Photography & Me

There are some things in life that you can never do, but still you wish in your dreams. Time Travel is perhaps among the most popular of them. All of us, we have some moments that we always want to go back to. It may be the golden school days, wild college days, or simply surrender yourself to the cool breeze of the beach you visited recently.

However, though science has not invented enough to make this practically feasible, but it has been successful to push the muscle that matters most, the Brain. I call the Camera nothing less than a Time Machine. It gives us the incredible power of capturing a moment with a click and re-visiting the same in years to come.

As a child, almost everyone gets fascinated by this machine. I was gifted a basic point-and-shoot camera when I was as young as 8. Gradually I took up interest in the subject, read some books, borrowed and bought better cameras whenever opportunities came. With a little bit of appreciation from the people around, this sparked a Fire and I became a shutterbug. I think almost everybody who still holds a camera has gone through these phases.

However, recently something happened that made me different. 

I was in a national reserve forest with eyes prying to catch the sight of a wild animal. After a long and patient wait, it did appear for an instant. But suddenly I realized that I have lost of sight! 

I did capture that instant with the lens of my camera, but I did not see it with my own eyes. The moment came & went away. And there I was, holding the proof of the moment, which I never really experienced!

It struck to me, be it pandal-hopping during the Durga Puja in Kolkata, or be it jungle safari, I was so obsessed with capturing the Moment, that I never really lived them. As if, I was very thirsty, but instead of drinking the water, I was busy accumulating it. And when I tried to take a sip, I discovered that the mug was like a mesh and all the water has seeped away, leaving me thirsty, over-worked and stupid.

After that, I stopped shooting pictures altogether. I live all the moments that come to me, and as Ol' Nature wants, I remember the moments that really means a lot to me and forget the rest! :)

Suits well to a lazy person like me I guess. ;)

New Bengal : A Vision

Today was a historic day for Bengal. After 34 years of continuous rule, the people of Bengal chose to dethrone CPM. This outcome has overjoyed many, saddened many, but most importantly this has jerked all the parties about the political sensitivity of the people. People are no longer just satisfied with the content of the pre-election manifestos, but they want work to be done, and they're pretty serious about it.

As for a majority class of middle-class people, they are very cautious. Neither too optimistic, nor very pessimistic. They want to give others a chance to play the game, rather than just letting them shout from the boundary-lines. It is very reassuring to see this attitude of the general public that they are ready even to compromise with their decade-old perceptions in the hope for a better tomorrow.

For the evolution of a species, change is inevitable, without which it loses its capability to strive in this world, where with time it becomes more and more difficult to exist. Some changes come automatically, some need a trigger, and some active actions. But, just as water flows freely from a higher altitude to a lower one, situations when left to themselves turns bad to worse. It always needs a positive force to push the things up.

Today, Bengal is in the doorstep of a big change. It is now in our hands where we want it to go. If TMC gets complacent of its formidable victory and takes too long to stop partying and start working, it's run will be cut short prematurely. It is important for them to take a proper grip of the steering, oil the rusty machinery and provide the necessary fuel & then ignite the spark. No doubt it will be a tedious, hard and long process, but every minute of effort will count in the long term. If Bengal can entrust a party for 3 decades, I'm sure (or at least hopeful) that they will have enough patience to wait for the reformed Bengal Machine to move.

However, as always, the chances of failure is very high. TMC can get busy gobbling up the Pie, forgetting that the original reason for their victory was not that most people wanted TMC to win, but many just wanted CPM to go. Only TMC gave a threat to the existence of CPM, hence they won easily, banking on the super-brand Mamata Banerjee, whose primary goal was to oust the ruling party at any cost. Throughout her political career, she has operated in the most challenging situations, and considered attack as the best defense. At every opportunity, she has made sure that CPM was duly embarrassed, punished and the whole act get well publicized. I admire her single-minded approach, persistence to the fighting spirit and also most of her strategies. A true warrior she is. But the problem is, a whole kingdom cannot be run only by the King in the smallest details. It needs a good team, intelligent strategists and some wise people. This is where TMC can face the biggest challenge.

Comparatively a new party, a conglomerate of floating politicians, intellectuals, popular figures and muscle-men, it is still lacking in the gluons that will hold the nucleus together. Party-men will have to temporarily forget about the party's sole welfare and think about the public to take some positive steps to keep them interested. They need to deliver short-term, plan for the long-term and always keep an eye on the clock, which always keeps ticking.

Other than this, there is an imminent possibility of a strong destructive opposition from CPM. Unlike a good opposition which criticizes for the betterment of the State and encounter probable injurious actions, a bad opposition can stop positive executions too and create a situation of a deadlock, where the public suffers eventually. TMC haven't been a very good opposition in this respect, and undertook many actions only to increase the count in their vote bank. On the other hand, CPM already having a strong base in the state, it won't require as much effort to win the counts back. It can cash-in heavily on every minute mistake that TMC in power may make. Here the challenge becomes even more difficult for the new ruling party. And I'm sure whenever CPM gets the next chance in administration, they will be very keen to deliver, which is the only guaranteed positive outcome of their defeat.

Like many people in Bengal, I dont really care who sits on the chair. I just want to see my state wake up from the long slumber, shake-off her chains and start to rise.

The idea of a party gulping the whole of Bengal is now fragile. People are now so sensitive that the balance can tilt any side, any time. Only sweet words will no more suffice to fill the Bengal Cerebrum, which has already accepted change as a part of Life. Now the question is, whether the parties accept it too.

In Search of The Divine : The Sounds of Silence (Part 3)

Vibration is another word for Existence.

According to some fundamental laws of Physics, for every strand of energy and matter there is vibration. Be it sound, be it light or be it atoms – a unique vibration defines them all. Assimilation of these uncountably infinite number of waves, sewn over billions of years of Space-Time, lays the fabric of our perceivable Universe.

As we all know, there are an infinite number of integers in the number system. But at the same time, there are again an infinite number of fractional numbers between any two consecutive integers. Similarly, in this seemingly infinite physical universe, all of us are entities who are themselves a well of infinite potential. As most of us tread in the shallow depths of our Being, hedges of confusion and ignorance have grown a layer and covers the entrance to the undiscovered depths, thus conveying a false perception of the actual reality.

As we dive deeper, piercing through the thick thorny layers of accumulated bramble, most of us yield to the bruises that the Journey impose on us in the attempt, while the persistent one carries on forward, challenging the limits of his endurance.

At the end of it all, one may expect Divine Bliss, a grand orchestra of heavenly music that fills up his mind, body and soul; but all he encounters is a sudden, utter Silence! An absolute Nothingness!

This is the Period of Silence.

All noise, all commotion dies at the doorstep of this stage. Like the sudden rain after a torrid and searing summer, like the sudden stop after hours of deafening rock music, this Nothingness gives a pleasant jolt, so soothing that it revitalizes your entire consciousness. You’re freed of all materialistic earthly thoughts and worries, all the strings are cut loose that attach you to the breeding ground of germs that eats your core every day, every moment. A peaceful calmness surges through your nerves. You levitate into the Stratosphere of your existence.

This period of silence purifies and nourishes you and for the first time you feel so full, yet to empty! All the heavy stones from your Being have been removed, and you float freely like a feather, effortlessly in all the dimensions.

Gradually, you start to discover happiness everywhere, in every thought in every pace you take! The same old things are perceived differently, you can see yourself playing your small part in the Grand Theatre of the Universe. You discover the String that binds them all, the subtle tunes of the Divine Flute that makes the world dance to its rhythm.

All struggle, all confusions, all doubts come to an end. Now you are able to fathom the Unity in all Diversity, and you find yourself sinking happily in the Sounds of Silence…

Finally, the Darkness gives way, you embrace the Dawn of the Divine in the horizons of your consciousness.

Epilogue:
Some billions of years ago, in the grand event of a beautiful Singularity, our universe was created, out of Nothing! Seemingly, it had defied all laws of Physics to be pregnant with what we are today. But on deeper analysis, it yields that all agents were there in the Nothingness itself! It just needed some Divine Calibration in the Universal Machinery to set off the Spark.

Every individual, every one of us has all the ingredients necessary to explode the Eternal Happiness that resides within. We just need to find the right calibration to initiate the Spark!

In Search of The Divine : Isolation (Part 2)

If you take a lump of metal and perform numerous chemical reactions on it, the results would be similar to another metal that fits into the periodic table in a similar group. Only when you break down the lump to its atoms, that it shows the characteristics truly unique to that element.

The external manifestations of our daily activities reveal only a part of the mystery that lies deep inside, astounding and unimaginable.

Just like the lump, which we need to tear down to its atoms, to perform the analysis of the Self and reach the core of our Being, we need to shake off all the other super-incumbent forces, which tame our natural self in every way. Hence the need for Isolation.

Isolation does not mean to be lonely physically, and not even mentally! Isolation is the state in which you can differentiate the unique color of your paintbrush from the thousands of others’ in the canvas of your consciousness. By knowing your own color, your vision and judgment remains unblurred by the blotches of attachments, desires and emotions that cloud every sphere of your existence.

When in the calm of your mind, you blot the canvas with your inner wisdom, only your unique color remains.

All of a sudden a beautiful harmony and gorgeous pattern unveils itself amongst all the chaotic scribbles.

Now you are ready to decipher the code that would open the Pandora’s Box, lying Within!

In Search of The Divine (Part 1)

Essentially, there are two kinds of Beauty : One, that would make you jealous, that would arouse your desire to possess it, eat it, smell it, touch it - that would suffocate your sensuality and rationality until you can declare "It is mine!".

The other, will just make you admire its sheer Presence. It would flush all other thoughts off your mind and you would lose yourself in its aura.

No matter how objectively you try to assert that you only admire the red Ferrari, subtle or not, you will definitely have the strong desire to be behind its wheel and to be in control of that beautiful beast! But, stand in front of an ocean, or beneath a snow-white, seemingly topless mountain, and you would just keep gazing at it...

In the daily hustle and bustle of life, the inner calm always gets discomposed by the ripples and waves of restlessness. But, amidst the overwhelmingly Absolute, everything becomes perfectly serene and carries a subtle mesmerizing refreshing fragrance of peace and happiness.

This is when we are ready to perceive The Divine.