Cinematographer Hemant Chaturvedi’s “peculiar relationship” with his profession began somewhere post 2000, when he made his transition from television to the movies. This was the time when Chaturvedi had, unbeknownst to himself, become a tour de force, spearheading projects, which would set the tone for new age storytelling in Bollywood. There was Ram Gopal Varma’s Company (2002), followed that same year by Vishal Bhardwaj’s children’s horror comedy Makdee and Maqbool (2004). Aparna Sen’s critically-acclaimed National Award-winning 15 Park Avenue (2005), which explored the relationship between a young woman suffering from schizophrenia and her divorced sister, came soon after.

Despite such an enviable oeuvre that only grew with time, Chaturvedi’s relationship with cinematography became more and more complicated. “That eventually culminated in me taking a decision to move on,” he shares. “I realised that the nature of the beast was such that it went against my fundamental [values], and that I was not going to change. I, for some reason, came to be known as the enfant terrible of cinematography.” Looking back, he thinks such a narrative suited many in an industry that was becoming cut-throat. “And so, for someone like me, who was not a competitive person, work became scarce,” he adds. “I remember having to wait for two or three years for my next offer. This was absurd. It’s a horrible feeling to wait for your next job—never knowing when it’s going to come to you. You end up not doing so many other good things, because you do not want to start that in case something else turns up.” After a lot deliberation, Chaturvedi decided to call it quits in 2015—the poor box-office run of the Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra-starrer Brothers, produced by Dharma Productions, cemented this decision.