Chikki, with a side of photography

Aditya and Rajveer Vyas Rajpurohit are the third-generation owners of the famous chikki business in the hill station, started by their grandfather 80 years ago

You may have seen them behind the counter, dishing out the famous Rajasthani hospitality as they manage their family business - A1 Chikki in Lonavala. But very few who deal with the ever-smiling brothers know that these two work wonders with equal ease behind a camera as well.

Meet Aditya and Rajveer Vyas Rajpurohit, the third-generation owners of the famous chikki business in the hill station, started by their grandfather 80 years ago. When they're not coming up with new strategies to keep their clients happy, they're merrily clicking away with their cameras, capturing the beauty of Lonavala and nearby areas for their Instagram page.

"I picked up photography in 2010, when I was doing my Master's in Advertising and Sales at Leeds, United Kingdom," 35-year-old Aditya tells mid-day. "Our father, too, is fond of photography and used to toy around with the old-fashioned cameras. By the time I picked it up as a hobby, digital cameras had arrived. I got so addicted to it that my professors would joke with me, saying that I had picked the wrong field."

Aditya continued his journey from digital cameras to DSLRs, freezing moments of breath-taking beauty from the hills of his hometown in every spare moment he had. This included silhouettes or profiles of human beings, temples and monuments or simply a shot of the valley with all its natural colours. His moment of reckoning came in 2014, when he participated in a photography reality show and earned country-wide acclaim. His photos were so popular that he was called back to the show in 2016, as a special entry in the third season.

Small wonder, then, that Rajveer followed in his brother's footsteps.

"There was plenty of inspiration at home," the reserved 29-year-old chuckles, recalling how their father would take pictures with the reel-based camera when they were younger. "I started off as Aditya's assistant and my love for photography deepened."

Today, it is a common practice for the two brothers to finish work and get into one of their many cars - their father is a car lover - and drive to select locations in Lonavala that they know are less crowded. Once there, they whip out their cameras and unleash their creativity. They mostly focus on nature photography as Lonavala offers options in abundance, and have moved on from still cameras to drone cameras.

Their albums include pictures of the hills, mountaineers scaling impossibly steep cliff-sides, tourists, festive processions, men and women captured in silhouette against bright lights or simply themselves with their pets or their cars.

"Photography has changed due to technology. Earlier, you had scant options to edit your photos after they were clicked, and hence had to focus a lot on getting the perfect picture in terms of composition and light before you pressed the shutter. Today, any mobile phone lets you edit a picture into a piece of art. The trick is to make the most of everything you have at our disposal and come up with photos that you are proud of," says Aditya.

Rajveer adds, "We don't restrict ourselves to any one category, and capture whatever catches our eye. With drones, we are now experimenting with newer angles and it is a fun process. And we upload everything to our Instagram account. The objective is to promote our skills and at the same time give the viewer a peek into the unseen beauty around us. It's a great experience."

The brothers describe their journey from digicams to DSLRs to drone as one of curiosity.

"Advancements kept coming in photography and we kept experimenting with a single thought: why not? We wanted to see if we would do as good with the new form of photography as we were doing with the older one. It is only curiosity that has kept us going," says Aditya.

Their hobby, though, isn't a passive one but a passionate one. The brothers have also made sure that they are keeping up with the times. With Reels being the current rage on Instagram, they are now making more videos, where the drone cameras are very useful, around the same themes they used to capture as stills earlier.

Their unceasing hard-work has not gone unnoticed either.

"A lot of bloggers call us up to ask if they can use our pictures and all we say is, ‘bindaas'. We love it when someone likes our work enough to want to use it," Aditya says. Lately, the brothers also find themselves receiving offers for wedding photography or other such professional jobs. And so, they have their hands full.

The mention of their chikki business - which boasts of clients among the rich and the famous of Mumbai and Maharashtra, including actors, politicians and business tycoons - strikes a serious chord. "It is easy to say that we were handed the business on a platter, but no business can survive if one does not keep innovating to ensure that the consumer is happy. We constantly keep coming out with better offerings so that we get to keep our places in the hearts of our guests - we refuse to call them customers," says Aditya.

But, the brothers assert, photography will continue to be a passion. And neither of them can wait to get their hands on the next technological innovation in the field so that they can do even better.