GREEN IS THE COLOUR

Heavy hung the canopy of blue
Shade my eyes and I can see you
White is the light that shines through the dress that you wore
She lay in the shadow of a wave
Hazy were the visions overplayed
Sunlight on her eyes but moonshine made her blind everytime
Green is the colour of her kind
Quickness of the eye deceives the mind
Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned

still sleepy. still moving about languidly. still listening to 'green is the colour'. ah it feels so good. time to wake up and smell the coffee.

it's raining, and its raining quite hard. there's a nifty wind blowing through my room. i can hear the thunder as well. shocks me sometimes, but now i'm okay. i've shut my windows to keep the raindrops from ruining my books that are kept on the window sill.

it's good that it's raining. just the way i would have liked it to. washes off everything dirty which makes you feel the real weigth of your body. which is important, if you want to stay grounded...close to earth...connected...and not flying about nowhere in particular...disconnected...

KUMBH MELA: AN INDIAN ODYSSEY

PHOTOGRAPHY: PRASHANT PANJIAR

PRESERVING TIBET

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOSHUA KURLANTZICK

these days if you see me, anywhere, chances are you'll be ignored. no, i am not too big for my boots neither have i turned blind. i just want to avoid people. maybe i want them to ignore me as well. that's all. hope you'll understand.

it's bloody difficult to get a foothold as it is, to top it, my plans have been thwarted. so i sit and sulk and think and think some more. rue some more. maybe this is just a phase. hope it'll pass like it usually does. hope i get over it, soon. i just hope.



lesson: don't be so sure... :-((

as i sit and stare into the screen, i can feel a bead of sweat moving down my tummy and another one running down my spine. the temperature's been up at about 34.4 degree centigrades. that's inside. out side it must be a little around 37 maybe. and today in the news it was flashed that yesterday calcutta recorded the highest temperature. a heat wave is on, they say. it struck me as odd that i was out yesterday in the afternoon. i felt it allright. but wasn't sure if it was the heat wave. the news made it sound as if its something serious. but i was fine. walking down the boulevard. the hoogly wasn't churning up much wind to comfort me but i was okay. i just thought i would sit in front of the hoogly and smoke. something i haven't done for a long time.

it was only yesterday that my father told me about something i had been preparing myself for. but didn't know it would hit me this hard. it is one thing to prepare, quite another when you are actually confronted by it.

all i can do now is nothing. i guess.

chordadu passed away today in the afternoon. just as i came back home after a little ramble, and my brother told me. my mom and dad has left for poltukakas place. maybe the cremation will take place today itself.

my memories of chordadu goes back to my childhood when i used to visit him in their nimtola residence. back then i never really liked going to anyone's house. his house was no exception. however i had to as everyone went. he lived with poltukaka and kokila pishi and chor dida. whenever we went to visit them, chordadu made it a point that we ate well. and we did. it was the best of north calcutta's delicacies. as i grew up, my visits to chordadu's house became less and less. and my little interaction with him eventually faded away. and eventually they left the nimtola residence and moved into a flat bari in dum dum side. my parents and my brother whenever they came back home after a visit to chordadu's house always told me that he asked about me. how he remembered everyone! the last time i saw chordadu was in his new flat bari. that time, i went with rahulda to visit him. chordida had passed away then. he was seated in his bed, a little frail but lively as usual. i never felt like going to their new house as well. but i did feel the need to meet him.

i want to make my distaste with orkut public. i simply hate it. i hate answering stupid questions people often tend to ask. hate to let everyone in on little snippets of my life. it's goodbye to your privacy and others' (if you care, that is). a mecca for nosey people (myself having turned into one).

messaging fever has hit everyone hard. its simply a deluge of endless messages.

there are ways to keep in touch with people. this is the worst.

fuck it!

i wonder if it helps to rant in public. maybe it does. it's amusing how all of a sudden intimate details of people's private lives have started to float about in the public web of delusion. must confess, the well written ones are thoroughly entertaining. but its such a waste of time also. why i read it? maybe because i like what i read. but its more about curiousity than anything else. no wonder the gossip mags make such brisk business. who slept with who? who screwed who? whose ego got hurt? blah...what the fuck is wrong with everyone? well, maybe nothing is wrong. maybe i am mistaken here. it could just be another step into the evolution of humankind. people in general now have a way to reach out. to suddenly share their private thoughts with others. it's not about being right or wrong. its about a situation that we're all having to come to terms with here. i can very well ignore these musings. i think i should. its better to read sylvia plaith's diary than some hicks' - if only for literature's sake. but these private musings could well be a case study for sociological investigation. maybe, why not?

VRINDAVAN: THE CITY OF WIDOWS

A PHOTO ESSAY BY SUSANNA FROHMAN

Strange

never have i done something this crazy. haha!



[10:06:40 PM] Lightprowler says: how are you ms. sonia ahmed. i am from india, calcutta. your cricket team has busted india's ass big time. and thank god i don't watch cricket that often nowadays. all because of the loss. you might be thinking i am crazy. well, i am crazy. so is the nation. its a cricket crazy nation. eeks i never have done anything like this. like randomly find someone on the net and then messaging them. please pardon me for this nonsense. i am new to skype and am testing its efficiency. efficiency in getting me introduced to some very interesting and necessarily good looking females across the border across the globe. but that is just a hypothetical possibility. i know at the first instance itself girls will runaway reading this. and that will leave a void withing myself which will only get bigger and bigger. haha! love you anyways. keep smiling. and please don't take me seriously. although i am not a spam, neither am i any kind of a virus. but just a fool, trying to make myself look foolish - by sounding foolish and scribbling stupid things which makes little sense on stangers' message boards. sorry again. hope its not much of a problem. if it is, please forgive me.


[10:10:36 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: r u nuts??? thts the very first question came to my mind while reading ur msg, but its interesting.i usually dont respond to unknown msgs, but ur one made me change my mind. hi, how are you?

[10:11:51 PM] Lightprowler says: hehe. madness. i am fine. sorry for the nutty message i sent.

[10:12:19 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: thts ok

[10:12:22 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: whts ur name?

[10:12:34 PM] Lightprowler says: siddhartha

[10:12:56 PM]Lightprowler says: but its true. i dont watch cricket anymore!

[10:13:06 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: wht do u do siddhartha?? (err.... do u have a short nme? like sidh or something?)

[10:14:08 PM] Lightprowler says: sid is short enough, right? i visualise things.

[10:14:16 PM] Lightprowler says: this is strange

[10:14:32 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: meaning??

[10:15:40 PM] Lightprowler says: meaning i never have done this before.

[10:16:44 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: i asked u wht do u do?

[10:17:00 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: i mn, wht do u do for living

[10:17:21 PM] Lightprowler says: okay. i eat to live

[10:17:57 PM] Sonia Ahmed says: besides eating and chatting, wht do u do?? now dont try to be oversmart ok

[10:18:43 PM] Lightprowler says: ok i don't have to try.

Sikkim is Simply Breathless

"Different Strokes for Different Folks"

David Alan Harvey speaks:

....photographers are just like everyone else…their life circumstances vary…....elliott erwitt, for example, lives with a spectacular view of central park from an apartment that looks like a movie set ….his choice….larry towell has a spectacular view of corn fields and lives in a house which he mostly built and chops his own firewood…his choice…both men do great work…..both have exhibitions in fine museums and powerful books…..
elliott has higher “overhead” than larry….elliott does commercial work so that he may live the life he chooses…larry , like josef, does not like commercial work and therefore chooses a lifestyle that requires less funding…..again, the bottom line is the work…..so one person does it one way and one does it another….to me it does not matter as long as one is doing serious work that he/she can be proud of….and, most importantly, be a “free man” in your mind and in your heart…
remember that many great classic photographers like avedon, penn, evans, frank, arbus, winnogrand, etc etc etc all did commercial work…..many great comtemporary photographers do the same….
joseph koudelka prefers to sleep on a floor somewhere (a real gypsy at heart)...he sells his prints to finance a minimalist lifestyle….elliott who raised six children and sent them to college prefers a bed i suppose (and likes the cultured life of new york)...he does ad shoots…both men are well collected by museums and have the best art dealers…
the only danger with commercial work would be if it took over your life and a photographer “lost his way” because of it…started shooting too much of what someone else wanted..but, so much of elliott’s personal work came while he was actually on a commercial shoot…elliott is psychologically built to work that way…..i doubt joseph or larry could or would be comfortable working that way….to each his own…
i do not chop my own wood to heat my house, nor do i have a view of central park…i keep my expenses very very low so that i can be as free as possible to do all the projects i do which are not income producing…i.e. book production, printing for shows, workshops, etc.. my only income is from limited magazine production, archive sales and the rare advertising shoot…..i receive so few ad shoots (like maybe two per year) that there is no way they could “mess with my head”...besides, generally they are a lot of fun and they are usually things like “go to india and shoot color, or go to italy and shoot a street festival”..most of my commercial work relates to camera companies, film companies or printing companies so they are looking for a dah picture, not an interpretation of an art directors sketch…....i do not go into a studio and photograph a pair of shoes!!! so the funding from an ad shoot gives me the freedom to do what i want the rest of the time…..
for those of you who are struggling with this, you must just create a balance…your balance, not someone else’s balance….your life, not someone else’s…..
now i just have to figure out how to pay next months rent!!!!

cheers, david

BIRTH OF THE DECISIVE MOMENT

"I DON'T TAKE THE PHOTOGRAPH, THE PHOTOGRAPH TAKES ME."

HENRI CARTIER BRESSON

"DEATH: IT'S LIKE
OPENING A DOOR AND WALKING THROUGH - A
TRANSITION."

Jon Anderson

Finished reading Pankaj Mishra's Butter Chicken in Ludhiana. I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable book. While reading it I had frequently burst into fits of laughter. It was genuinely funny.

For instance, while describing Bangaloreans' modernised sensibilities, he writes:

"Bangaloreans were modern people, with sophisticated sensibilities. And the
confirmation seemed to come one evening, watching Indecent Proposal,
when not a squeak came out of the lower stalls as Demi Moore's breasts popped
into view on the screen. Up in the uncivilised north, they would have
been, I knew from experience, tearing the stuffing out of their seats."

I found the book to be quite a commendable body of work. The descriptions of his travel experience across small towns of India were not just hilarious but also poignant to a great extent.

In his travels to Murshidabad in Bengal he talks about a young man named Abdul. Abdul's father works as a caretaker at a mosque there. But his father only draws a salary of Rs. 50! Which he claims have remained unchanges since Lord Curzon's time. Astonishingly, with that salary "his father had supported in the past a family of five sons and three daughters." And he "had doggedly refused to take up any other kind of work; he valued his job not for the money but the regard itearned him within his community."

The subjective account Mishra proffers us about his interaction with numerous personalities across myriad Indian landscapes particularly stands out in this book. The portrait he draws of his subjects' demeanours is quite true to life - it is real India. His work is like an ethnographers' account of Indian travel.

A highly recommended book.