Photography

I seriously did not need another hobby. But there is something so fascinating about "learning something just because I want to" that I brought my five year old DSLR out of its bag and played around with the settings. I am not new to photography. When I first learned the how-to's of it, I was not even ten. At fourteen, I took pictures of an entire fortnight's trip to the Himalayas with an old Kodak camera (the ones that came in leather cases). At that time those were film cameras that did not show you on a scale how your exposure is, nor would it let you "see how the shot came" before you send the whole film to be developed. There were people who found out that their pictures came out horrible, but I am truly proud of the fact that I always had 38 shots (you could take a couple more than the standard 36 if you were really good) and none of them were badly under or over exposed. The camera was also fantastic. It was really difficult to mess the settings up. I remember once at Agra Fort (in 2001) I took a picture of some intricate wall carvings with the "distance" set to 1 m. Then I was taking the picture of the rampart of the fort and forgot to change the "distance" to infinity. The picture came out quite ok. Not as sharp as I wanted it to be, but not blurry either.

With National Geographic having this "Your Shot" thing, it has been quite a nice vent of my photography rather than littering my Facebook wall. The good thing about Nat Geo is I can see other people's fantastic pictures and even though mine are nothing in comparison to the photographers there, it feels good to contribute my bit. Photography opens your eyes to see beauty in simple things already around you. One leaf drenched in water, my kitty's whiskers, black and white shot of fallen snow on branches... you don't have to look far. Also, there's a community of photographers from all over the world. It's because of them that I know how pretty the country of Turkey is, I can practically see villages of Bangladesh, beaches from Florida, wild life of Africa... and I realize once more, how beautiful is our Earth with its people...

The Rising of the Moon

There has been only a couple songs in my life with whom I can say there was a "love at first hearing" sort of relationship. One of them is the Indian marching tune "Kadam kadam badhaye ja" and the next was Enya's "Only time". Yesterday another one was added to the list. That is the Irish song - "The Rising of the Moon". I had read the play by the same name when I was in eleventh grade as it was part of our English text book and even at that time I realized the similarity between the Irish nationalists and our own Indian Freedom Fighters. That is why as Indians we always sympathize with the Irish, as we were oppressed by the same country.

This is a song of rebellion where the rebels get crushed. I see the same thing as what happened to our Indian National Army. They put up a fight against a massively strong unmatched enemy and they lost. But that didn't stop the future generation follow in their footsteps. These are actual battles, but in our society now we are fighting battles against unmatched adversaries. There are so many things that we need to fight against and there are a handful people who have gathered so far "with the pikes upon their shoulders at the rising of the moon". Oppression is everywhere, in every society. With all the blabber about Marxism and socialism there are still millions and millions of people having a horrible quality of life. Not just poverty, but facing all sorts of crimes that we can't even think of. I should include animals too. There are tons of animals being abused too, which is one thing I fight against.

Fighting is difficult, going against the tide is difficult. I do just a couple things and even in that I always see apathy, selfishness, a callous couldn't-care-less attitude. A fear to come out of the comfort zone. A general idea of "why bother when it's not affecting me"...

I am trying to change that in all fields that I can. Go for the better alternative. Choose the better solution. I said it is tough but who said being a rebel is easy?

বিশ্ব ছাড়ায়ে উঠিয়াছি আমি
চির উন্নত মম শির 

Photo source - Wikipedia

"Mirror, mirror on the wall..."

What do you do when you see a mirror? Isn't it the most common behavior to quickly check how we are looking? Is the one hair sticking out? Is the nose too shiny? Has the lipstick smudged? From time immemorial human beings try to look better. "Better" is an extremely relative word, because in different cultures and in different times this "better look" sometimes border the crazy. We wonder, "what kind of taste do those people have?" Like when we see those iron shoes from China, don't we think, "what made them think that THAT looks nice?" But if we look around, I am sure we would find a lot of crazy things that we do in the name of "looking good".

Take for example, the high heeled shoes. What makes us think that those look good? And for people who wear those (included me, though very rarely) can vouch for how uncomfortable they are. I don't think anyone can say that they feel good wearing them. Adds to the height? Haha! For a really short person, that won't really add much and for an already tall person, that is not something she's worry about. Makes the gait graceful? Bwahaha...until she sprains her ankle! Also, it adds quite a strain to the leg muscles because humans were not meant to be walking in that unnatural manner.

Then is the thing about nail colors. Why? Painting nails... who told us that it looks pretty? I don't know. (I paint my nails too, more often than I wear high heels). Ranging from simple things like wearing makeup, taking pains to make the hair look more voluminous, coloring hair and going to the last degrees as laser hair removal, Botox and the like, we do spend a lot of money, time and energy in trying to "look good". When I see teenaged girls wearing makeup I wonder what they are thinking. How are they trying to present themselves, how important is "looking good" and why?

I don't know.

We grew up in a society where putting on makeup was considered a bad thing. It was like if you think too much about how you look, you would not be trying to grow yourself properly. I personally like that idea. Especially while growing up, it does good. Probably that is why me and girls of my generation are pretty comfortable in our own skins and I had never heard of the word "negative body image" until I was in my late twenties. The only image we knew of is the one the mirror showed us and we were happy with it.

I am not saying people don't have to look good. We all need to look presentable. That is why we need to wear nice clothes while going to a wedding, professional things when we go to work. Going to a wedding in PJs with a bed head look may be very "natural" but that is also borderline eccentric. We need to take care of ourselves, look proper and wear normal clothes. But how much is too much?

There should be much more emphasis on being healthy. A healthy person will anyway have healthy skin and nails and hair. And when you have naturally healthy hair, why bother to increase it's volume by applying an array of chemicals? A healthy girl will not want to become skinny and result in an anorexic or bulimic or both. A healthy skin does not need any makeup.

It is in our genes, that we girls like to dress up but why? Next time you take up that makeup applicator, ask yourself why you are doing it? If you spend an hour in the morning dressing up before going to work, or worse still, before going to school, ask yourself why. Why do you think you need to hide under a layer of makeup before you go out to meet the world. And those women who apply eye makeup while driving on the highway, let me assure you, no one will admire the eye makeup of your corpse.

Take a look here: http://www.stopthebeautymadness.com/ and see for yourself where the world is heading. #StopTheBeautyMadness

#StopTheBeautyMadness

A season of introspection

I went on my first fall hike this afternoon and realized that like everything, trails show a special beauty in this season. With the early dusk, overcast skies and trees shedding the extra, I feel this is a season of melancholy, of turning inwards. As I looked up on Wikipedia about fall, I read these specific lines - "Autumn in poetry has often been associated with melancholy. The possibilities of summer are gone, and the chill of winter is on the horizon. Skies turn grey, and many people turn inward, both physically and mentally." Just to mention, I read it after I had my thoughts. That means this is a common realization of all people. 

I wouldn't say that this season makes me depressed, but it is true that I tend to introspect more than I would do in summer. Spring and summer are all about being active. There are so many things to do, new life springs up with the tulips, daffodils and Easter lilies. If seasons could have characters, I think fall would be the introvert one.

Just like everyone don't like introverts, there are many people who do not like fall. Yes, at first it does look very depressing (to add to it is the time change by falling back one hour), the sudden chill brings a lot of colds and coughs, but if we take a deeper look we will see how beautiful and romantic this season is. If spring is about new lovers, Valentine's Day and dreams of "living happily ever after", then fall is about thinking of lost loves or of those people who could never become ours. 

This is also the time to be grateful. With Thanksgiving coming up, it doesn't do bad to count one's blessings. Especially if you are prone to feeling depressed in fall, this is a good antidote. Write down one thing you are thankful for, every day and you would see that the fact that we are alive should be reason enough for us to be thankful for. 

Bring out your fleece blankets, warm socks, find out some nice crockpot recipes, get a cup of coffee and curl up with a book. While sitting on my chaise and reading a book, I pause and look out to the back yard...and think...it is fun to enjoy every day as it comes and try to be the greatest extrovert, but at times it is nice to question and find answers within my own self too...