With apologies to Kodak and the like

Memory can be a strange thing. Sometimes it is a stalker, persistently reminding us of moments we would like to forget; sometimes the kind stranger who covers us with something warm when we are out in the cold; and perhaps sometimes an old friend we can visit for consolation, advice, inspiration, or hope.

What is a photograph but an attempt to capture a memory, to put a colorful bird in a cage, to run into the kind stranger, to give the old friend an address we can always find? And then came lenses, Eastman Kodak, zoom, flash, Polaroid, SLR, digital photography, camera phones, and megapixels. Capturing a photograph has become a hobby, a profession, an art, a passion, and, for some, even an obsession.

But the mind still remains the best camera, the best instrument of photography. There is something one-dimensional about photography. Light is its only tool. Even video recording has a limited arsenal- sound and light. Capturing a true photograph, stuffing a moment or two in time into your pocket, giving physical form to a fragment of memory, requires perception, of the thousands of stimuli and emotions whose complex interplay gives birth to a single moment in our lives, and not merely precise measurement of the physics of light and sound. What was I feeling like when the photograph was taken? What did I smell, hear, or react to? Which emotions were racing through my head and heart? What madness was I just about to be guilty of? These are all questions that cannot be answered in megapixels. The mind captures the moment; the mind captures that infinitesimal yet profound fragment of our insignificant yet confusingly active lives.

In my moments where I want to visit that old friend, I do not flip through albums. I find myself opening little snuff-box-sized boxes of these moments. Where I can feel the crispness and innocence of a blue sky that I once saw; where I am stirred by the deep melancholic sound of ocean waves meeting their eventual fate on a rocky seashore; where I am overpowered by the mystic gloom of the evening fog (smog?) that enveloped the ocean and the horizon as I crossed a marvellous bridge. Strangely enough, I have no photographs of the moments that have stayed with me longer than others. Maybe that's because life's most special moments never announce themselves with a pose--when they come, we are never ready with a camera. But I am digressing here.

Here is perhaps what makes the mind's "camera" more special to me: a photograph captures the moment like a hunter would a prize, but when we capture a moment or object of beauty in our mind, it is a tribute, and to some infinitesimal yet profound extent, an act of surrender.

I wonder how many would agree. :)

A Dream

Little drops of golden sunshine filled his hitherto empty bowl. He looked up at the sky, his eyes shining with joy and intelligence, clear as they were because of the innocence that he still played host to. In his eyes was the reflection of the sky, which was still crisp and true in its azure hue. He felt warmth on his skin, but he did not know where it came from or why he felt it. The warmth made him feel like more than a collection of chemicals and organic substances—the warmth assured him that he had a right to hold that bowl and that it should, at least occasionally, be filled with the golden drops. A stream flowed nearby—he heard its constant gentle murmur; as if the stream was conversing meekly with everything that happened to be along its path, as if it was whispering little secrets without knowing whether little secrets can be whispered safely. The boy started walking towards the murmur, curious as he was about where the soft rolling sounds were coming from. The azure sky swiftly turned into a ceiling of dark green, with only a few sieves in it that barely allowed the sunlight to touch the bed of dried leaves, fallen fruit, and traveller’s footprints that was the forest floor. The boy still had his bowl, and he kept looking at it, sometimes to admire the golden drops, sometimes to make sure they were still there, and sometimes to simply feel secure among the trees that towered above him and the jungle that was breathing its intimidating chaos through the damp wind. As his steps—sometimes hesitant, sometimes bold, sometimes hopeful—led him along a path that the bewildering complexity of the jungle did not let him understand, he began to perspire, and the cold drops of sweat reminded him that he was alone in this little adventure of his. A few wandering moments later, he stopped to catch his breath and comprehend what he was doing. He wanted to know why the forest was aloof and unhelpful, almost proud of its power to perplex. Just as fear and reason began to win the incessant war that they waged on courage and innocence, he heard sweet music from one of the trees. The ceiling began to appear darker than before; but this time, it was because the darkness was in contrast with a brilliant crisp ray of light, with a touching glow that made all the demons born of the insensitive darkness of the jungle and conceived by its incomprehensible chaos instantly turn to dust. The glow belonged to an angel—a being of captivating beauty, with an intoxicating fragrance, with eyes that seemed to shine and bring out purpose in a meaningless existence, a warm embrace to melt a thousand cold winters, and a smile that for a moment, seemed to be the only believable truth in the forest that existed only to deceive. The angel drew him into flight, and even though he did knew he would never be able to find his way back to where he began, he gave himself no choice but to follow.
When his eyes opened, he was by the stream that continued to meekly murmur its little secrets. He tried to remember the sweetness and exhilaration of his flight. He did. But his bowl was gone, and so was the angel. The stream continued to whisper; the pure untouched stream was calling out to him to look into the gracefully flowing mirror of truth. In the mirror, he found a rugged man with scores of scars running across his face and a body that was now sprinkled with bruises, the souvenirs from his journey through the forest. And there he sat, looking into the stream, listening to it, and making peace with his bruises; he, the guardian of innocence and adventure.

The growing distance

You and I,
just faces in a picture,
lines from a forgotten song,
stranded in our silence,
we forgot to sing along.

You and I,
ships lost in the fog,
with no dreams to explore,
not sailing but drifting,
to our own desolate shore.

As Time plays hearse,
and love is buried deep,
hearts and faces so cold,
they dare not weep.
We heal our wounds,
with an empty sigh,
both you and I.

Sunlight

There are few things as inspiring as sunlight. Sunrise and sunset—sources of beauty that are so close to us, touching us softly but powerfully whenever we care to watch. Over the past one week, I have had the fortune of watching the sun rise over a creek every single day. The crispness and freshness of the morning light never fails to inspire me. The morning rays seem so much purer than everything else they touch, renewing promise and optimism each day. Even more amazing is the number of forms in which they can be seen. Whether filtering in through a glass window, piercing a gap between curtains, or breaking into a room as a sharp beam only to illuminate the chaotic dust particles, morning rays are beautiful. Then, there is the sky; azure sky, especially in the winter, is the perfect background, the perfect prop for sunrise to unveil its act of promise and beauty.

More intoxicating and captivating (personally, at least) than sunrise is sunset. Sunset is so beautiful that I am almost intimidated by its beauty when I try and describe it. If sunrise is inspiring, sunset is moving. There is a richness and depth to the setting sun that cannot be matched. The color of the mighty sphere just before it goes down is breathtaking—like the dance of pure fire in a flux of molten gold. This color calls out to the beauty within each of us that is fighting a losing battle against the inevitability of destruction but appears increasingly beautiful as it tries to prove its worth against a cursed end. And then, there is the sky. Sunset far outdoes sunrise in transforming the drab afternoon canvas into an intoxicating mix of color. An invisible magical paintbrush waltzes over the sky to wash the evening sky with various shades of, what I will call for the lack of any word that can do it justice, sunset color. After the sky, there is the glow. Where sunrise pierces, sunset envelopes. Gently, like children whispering little secrets into each other’s ears, the sunset envelopes our evening with a moaning glow that, for a few moments, seems to change the context of our existence. Finally, there is what sunset does to water—the trail of light from the sunset glistening on the surface of the sea, like a trail of bleeding memories that disappear into an ocean of sorrow. Stand on the seashore, and the trail will trace a path from the horizon to your toes. A graceful, touching, crying, smiling, powerful, and beckoning sunset—suggesting perhaps that the end can be more beautiful than the beginning.

The Earth is indeed a fortunate planet, to receive unconditionally something so pure, especially when its inhabitants make it play host to a world full of corruption, deceit, and compromise.