Yet Untitled 35 - Camera Week!

Less talk, more photos!

Dearest Yet Untitler,

I am writing so late this week. But I’m writing, and I have to remind myself that that’s something.

My thoughts are unprocessed still and as of writing this sentence I still haven’t settled on a thread for this edition. But let’s proceed and see where we land 😬. I find it important to act on the impulse to continue at moments like these - this impulse to keep walking despite an impasse. It feels good to know that one can - keep going after a little change in direction, maybe? And reorientation can be refreshing!

So…

I took some pictures this week!

There you have it. I found myself looking through the viewfinder of my faithful Leica (and at the screen of my ever-faithful iPhone) all week and it was sheer joy - finding frames, being unhurried, stalking images, adjusting my position, my exposure, my focus and putting brackets around the world, isolating stories.

It’s the week following Diwali, so it was vacation time (somewhat). I did not set out to create art, but I still engaged with the world artistically. That’s my idea of a holiday - a vacation from work but still working at (with?) a craft; advancing my sense of the world.

In other words, it’s been a week of agenda-less photography. At first, I thought I’d pick one image from my haul and leap off that for this edition, but I soon noticed that a few themes strung some of the images together. I then started thinking about what’s been guiding my eye.

Here’s what my eyes have been noticing repeatedly:

(More photos, less text this time.)

My children are giving back the love they have received

This feels like a win. I have spent a lot of quiet time just observing Ananya and Aahana give hugs and their time to the family. It’s like watching a plant flower, or some other joy I think gardeners would know.

This is an unprocessed thought. Do you know what I’m feeling? Help me understand it:

My children are becoming people!

The looks are becoming subtle. The drama is becoming nuanced. Imitation is giving way to originality. Insert gardening metaphor of your choice here - I think it’ll fit.

The departed live on

I met my uncle - my Ashok Chacha - this week and felt, in a very direct way, that I was in the presence of my departed father. Not that they resemble each other so vividly, but it’s in the subtleties - the proportions, the things that the other senses catch - that convey this uncanny sense of presence.

I was having a conversation about this with another acquaintance who had lost someone. Are these lies that we tell ourselves, or truths we choose to believe? I think that the Truth runs deeper than what our five senses can perceive, but the senses respond to our tacit awareness of a deeper truth - affecting how our senses see the world.

This strengthens my belief that if I feel my father in my uncle, it’s because he’s there in my uncle.

It’s a gift to be together

When my dad passed, I didn’t know my own feelings until someone spoke to me about him.

I don’t think I realise how precious it is for me, my brothers and all our families to be together on Diwali, until I see how my mother looks at us when we are together.

Animals can teach us a lot about love

I took A and A to meet Mrs. Sodhi, who more or less has known me since I came into the world. As long as I have known her, she has loved dogs. Looking at how her two Pekingese pooches - Penny and Brownie - look at her with unconditional love moved me. And it was fantastic to see Ananya and Aahana warm to them both

Ananya is a born performer

I just confirmed this further.

Traditions are important

We drank.

We gambled.

We overdressed.

But there’s a lot between these lines that made it all worth it.

The Earth is alive and there is still hope

Verdant Delhi - despite being shrouded in pollution - always gives me hope. Nature is continuing, sprouting, growing. It will do so till the last plant survives. It will do so after we are gone.

It’s us who need to save ourselves.

On that note…

I’ll end early, dear Yet Untitler. And I’ll counter my last harbinger-of-doom paragraph with this photo of A and A leaping with joy at Sunder Nursery in Delhi.

Please be sure to find some slanting, afternoon sun, a beautiful tree and be sure to do the same.

Lots of love,

V