographer at the Gateway of India, found himself face to face with the ugly face of terrorism once again.

The man who shot to fame with his pictures of the gory aftermath of the bomb blast outside the Taj Mahal hotel, clicked just moments after the explosion, says, "My hands are still shivering. My heart is still aching. I could not sleep last night, as the bloody images kept coming back."

Choudhary, now 24, loved being a tourist photographer at the Gateway, a livelihood he took up after failing to land a job in any of the many studios he visited. He shot pictures of happy couples standing outside the memorial, sometimes a child playing with his parents on the pavement with the regal, century-old Taj Mahal hotel in the background.

"I loved my job," he says, "and made a decent Rs 7,000 a month." The young man also does freelance work for local entertainment and event management companies.

Life, he says, has been good ever since he migrated to Mumbai in 1996. "I was always happy that I didn't see any violence on the streets of Mumbai," he explains.

He had the usual immigrant dream: making it big in the city of dreams. But he never dreamt he would become famous for so gory and violent a reason.

That is why Monday, August 25, will always be a black day for K K Choudhary. "I have become famous because of my pictures," he says, "but believe me, I never felt good while shooting those pictures."

Choudhary takes out a bundle of national and regional newspapers and displays them. "Look at these two men soaked in blood sitting on the ground." There is another picture of a man carrying a young boy in his arms and running to a taxi.

"Look at this man lying on the ground and another coming towards him to see if he is dead or alive. I felt like crying when I shot these pictures. My hands trembled with fear. But I was just doing a job, of letting people know the ugly face of terrorism.

"I just didn't know what was happening. There was blood everywhere. I saw some people jump into the sea to save themselves. It was complete chaos. For a second I felt this place has become worse than Assam."

Choudhary, who hails from a respectable family -- his father is employed by the Indian Railways while his uncles are teachers -- says his pictures have made his parents and family proud of him.

As he speaks, he again flashes all kinds of newspapers, ranging from the Marathi Loksatta to papers in other regional languages. "Look at these pictures," he says. "I had never seen such horror in my life.

"These were my tourists who had come to enjoy the scenes at the Gateway of India and they could never go back. I only hope such incidents are not repeated."

But Choudhary himself is set on Mumbai, never mind the disaster he has seen so close up. "I do not want to leave," he says. "I want to continue working here. This is the only city where scars of violence and bloodshed are forgotten overnight and people go about their jobs."

Just then his cell phone rings. A news agency wants to buy some of his photographs.

Photographs: K K Choudhary