God of small things......

 Driving back the other day....summer's first evening of swimming with the girls ....on an impulse , i rolled down the car window and switched off the air conditioning . Probably not a smart idea given delhi's amazing traffic and pollen season bang on top of us....
I leaned a little out and as soon as the wind hit my nostrils...i knew i was right ...
 
It smelled just the way a summer evening ought to smell like...
.
it smelled just the way summer evenings used to smell like .....back in the days when people used to wet the front of their houses along with their plants and gardens simply to settle the dust or cool the verandah down ...that smell . The particular smell of vendors with pushcarts selling popcorns and orange bars ....the swarm of mosquitoes on top of your head , that wouldn't leave you , no matter how much you ran helter skelter , and your mother lathered your skin with odomos ...Every child seemed to marinate in a curious combination of grassy odour ...mosquito repellant and sweat....heck , who ever heard of deo's back then ....

As soon as the wind hit my nostrils.....my head and heart were filled with these images....despite the collective groan from the back about the ac...i played mean mom wanting the girls to start making their own memories about what summer evenings smell like.....
Take your mind back to some of your favorite memories ...and more than sights and sounds....you are more likely to remember what it smelled like.....its funny how the mind works....

 I often tell people about the " god of small things ".....in days and times when almost everybody is talking about staying focused on the bigger picture ....i find ...it is my faith in the god of small things that keeps me going .....

Its a lot like bokeh you know....when i zoom into a tiny detail....i am so filled with awe and rapture and astonishment and a gazillion of other emotions ...the rest becomes hazy and shifts into the background ....even if , for a few minutes.

Life 's like that . I'll take those few minutes every time . The trick is to make a life out of those minute chunks....

There are always those , who will snort and snicker and call this cheesy or cliched....but like Pema chodron said .....  " Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world "

 And my warriors world is not made of exciting adventurous glamorous things ....it consists of two school going brats , an office going husband , maids with drunken spouses , a dog who begs shamelessly ...of dinner and laundry and homework and grades and grocery lists and scraped knees .... a constant struggle with self to attain certain personal goals i have set for myself......an armful of highs and a truckload of lows.....now i  may want to water my grass away to glory to make it greener than thou but thats not how its works.....you cannot have HAPPY....there is no such thing ....what you can have instead is WHOLE ....and whole comes with  happy highs and lowly shitty lows ....the entire jing bang...one end of the spectrum to another .....roses with lots of dirt under your fingernails....

More often than i care to count , i find myself unable to connect , convey , share or understood ....my love for the ordinary , my love for small details, my self made life mantras....my propensity to get sad or emotionally overwhelming reactions to the people and scenes i photograph .......wanna hear a doozy example ??  
The other day i was at the passport office and like these places are , long queues and endless running around for one document or another , finally when my turn came at the xerox window.....there was a sikh gentleman in front of me , looking at a sign that read -- please carry change or you will not be entertained , change , which he obviously did not have.....he requested the xerox guy, who ...enjoying his 30 seconds of fame refused point blank....I took out 10 bucks and handed it to the gentleman saying , please take it...he shook his head vehemently ....i again reiterated , please take it ....i happen to be carrying change..and dont lose your turn....after a lot of battling inwards...no's and refusal....he reluctantly took it......He left and for a long time afterwards..... i was overwhelmed with the man's simple yet intense sense of dignity......something so ordinary , that managed to reaffirm my faith in human values...
....difficult to convey...but there it is...my god of small things..and why it affects me so...??...reading into people's syntax or my own ellipses , believing firmly that semantics are important .....all i can say is , you gotta be your own hero and the faster you learn that Life's toughest battles and your most cherished victories are personal private things walked on lonely paths .....all alone , the easier it gets .....

I sit in this crumbly world war 2 vintage barrack i call home ....constantly like snowfall the white wash crumbles and fall on various surafces , my eye travels to the flowers i begged from the maali bhaiya and arranged in my kitchen window and i recall warmly a friend once exclaiming ...oooh you lucky thing , flowers ! somebody spoils you too much " and i said ....yep , i do .

oh , and to those interested , if you are ever in delhi , there's a shack right behind pondicherry house , thats sells the worlds best melt in your mouth malai tikkas ....you have to sit and eat in your car , with windows rolled down and make some fabulous life lasting memories of what a summer evening smells like .......


~o0o~

Picture perfect winter comp. # 1 ....archi -texture ~

I don't know if any of you know that feeling...
the feeling of standing at a point in a certain place...certain spot...watching the light slant across  in that precise manner....shooting off motes of dust particles....drawing the eye more towards the shadows and crevices...
a not so exact sense of deja vu but ..
but wondering rather ,
if someone at some point of time ...has stood or will stand ... ever... at this exact place and spot and see what you see....feel what you feel....
and more importantly
if they will wonder about the exact same thing....

this is what i remember ...above all , about the moment of making this photograph . Taken at the qutub minar delhi...

“I have buried you in every place I’ve been. You keep ending up in my shaking hands.” —Bon Iver 


~o0o~

a sincere sort of disarray

i rambled on and on today
like it was something
i just had to say
sharing wilted anticipation
unsure expectations
hidden neath' the syntax
whence in truth
all my mind did
was circle back


to the shape of your mouth
       when you leaned up close
                and angled it against my nose
                         the spiraling thump, deep
                                     deep in the pit of of my stomach


the tranquility of closed eye lids
    and your ever so little parted lips


 what does your tongue taste like?... i mumble
like yours, you reply
what does mine taste like ?
heaven
tu hamesha sahi baat bol deta hai jaaneman

still part shy and part overwhelmed
i bury my head in my arms
whilst needy fingers
ache to push your hair back
like daylight savings time


             exposed

this is where i ought to insert
..............*.case foreclosed *



and then
        morning after
zero fluidity
             of
               sleep
                     drunk
                            muscles
               dark emotions akin
to moles on skin
 that won't get rubbed off


in this sincere disarray
i wonder some more
remember ?
the month of june
on the phone,
the song i belted out totally out of tune

pausing the stirring of spoon
                                                i
                                                stare
                                                   at the glint of honey in my tea
                                                                           muse.....
                                                                                if its still me ?


.
© Sonny



 another wonderful night of poetry at dVerse,

~o0o~

Picture perfect ...weather ~

 “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

I came across this quote a few days ago and for some inane  reason it filled me with such joy and energy , that is so raring to get unleashed , i wanted to bottle it up and spray it on me every single day....
These lines , in all their entirety describe to the hilt what i feel in that moment when i open my eyes each morning and the dream carries on ....
Somebody told me a few days ago , that to put it simply.....just focus on living your dream without searching for reasons ...the why's and the hows ...and that is exactly what i have been doing . I live , breathe, eat , sleep and dream photography....because i have realized that it gives shape to all the words and emotions and feelings that roar inside me like cumulus clouds and overwhelm the very marrow of me if i cannot express them . You see , they are not the point ....neither are the images....they are the portal to this feeling that sweeps over you , when you are doing what you love....when you are living your dream .

I read read read about images and styles and concepts and dreams late into the night and scribble endless thoughts and ideas and sensations each one evokes within me, in my note pad [ blackberries and apps are just not for me...sigh ]....i realize the more i shoot and talk to people....their comfort level is directly proportional to mine and gets reflected in my choice of subjects and subject matters....

Of course life goes on, all around you .....what needs to be done , has to be done and i cannot plan a life based on whimsical notions that i lose touch with reality or all that is tangible . As a woman , without even meaning to , you focus more on what is required from you vis a vis what you require yourself....but in this thin line of tangibles and intangibles ....i get to dream and play and transcend somewhere into this territory which is all my own ....however metaphorical and profound in the hope that somewhere some time it will translate into what the world at large considers tangible .
So its 6 in the morning and i have just come back from a slow walk with my camera , just soaking ...absorbing my delhi warming its hands, huddled around fires on this cold december day ....and thats what i want to share with you all on picture perfect this week , when its all about WEATHER............

~o0o~

Forgetting that bigger picture for a while.....

As each mommy will vouch for , the one time every child is bound to say something important , something that just cannot wait another second to be said , is when you are in the bath battling with shampoo suds in your eyes .....right at that moment , the door will go bang and a yelp .....MAaaaa .....

not now nandita , later , i yelled back to my six year old
no ma ....i have to tell you something important !
what?? , the resigned to habit me ....

i wish i had a life .
There was a silence from my side for a minute , while i considered if i had heard her right ....so she repeated it ....i wish i had a life ....
oh....hmm.....let me finish my bath, come out and then we can talk about this ?
are you mad at me ma ? is life a bad word ?
no ...not at all , the corners of my mouth lifting of their own accord at the sweet sweet innocent irony of her questions......

Without getting into the semantics of what inspired her question, and trust me ...semantics are important...on most days...just like my ellipses....there are entire novels , lifetimes sometimes woven between those semantics and ellipses ...today....i'd rather focus on life itself . Its been on my mind for a few weeks now ....life and its lessons ....the bigger picture so to speak . Most days , focusing on the bigger picture renders within me huge amount of comfort ....on days like today.....i doubt if there is actually a bigger picture in existence or if its simply a concoction of our minds and hearts and if life is in the details , the small stuff we tell ourselves not to sweat about .

 

Besides i've been wanting to write....its a perfect wintery morning , the sorts that leads you to the hammock under the kiwi tree and chew on pencil ends and trudge through that atlas of impossible by daylight musings . Also when your bff tells you softly that it would be nice if you blogged ....you kind of know deep down , where its coming from.....
 Last few months have been about some major changes on all levels for me and without design they have shifted the plates , the terrain and the marrow of me . The impact has been fairly intense but thats okay.....intensity i can handle , its the lukewarm...halfhearted that has always scared me.....intensity to me is synonymous with life....so i am okay with the changes ....yes, there have been moments when i have literally sat down and sobbed my heart out but like my favorite jane austen line .......

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."

the " others " here may and does denote time , situations , scenarios , mindsets , prejudices and people .....always people .....

and of course now another line has become a favorite .....hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting....from barack obama's acceptance speech.....

 

 

 

I've learned that life is going to teach us lessons every day ,  especially those we do not want to learn , ...There will be times when just like the people who matter most .....life will let us down and there's a lesson in there too .....things that matter the most , convictions and values that held greatest significance will fall away of their own accord , undergo changes and make way for new ones.....the frames of life will seldom be in focus, the light always wrong and pixelation all grainy and yet......in all the years to come ......we will look at them with the full weight of our love for the moment when that frame was made .

I've come to love a term ...." slow exposure " ....
I've come to love my fumbling slow yet sure steps to what  i no longer feel scared or shy to term as " my dreams essential to my being alive "
I've come to love the overwhelming naked intensity with which i view these dreams......intense , sensitive yet so pregnant with potential that it terrifies me ...yet i love it...
I've come to love this feeling of feeling/being challenged ....i WANT to feel absolutely flagrantly challenged , pit the very marrow of me against the challenge and earn that glow...bask in it...the sweaty adrenalin ridden glow that comes from having overcome it ....

And i've come to love the sadness too....that sometimes envelopes me and almost always passes....yet again reflecting ...refracting life....
Life...wherein you wake each morning....at that precise moment when a slanting sliver of sun's hazel ray travels over and across your eyes...you wake with that childlike wonder intact and faith in all that is yet to unfold ....and know finally that it will always be that picture [ after you've been yelled at for not turning off the bracketing feature ] ....that picture, that moment , that phase, that month .......the one you didn't plan for ...but felt within your bones so deep , that it ended up becoming that very same life lesson i talked about earlier....

....that one... will always be your favorite ....and help you keep the courage of your young unsophisticated naked self in tow....

Is life a bad word ?
hell no...not one bit....


~o0o~

Picture perfect ------ contrast ~

We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment from a contrast and very little from a state of things....so said Freud. I for one subscribe to this theory wholeheartedly....as a photographer , one is always chasing light....some thing subtle in the background....to bring out the intensity of what we want to portray in the forefront.
Life....is such an amazing potpourri of contrasting emotions....almost always...that fine balance that is so sought after, is never really achieved. Life as a whole is forever divided between the big picture and its smaller moments...in constant conflict .

I have included here 3 photographs, which are my personal favorites ...some of you from multiply, may have already seen these on my blog there ....What appeals to me in these is that if one looks carefully , endless contrasts can be drawn here....ranging from colour , and depth of field and textures and even emotions in a single frame.......

 

 

sonny [all rights reserved ]

three kinds of lonely

 


today has been smoothly haphazard

 

organized chaos or chaos organized

closing my fist around a ray of sunlight
honey gold
and warm
imbibing the fluidity of a bumble-bee
drunk on life
or hoping to at least
shrugging my shoulders at the pariah kite
circling
always with 10,000 reasons to fly away

do you see me

 

pressed between the pages of your old spiral notebook
forgotten under the succulent syllables of poetry
you penned many moons ago

today has been haphazardly smooth
of wayward thoughts supremely uncouth
i pedaled to greener pastures
climbed a high
munched on the lows
pocketing that final piece
of a never ending puzzle
called 'us'
trapping it forever
under the weight of right answers

Today i pulled out my bicycle ....put my breakfast in an old lunch box.....pedaled towards india gate....along rajpath....found this old structure one could climb up onto.....settled down to read my book...take a few pics.....marinate in some thoughts and sunlight....soak it all up.....


Its open link night at dverse ...:)


~o0o~