Empty Frames....

This was an old picture of myself with my sister around 12 years ago, in the garden of the bungalow where we stayed, in Lonavla. It's one of those pictures that I look back at and feel the waves of time washing over me. That was a time that I'll cherish all my life.... something I wish I could relive... or atleast go through it as a spirit.... 

Only a few weeks ago, I went back to Lonavla and instinctively first went to that bungalow... We don't live there anymore and the landlords were there. So I asked for the permission and went around, clicking pictures to take back. I regreted. A lot... I cried as I clicked most of them, each frame filled with more than just the area but with memories, and the time we'd spent there. As I looked through the view finder, I saw my little self, playing around the place with my cousins.... and as I clicked one particular picture, I saw one particular picture that my mother had clicked 12 years ago from the same spot where I stood at that moment......

The picture looks strangely empty to me..... 

Trapped...

We had a photography project and were supposed to click pictures on a theme. It had me clicking madly all over the place!! This was one of those project pictures. As I crossed my college, along the fence, this cat was one that caught my eye. I don't know how this feline got into that thing, but it sure made me think when I saw it again on my comp screen later... How much it reflected the lives of a lot of us. We're into a situation, trapped, seemingly caged, but we've got no clue how we got there or how to get out. Of course, that was not the case with this creature, It must have known how to get out...But it definitely is with a lot of people.... one of them being me....

The Culprit

 I was walking down Colaba Causeway the other day. My friends had participated in a college festival and needed some props for a certain performance so I'd rushed down there with another friend of mine. That's when we came across a little baby lying on a rag of cloth on the footpath and this girl, presumably her sister was sitting nearby playing with a cup full of muck of some sort. I urged my friend to take a picture of the baby since she was holding Artemis (My camera). As soon as we stopped and it looked like we were taking an interest in the baby, this little girl started to get the child to look at us for the picture. she did all sorts of things and even threatened to slap the baby if the baby wouldn't look. immediately we lowered the camera, but not before this picture was taken. much later, when I was saving the pictures on my computer, I saw this one and a sharp twang of guilt reverberated  through me, as if I was some sort of unidentified culprit who was running around free when someone else was serving the term for a crime I'd committed. It was as if the girl in the picture was pointing an accusing finger at me, finally identifying the culprit in me...... 

Welcome to Pic-A-Tale

Hey!

(Just in case someone is reading this.) Welcome to my blog and thanks a lot for coming! I'm glad that you thought of it. Well, I'm sure you have little idea about what this blog is, so let me tell you a little about myself and my blog.

I'm like any other 19 year old out there. I grew up in the little town of Lonavla, an ex-beautiful hill station. I've learned to live a beautiful life with a point of view I find precious. Often, I see a lot into things that are of little or no significance at all. Often, people say that I shouldn't and often I feel they are wrong. 

For me, every vision that my eye captures and sends to my brain, has a purpose, a message, a story. It is impossible to record each of these stories and talk of them. So with the aid of my darling Artemis, my Nikon D40 camera, I try my best to capture visions that are most vociferous. I fail most of the times, because I don't find it appropriate to aim a camera at a rotting leg of a beggar or a poor woman looking on with glea as her child takes her first ever steps in front of her hut on the drainage channel. Though these are the most powerful images they are stored for ever more, in the reel of my mind. The others, I will put here and tell you what I think about them. Not too much philosophy or stuff like that. Just a word or two of thoughts. 

I'd like it if you post a comment here in case you happen to feel like it. Would definitely love to know what you have to say.

So hope I click enough to keep this blog running.

Regards,

Maithili Desai

Beyond the Abuse.

To anyone, this is a picture of a guy taking drugs. And it was just that; a guy taking drugs and I clicked it to be a sort of photo-cop and report the happening. but when I lowered my camera, I found the fellow looking up at me, and the look that he gave me sent a wierd feeling down my spine. No. Not dread. It was something totally different. There was no threat in his glance, nor anything intimidating. The look he gave me was the one an accused would give a judge who'd sentenced him before trial. There was a resigned acceptance mixed with a look of accusation. 'How can you judge me without knowing me?' it asked. And then it shrugged it's shoulders, that Look, and said, 'Oh, well! It happens all the time. Nothing new. Go ahead. Lable me. Just like several before you did and several afterwards will do.'

And it made me wonder, what was it, beyond his addiction that made up his life? did he have a wife? a sister? did any close one of his die? or get muredred? or maybe, was he kidnapped and escaped his captors here in the city only to land in this other sort of captivity? Who knows? And worse, who cares? Who will ever know anything beyond his addiction? or for that matter, the addiction of so many in the city. Will they ever surface? Will we ever come face to face with the people beyond the abuse?