I have not been a morning person for the last ten years of my life. There are only two reasons why I will wake up early in the morning, one if I have an early morning shoot and two if I am travelling. Nothing else in the world has ever motivated me to wake up happy and see the early morning sun, though I have heard so many praises about it. This time when we were in Bagan in Myanmar, we had heard a lot about the beautiful morning sunrise view from the top of a temple and we decided to shoot it. I knew that sunrise would be a sunrise with the sky filled up different hues of orange, didn’t expect anything much different from this one. So, in the morning, I pushed myself out of bed, drank two cups of coffee to wake myself up at 4am and got ready to witness the sunrise after a long time, after many years to be precise. We packed our camera equipment and drove to the spot and climbed on top of the tallest temple and waited with bated breath and sleepy eyes.

As the first rays of the sun hit the landscape, it was beautiful orange dawn against the silhouette of black. And then the sun rose a bit more and then the drama began unfolding. It was a completely surreal scene. There were layers of different shades of yellow light against the silhouette of the temples, and as the sun kept on rising slowly, the colour kept changing. There was this one point where everything seemed out of a storybook, it was completely magical. I felt as if I was in some fairyland. The sun, the sky, the layers of fog, a misty touch, faded yellow colour, the temples and silence with few birds chirping here and there, yes, I was mesmerised. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. I transfixed my gaze, I didn’t want that moment to get over anytime soon. It filled my heart with overwhelming joy. As the sun rose slowly the landscape began to change, it was a different painting every minute. Everything around me disappeared and it was just me and that beautiful sunrise. It made me think about the beauty that is abounds in nature, how nature is the most beautiful thing in this world, every aspect of it, the colours, the imperfection, the sounds, there is so much inspiration out there in nature. That moment of beauty which inspired me lasted for exactly 10 minutes and then the sun was completely out and the sky and surroundings were bright. The day had begun. But that short moment of beauty was enough to last for a lifetime.

Even today I can close my eyes and see that beautiful sunrise and feel it, feel the magic. It taught me to believe again in magic, it is present all around us, we just have to open our eyes and see it.