Saturday 17 November 2012

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~


30 comments:

  1. so what did you tell her? in six year old terms.....

    and yes, bliss at your blogging.... and look what you are doing in the study of 'depth of field' ..... the way you see the world~ wowza~ xoxo

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  2. i took her for a drive in the car.....i stopped outside the mc donalds wheremy lil friend bindiya sells necklaces and pens and yearns for a burger...and we sat there for some time...bought her and bindiya a burger...and let her and bindiya tell each other about their lives....and came back home....without needing to tell her a thing....
    now she wants bindiya's life selling necklaces .....sigh....

    and thank you....you have no idea what it means...xoxo

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  3. lol.... well yearning for a life is always a good way to start the quest of living!

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  4. Some say that the greatest photographs are incomplete ... images cropped at random or perhaps not so random x and y coordinates ... leaving the entire picture something of a mystery. Life is like those photos, since if you are truly alive, you fill in the vacuum with your own experiences, memories, images, emotions, dreams, hopes, and so on. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can only give her part of the puzzle. The rest is up to her to fill in ...

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    1. i like that thought...rather the notion of x and y coordinates....random ones at that...both in photographs and life......

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  5. smiles....at appreciating all the little textures of life...the good, the bad, the happy the sad, the questions...well really this list could get really long and each day there is something new to touch and measure the shape of with our mental fingers...sounds like you handled that question well as well...smiles...

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    1. you know we keep comforting ourselves...that god has a plan for our life and thats all we need to know...and sometimes i feel...inside that big plan are everyday lil baby plans that are equally important and complete in themselves...

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  6. Great shots once more at your sure, and yeah there is much to life, sometimes too much I suppose, but then sometimes too little. But always something new comes into play.

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    1. pat forgot to rhyme....smiling....

      yes...always something new comes into play...thats the adventure called life....and we start praying ye lord make my life a little boring...:):)

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    2. The cat was alseep so Pat did not rhyme at your keep haha

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  7. Did I miss something important ??

    "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..... "

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    1. no...not really....i think all of us have been feeling the void of losing multiply and that precious inbox buzzing with activity and the pleasure of reading and writing blogs everyday...i know i do....

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  8. I love how you see the depth of life. Not just the surface, but it's varying layers and textures. Not a single focus, but a rich variety of depth. Your photos are a perfect illustration of your vision.

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  9. Amazing images - their shallow DoF contrasts with the extreme depth of your writing.

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    1. thanks sanjay.....a lot of credit for these goes to debesh ....he was with me when i took these at the rail museum the other day....and helped me get around so many of my doubts hands on...

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    2. Lucky is the taught . . . & the teacher !

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  10. Playing with depth of field is a favorite pass-time for me. Details emerge that were previously hidden. As for life, well, as John Lennon said in one of his songs, Life is what is happening while you're busy making plans. Or something like that.

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    1. john lennon was bang on right ....

      i did enjoy playing with dof...i've always loved details ...though this was my first time with a dslr and i was worried about what settings to use....am going to be playing a lot lot more for sure....

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  11. Thanks for your visit and comment on my PP. I'd never read your blogs before (except PP entries) and I've just discovered how you write about existencial questions in a light, lively way...

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    1. i know kia !
      but i have always adored your photographs...and when i saw a link to your page on mitches page i knew i wanted to connect....

      and thank you ...:)

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  12. Hi Sonny, it is so good to see you and I love your blog. The photos puzzeled me a bit as I saw them as old and decay setting in. A bit depressing I thought and then I saw you took them at a museium so that explained that. LOL
    Huggles.

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    1. thanks shayna.....mwah.....good to see you too babes....
      you know i was remembering some old blogs and remembering all your comments and always...the honest manner in which you always muse over my words and reflections or pictures...and i really treasure that....

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  13. I'm glad your bff got you back into writing your wonderful words and posting your beautiful pics. I had wondered if perhaps you had landed somewhere else to blog and I had somehow missed the notice.

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    1. noooo vic....:))
      i was wondering where you are blogging....i need to reset my reading list here....its filled will all sorts of updates and none from people i want to read.....!

      i WISH we'd settle down in one place....xox

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  14. I'm glad to have found you here... with your spectacular photos and random thoughts... To know that you are still a woman, still engaging with the world around you, still... still finding your dream...

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  17. Your ramblings enthuse the eyes and the mind of the beholder. But tell me something Sonika... do you compose/ scribble your posts in one go, or do you tend to start and then complete it in more than one sitting? No... don't read much into my words... Just asking! By the way, loved the top four snapshots taken objectively with mundane primary focuses and the subtler background details.

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