The Anatomy Of Melancholy

Hooked

2013-12-11T02:31:00.001+05:30

For stoic looks and an appetite for a barbed hook

A Lesson from a Leaf

2013-08-06T11:27:00.000+05:30

Let Wisdom be our sole concern,Since life's green days are brief!And faith and heavenly hope shall learnA lesson from the LEAF-William Lisle Bowles

The Prophet

2010-11-11T01:35:00.002+05:30

A Voice Cannot Carry the Tongue and the Lips that gave it Wings.

Alone must it seek the Ether

~ Khalil Gibran {The Prophet}

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason - 10 - Sorrow

2010-11-03T04:18:00.001+05:30

Sorrow

The Association of Objects and Memories and the Feelings related to them, tend to overwhelm me at times.

Just a year ago things were more real and tangible now everything seems to be in a miasma of its own. Layered in the misty web of my memories, in which I roam freely till a stubborn string pulls me back into the past which seems real enough to touch but really is intangible....

It is at such times I feel the real loss.. Its been a year since my father passed away and in someways I am yet to come to grips with it and yet in others I am well aware of his absence.

Funny how the mind works and triggers emotions....

The Buddha In his five percepts stated : I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

I guess this trip with my mother to be with my brother who resides in Dubai is our way of coping with it..

The Fallen

2010-10-11T00:50:00.002+05:30

When all Hope is Lost the mind protects us with denial and my denial protected me from facing what I knew! That I had to climb out of this hidden valley on my own two weary slightly frostbitten feet.

Doubts reigned supreme, two voices very much my own began an internal dialogue
It was classic Gollum & Smeagol!!

Would I have the strength to trek in this wilderness? {Probably Not}

How steep were those slopes? {Very steep 70 to 80 degree gradient, almost vertical}

Would the footing on the ice be stable enough? {With all that new snow fat chance}

What path should I follow? {Toss for it matey you are effed anyways!}

What would happen if I fell? {Probably the best way to end the misery, though it would be painful and awareness would set it before the lights went out finally}

And always in the forefront: What lies beyond those black ridges that I needed to climb in order to get out of the valley....{An endless array of more snow clad mountains, not the green valley you hope for}.

But a decision beckoned and I knew I had to get moving quickly if I had to give myself any chance to survive at all

On The Edge Of Reason

2009-09-02T01:43:00.002+05:30

On the Edge of Reason
After her Softest Treason's.

Silence

2009-07-06T06:23:00.002+05:30

Haven't blogged for a long time,

There is so much to say, so much in my head,

So much that will remain unsaid;

Oh those wasted years, all that wasted time

But on the other hand:

I think of Rilke going for years without writing a word,

and then producing in a matter of weeks,

in a castle besieged by the sea "The Duino Elegies".

Even silence is preparation .

Jumping Jacks Flash!!!!

2009-06-18T20:49:00.003+05:30

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!

COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and he pushed,
and they flew.
~ Christopher Logue

"But I say: That which is falling should also be pushed!

And him you do not teach to fly, teach - to fall faster!"

~Neitsche

When The Road Becomes My Bride....

2009-05-11T04:33:00.002+05:30

When the Road becomes my Bride
and the earth becomes my throne
I adapt to the unknown
Under wandering stars Ive grown
By myself but not alone

Off the beaten path I reign
Rover wanderer
Nomad vagabond
Anywhere I may roam
Where I lay my head is home

- Lyrics adapted from Metallica's Wherever I May Roam

Searching for Shangri-La...

2009-05-08T22:44:00.002+05:30

My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon,
I will return again
Sure as the dust that floats high in June,
when movin' through Kashmir.

Sometimes The Lights All Shining On Me..

2009-04-11T02:03:00.002+05:30

Sometimes the lights all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it's been

- Truckin by The Greatful Dead

Breaking The Habit

2009-04-05T04:17:00.001+05:30

In The Forest....

2009-03-23T02:10:00.002+05:30

In The Forest...

Bare Trees...

A Riot of Colors....

2009-03-12T11:01:00.002+05:30

The festival of colors.
A bit of Gulaal too..
Flowers in the Garden
Alongside You!!

Riders Of The Storm. II

2009-03-08T16:54:00.002+05:30

All the tired horses in the sun:
How'm I s'posed to get any ridin' done? Hmm...

Adrift In the Sea of Yearning

2009-02-14T23:13:00.002+05:30

We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

- Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)

Shelter From The Storm

2009-02-07T13:15:00.002+05:30

A Philosophical looking bird caught in the snow fall. In the Garhwal Himal in Uttarakhand India.

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail,
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail,
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

- Bob Dylan (Shelter from the Storm)

The Whispering Wind.

2009-01-25T19:44:00.001+05:30

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past
And with his crutch, it’s old age, and it's wisdom
It whispers "No, this will be the last"

~Jimmy Hendrix (The Wind Cries Mary)

The Lord Of The Ring

2009-01-23T06:17:00.005+05:30

All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I

- Li Po (Alone Looking At The Mountain)

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

2009-01-11T22:26:00.004+05:30

My latent Cyberdelic tendencies came to the fore before my recent peregrinations to the Himalayan mountains of Uttarakhand which lasted for over two weeks across the New year and Christmas break. Will upload the trips photographs (on my flickr stream)as soon as I have recovered from the journey and its aftermath (more of which in later posts)

Took these a couple of months ago in a whole series of shots and experimentation with water and oil droplets (mostly shot in industrial settings during visits to some chemical factories in Gujarat producing effluents in the manufacture of industrial dyes and paints)

I rather enjoy the leeway and scope of experimentation while composing Macros as the only real limit is the scope of one's own imagination and ability to "visualize" a shot in the most mundane of settings and objects.

Creatively I find it more satisfying than other genres of photography where scale and composition experimentation can be rather limited in lieu of the bigger picture.. This telescoping down to the microscopic level is really fun and always reminds me of one of the joys which initially attracted me to learn Photography as an art form.

~ ~

It's interesting to explore how the mind associates different influences and events asscociated with memory. How unrelated themes can intermingle in the most unlikely ways &

places

Inspiration is that most tenuous of things.. never know when it comes a calling and where it may spark the engines of creativity to come to life..Two random thoughts which collide somewhere inside our smug wooly cotton brains in its infancy

~ ~

The title is inspired by the pshycedelic colors and the fact that I was shooting this in Acid Bath and it seemed most apt..

The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test was originally a non fiction novel by Tom Wolfe and attained a cult following not unlike " Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintainece" by Lou Prisig in later years

It was released in 1967 featuring the travels of author Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters as they drive across the USA in a DayGlo painted school bus dubbed "Furthur," as well as the Acid Tests, during parties several of which had early performances by The Grateful Dead.

*(Ken Kasey was the author of two benchmark novels the most famous and my personal fav of them being "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ";and "Sometimes a Great Notion".

He was also a counter-cultural figure who, some consider, was a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s(or Beatniks as they are more popularly known ~Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac) 'and the hippies of the 1960s.

Distant Ships On The Horizon

2008-12-18T03:05:00.003+05:30

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness.
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another.
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.

- - - -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tales of a Wayside Inn. Part iii. The Theologian’s Tale: Elizabeth. iv

And soon, too soon, we part with pain,
To sail o’er silent seas again.

Thomas Moore: Meeting of the Ships.

Fly High O Freebird.

2008-11-30T02:43:00.008+05:30

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

It is about a creature of high intelligence who was not appreciated by his flock - a gifted outsider.

A sensation when it was published years earlier in 1970, it features a seagull who breaks away from the flock and learns on his own to become an individual. He experiments with flying techniques in ways that seagulls would never do and, in that experience, finds freedom to fly in his own pattern. He risks disgrace, failure, and ostracism to go his own way, and in the process discovers experiences that the others could never know or enjoy.

Jonathan is no ordinary bird; he wants more than the other birds do. They're content to just do what they need to do to survive, but Jonathan puts his efforts into the glory of flying. He feels pressured by others - even shamed -- to conform to a more mundane way of existence, but he refuses.

He's utterly alone in his ambitions and experiences, especially when he learns to fly in the dark. Seagulls supposedly never do that, but he explores it and finds that he enjoys it. He brings his fear under control and sets out to break through the limitations imposed by the rules of the flock to become something entirely new to his species. It doesn't matter how lonely he feels; what matters is that he has become something amazing. The others view him as irresponsible and even dangerous, but Jonathan continues to go his way alone, content in being an outcast.

Eventually other outcasts join him, and they return to the flock to try to wake up the younger generation. Jonathan's guiding idea is, "You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self," and "Whatever stands against the freedom must be set aside." No limitation should be accepted. In the end, Jonathan is a Christ figure, both revered and reviled, and altogether misunderstood. He gives his message to a young disciple, who sees things as they are and prepares to pass on the wisdom.

Alpenglow

2008-11-09T18:13:00.006+05:30

Mountains to me are more then rock and ice, they are the repository of my dreams, aspirations and ambitions.

Upwards they soar in a valiant attempt to breach the umbrella of the skies, and sometimes the clouds in the sky are brought down to shroud the mountain in mist. Adding mystery, aura and amazing views into the already perfect picture.

The sun rising and setting seen in the mountains is very unique as not all the landscape is lit up at the same time, if you are high enough you see patches of other peaks which glow golden and the skies which do a brilliant dance with the colors lighting it up.

There is nothing quite like it in the world to view and stand in stunned awe, mesmerized by it all.
It's also such a humbling experience as only when you stand close to them, can you really appreciate their massive size and girth which photographs can never truly convey (I've been trying for years to get their majesty down on film but as yet have never succeeded in their true portrayal - foreshortening can be such a bitch!!!) Its an ongoing quest which someday I hope will come to fruition .. till then I'll keep trying.

I am happiest when in their midst...And to the mountains is where I shall always return, no matter what.

White Limbo

2008-10-19T22:29:00.010+05:30

This life of mine, if life I can call it, has become a strange affair, a kind of a metamorphosis in which every thing has changed.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that it was required of a man that he should share the action and passion of his times, at peril of being judged not to have lived, and for most of my early life I've followed this percept with uncommon faithfulness.

But now of late (the last decade or so) I find myself entangled in a web of days, time passing in a kind of a slow motion, yet seemingly the years flit by and I remain in the same place, unable to flog up interest in the world around me or the people who inhabit it..

I'm much like a meandering river still searching for a sea to unload itself of all that water.

This sort of detachment and apathy sometimes scares me.. but still I doggedly stick to the path
But to what purpose? What end?

I see myself upon the grim mile
The past hunting and future escaping
What was shall not be
Forever shall I thicken this belief

Frozen In Time.

2008-09-29T15:36:00.003+05:30

Freezing Time is the only way to grasp Eternity for an hour..

And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,
Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,
In some dread moment. by the fates assign'd,
Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind;
And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at last
The speed that spins the future and the past:
And, sovereign of an undisputed throne,
Awful Eternity shall reign alone.

-Last verse by : Francesco Petrarch Source: Triumph pf Eternity (l. 102)