Aperture

The music was pumping, lights were dimmed, liquor was flowing and the entire room was filled with smoke. It was a regular Saturday night for her, but today felt strange in a way. She shrugged and gulped down her Vodka, lit another cigarette and again stared back at her laptop. Back at the photograph. The purple haze of nicotine wafted and the refrains of Pink Floyd added to the eerie ambience.

Tanya Dutta was a successful photojournalist. Always an introvert, she craved to transcend her isolation. But the inertness of words and their inability to convey all her abstract and intangible experiences would frustrate her. “Words are dead” she would often say. Photography allowed her some freedom of personalized interpretations. An implicit benefit of being a loner was you had a lot of time to think. And that, she did. Often she felt like observing her own life, from the perspective of an old woman, about to die. Looking back, as if her life was in her memories.

She was on her way to office that morning, when she saw the little girl, in tattered dress, holding a dead puppy. She was standing in the middle of the road. An irate police sergeant grabbed the girl and pulled her away from the busy traffic. The girl did not react. She had cried all morning. Instinctively Tanya took out her camera and captured the moment. This girl reminded her of someone. The vapid eyes and the dried tears gave her a déjà vu. Did Tanya hold on to her teddy- the one with reproachful button eyes, with same insecurity? Did her uncle ‘protect’ her like that? Did she just peek through an anomalous aperture into the continuum of time?

Einstein was right. Time is relative to the observer. A second of dream consciousness is always infinitely longer than a waking second. Tanya wasn’t afraid of death. Rather she looked forward to the moment when her body would be dead, but her brain alive. She would often explain, “Those few seconds before my death could be my entire life and I would be that old woman looking back over everything.”

It was Sunday. The maid kept knocking and nobody answered the door. In the afternoon the alarmed neighbors broke into her apartment. They found her still sitting by her laptop, peacefully dead.
From the stereo, Floyd sang- “Comfortably Numb.”

Image Courtesy- SaschaHuettenhain from www.deviantart.com

(A short story for The Times of India Spellbound)

For God's Sake !

Thus went the popular joke - why is God happy when a girl gets molested- because she cries 'let me go for God's sake'. Pathetic taste but essentially revealing the contemptuous humor towards the unseen, unheard person (if one is allowed to call him/her/it so) who is responsible for the most number of unnatural deaths (read murder) in the history of mankind. As a staunch atheist, I am amused at the recent Ram controversy. Clinically dissecting the whole issue one can see that it is about everything other than religion.
A disturbing factor associated with religion is purity. Originally it may have referred to the purity of soul. But now it’s anything but that! All this talk of purity is quite frightening! Be it the holocaust, the ethnic cleansings in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia or Closer home in Godhra, it has always been about ‘purity’! What is this obsession with purity that megalomaniacs try to propagate! From the inquisitions and countless crusades of the dark ages to the contemporary ‘Jihads’- it has always been about politics and subjugation. Another strange aspect of any religion is that purity stops at men. Women, as a precondition, are considered ‘impure’! This goes on to demonstrate the power asymmetries. The binaries of male/active, female/passive is a reality, no matter what anyone might say.

Yes that's true. Religion has been the most frequent source of friction in the human history, much more than any other motive. From politics to festival it has invaded every sphere of our life. It has defined the pivotal aspects of our cultures, influenced our behavioral patterns, shaped our social identity and yet it continues to thrive. By the sheer volume of the economics associated with it, it qualifies as one of the largest business sector around the globe, if not at par with defense then certainly with retail.Yet the ridiculous point is no other human activity has exposure of such magnitude without its central principle even remotely close to being qualified! No one knows whether he/she/it exists or not, and none has been able to prove unequivocally his/her/its absence too. So does that mean we come back to square one again? Guess so. I don’t know further. If you do please add on from here!

(Photograph by Marc Riboud )

Emote Control !

The city is Kolkata. A Garia bound minibus comes to a screeching halt in front of Rabindra Sadan. In the rosy glow of twilight the colored fountains come to life & the ambience is ‘oh so romantic.’ And then, heads lean out from the bus, eyes pop out from their sockets & chuckles follow a choral rebuke! Seated around the fountain in various degrees of intimacy are scores of couples. While some just cuddle up, others are slightly more daring, risking rude stares, cutting comments & disapproving chuckles for a bit of alfresco loving. The lights turn green- so does the onlookers! True love, they say, is not without jealousy.
Holding hands, necking, head on shoulders (I meant their partner’s) & even a little…ok maybe a lot of kissing. Couples being demonstrative about their love are a common sight in the metros. Welcome to the brave new world of public display of affection (PDA in short).
The permissible levels of PDA vary with time, place & society. Life is dynamic and change is the only constant. In this era of simple thinking & high living we are materialistic and more receptive to new concepts. With new parks, shopping malls and other new hangouts, the ‘all roads lead to Victoria’ syndrome is fading too. Loss of nostalgia? Maybe !
But who is to define ‘obscenity’ or ‘improper behavior’? Some so called ‘moral’ polices take up the herculean job. (Alas! Only if they joined our under-staffed police force, some ‘minor’ crimes like eve-teasing and rape, which are so in sync with our ‘culture’ could have been prevented.) According to them, public display of affection is a major blow to our traditional values. Quite paradoxical I think. The traditions are supposed to be our roots, eh? Then how can they be so weak that a change in human outlook can uproot us from our ‘culture’? And tradtions? For crying out loud, Kamasutra is a part of our heritage, Khajuraho a glimpse into the past, and sex our national past time. (Disbelievers, we are the 2nd most populated nation!) It’s high time we drop the colonial baggage of Victorian morality. The Brits did a long time back.
But alas, moral policing is omnipresent. So the ‘crime’ of displaying your love should be committed judging the place & time. The advice is for the best interest of the couples as it is they who have to brave the catcalls, rude stares or the perennial nuisance of policemen out to make a quick buck. There are PDA ‘watchers’ of other kinds too. This species of generally middle aged, heterosexual males may be identified by paying attention to the fences of PDA hotspots like Eliot Park. One sees them voyeurs feasting their eyes and wonders- what can be more hypocritical!
Love, lust or lament, the bottom line is- that in future more entwined couples exchanging sweet nothings will litter our neighborhood parks. The future existence of people sniggering at these couples is also confirmed. If you are from either group then I have a humble suggestion. Take it easy- live & let love.

(Photo of V Day celebration in New York's Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt.)

Photo-Static

Photography is the art of painting with light. But what is the role of its practitioner? Is a photographer a story teller or a documenter? Is a photograph a slice of life detached from time or is it a moment within the continuum? These questions can suck us into the vortex of the mystery named visual language. Any language comes from our desire to transcend our isolation & communicate. The digital revolution has given every Tom Dick & our very own Hari the economic empowerment of expression in this somewhat enigmatic & esoteric language. But sadly, giving tools of the trade without the quintessential tips has its downside. Today, most armature photographers are happy firing shot after shot, relying not on vision or visualization, but merely on the power, speed & quantity of photographs captured to produce a chancy image. ‘A photograph is usually looked at, seldom looked into’ said Ansel Adams. Browsing through the online galleries of many shutterbugs, one can realize the truth of his remark. We come across bulk photo images of many dynamic subjects, that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Images that may be labeled as photo-static.
Dorothea Lange said, ‘Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.’ Contrary to the relative ambivalence of still photography, time doesn’t stand still. So an image registers on us differently if it is stiff as opposed to something that is in preparation to leap off. It is almost the difference between seeing a prone body in the state of rigor-mortis or in a state of deep sleep. Seldom would we confuse a sleeping person for a dead one. This is easily the difference between a dead & live shot. That is the missing element a photographer try to capture. Something that Gjon Mili calls ‘a brief collusion between foresight & chance.’

[Photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson "Detrás de la estacion Saint-Lazare", Paris ( 1932) ]

Look who's stalking

Few days back I was lucky enough to spend an enchanting evening with a charming young lady. (A privilege I seldom get!) She’s a twenty something woman with oodles of attitude, killer looks & a degree in law. Ok …now stop drooling.
But this post is not about my dazed babblings about the lady. It’s about some thing I realized that day, while walking beside her. The epidemic syndrome of male psyche- the MALE GAZE !!
While we were talking, sitting at a rooftop retreat of a city mall, I could feel a thousand eyes focused on us. Even though I knew that I was not the subject of those preying eyes, the experience was quite unnerving for a recluse like me.
It was then that I realized, with a sense of awe & disbelief that my friend was completely unaffected by it!! If being a cynosure was bugging her, she camouflaged it pretty well.

The question of whether a female gaze exists in contrast to the male one arises naturally. Mulvey, the originator of the phrase "male gaze", argues that "the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification. Man is reluctant to gaze...". Even if it does, from my experience I can say, it’s not as pervasive as its male counterpart !
[Photography by Toni Catany,"Formentera" (1969) ]

That day shall not define my life

It was the same desolate lane I took three years back. The only difference- that fateful day it was afternoon & now it is a starlit night. The perennial fear of a betrayed man is my only company- the fear of betrayal & the hope of betrayal of fear. That day, they were more, they were sudden, mechanical & merciless. They were my friends. They were too strong for me. I failed. Or did I? Did I not have a strange smile….the smile of a man beginning to have a grasp of the cipher…??? Feeling helpless beyond sanity…..unable to do anything…even despair??
My body is shivering from the retrospection……..or is this catharsis???
Shock had given way to anger. I decided I’ll fight back. I am stronger…I said to myself. Their move was to weaken my resolve, but they couldn’t…..can’t & will not RAPE my spirit.
Today when I walked down the same lane, fear had been replaced by anger & anger by resilience. I will win….coz I cannot afford to loose.