Stupidity can do it too. For example. The group of 17 year old high school girls in the US who decided to get pregnant ( at 17!!!) and raise their babies together because they thought it'd be cool.
The fact the Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai are participating in the Gay Pride Parade, but Mumbai isn't. I'm wondering why, because Mumbai, well, her personality is such that I thought she'd jump at the chance.....after all, the fact that India is having pride parades marks, well, it's great that we're finally beginning to accept homosexuality and LGBTs for what they are..
The other thing that's left me speechless is the photography exhibition by Raghu Rai. For all you Mumbaikars, it's on till 20th july, at the National gallery of modern art, on M G road.
Dad went yesterday morning, as a punishment for going without me, I made him take me there again in the afternoon.
The hall at NGMA is, well, modern. Beautifully designed, with circular halls and spiralling staircases, making you feel like you're in a giant ammonite.
Raghu Rai's work is sheer poetry, most of it, and I can safely say that he's the kind of photographer I've always wanted to become, this is what I want to do with my life, chronicle the world with a camera.
Walking through the well-planned layout, almost each photo hits you with emotion, emotion that you can clearly see. The sheer volume of crowds, the angles that only an artist's eye can see from, the joy, the sorrow, the contrast offered by a Delhi picture titled "two old men"......His eye sees it all, his shutter freezes it.
On the second floor, a riot of colour, a livid blue wall hiding a Delhi washerwoman, wrestlers at an akhda, and many more. More often than not, his work shows comparisons, contrasts, but whatever it is, it just sweeps you off your feet. Photos that make a poet want to gaze forever and compose odes, make an artist want to reproduce them.
Dad passes a little section without stopping. "I've seen those", he says. "Terrible..." the word trails off.
I wonder why, I stop and look. The fourth photo there is like a punch in the gut, a hand and a child's head, eyeless. The caption reads "Burial of unknown baby, Bhopal gas tragedy". Yet another reads "Abnormal (or was it aborted?) foetus, Bhopal gas tragedy."
I leave, thoughts, words, emotions, pictures, all buzzing through my head. I know that's the kind of work I want to do, that's who i want to become. And off we go, looking at Mumbai with eyes that are now open a little wider.
Why do we instantly fall in love with babies? My sister's baby now has a name. Prerna. Sigh. Now the mother, son and daughter all have names that start with 'Pr' and the poor father remains the odd one out. A beautiful girl, this Prerna. Looks a lot like her mother. Dad was happiest with her in his lap, Prerna, like a little cat-baby, squirming in her sleep with her hands and her mouth moving. What do 13-day-old babies dream of? hazy impressions of their world, clouds? Do they dream? All the house was in chaos, and this sweet, soft baby was just oblivious to all of it.
11 comments:
please come with me fr the exhi??????////
if i ever saw a marketing strategy that relied heavily on photography, it has to be that of incredible india (and the shots really were incredible). if u ever get a chance, check out some of those incredible india shots. the captions with them are even better. i saw this one at the delhi airport last year. the pic was a close up of a tiger's head, and the caption was "not all indians are hospitable and vegetarian". and other amazing ones too.
A part of my cognitive years have been spent in reasoning out as to why people want to create a remainder;a stamp of goriness that has happened in the past. What happened in Bhopal is way beyond emotions to explain; but what is happening now is beyond my understanding. Why would one person want to make money by framing a calamity that has/had befallen another fellow-human being? Going beyond reality; assuming, hypothetically,even if the "framer" is planning to do away with the proceeds of the frame to the "framee", how good is it? have become so "fill-in-an-adjective" that we find ways of money-making in another person's suffering? or has it always been so?
maybe the falling in love wth the babies was created as a defensive maneouvre?? i mean obviously the human new born is easily the most hapless of all, so what does evolution do to ensure their survival?? make them cute and us think that they're cute.
interesting. now "evolution" is being raped again to hide our misunderstanding :-)
lol havent we always, ??? but honestly, it doesnt make sense at all??
I would say its the bad things things which keeps u speechless more often because most of the good things are expected
2 lucky: the ony one of those i remember is the one of the Taj...
2 tat-tvam-asi: it's always been so, I think. remember gladiators, remember?
2 rushi: err...hmm..perhaps.
2 blastoff: no, the bad things leave me more irritated...
Gladiators? The philosophy behind that is all together a new topic which ends up being justified on terms of public ignorance which is a by-product of autocratic monarchy.
That apart, how can gladiators/barbarians/mongols etc. who form less than 10% of history/civilizations form a part of your statement which says "always been so"!
Reasoning apart, common and sense and good math tells me more than majority is needed to prove an absolutist "always".
Given that I end up in mumbai every 15 fays...n i really want to see raghu rai's display.. grrrrrr just too busy to make it to mumbai anytime soon
n how can u complain bout the rains
i was drenched for 12 hours straight yesterday...n it was awesomeeeee
It was aborted foetuses.
Saw the exhibiton today. On ur reviews and suggestion actually.
LOVED IT.
2 Old man had to be one of my fav's.Among the godesses. Mother teresa with the neighbour's new born.Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasiya. So many pictures are in a riot in my head right now. The bhopal gas tragedy ones were just disturbing. Drastic.
Rushi ended up there few minutes before closing also.
So, basically, Thanks :)
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