Presenting Radio Clash I

On Photography

Aspirations have different manifestations. And some manifestations give birth to creative license. What exactly is creative license? And who do we define as an artist in a world of people trying to break away from the clichéd forms of entertainment and livelihood to express a more primitive urge. The urge to create, give form and to share this passion with peers and critics.

Photography is an artistic medium that lends a definitive shape to viscous images that otherwise get lost as our eyes move away to admire and analyse other issues. How do we suspend this animated display of life, color, people, culture and places? The camera becomes a sort of heightened metaphor through which we can freeze these very many details of the world that stretches before our physical selves and immediate environment.

I am no photographer but I am passionate about the medium and slowly picking up the nitty gritties of the trade. The lens fascinates me though I hesitate to give free play to all that I view and perceive, and perception is so essential to everything I see and internalize. Because perception adds meaning and a content to the otherwise hazy cloud of thoughts that constantly flow in my veins.

Travelling has been a passion for as long as I can remember. Give me an adventure, a journey and I will be game. The sights and sounds, the smells and shades, life in motion and fractured beginnings and endings! The lessons of unlearning and the search for cognition through conflict, error and inertia.

And that’s where the camera becomes a mate- a mute renderer of all things plausible, mundane or avant garde.

10 oct, 2007. 18.36hrs

On Writing

All things reveal themselves to me as if I am a conspirer in the vast scheme of things that constitute what is chaos theory today. I feel and I know, I touch and I feel, I write but than again, what do I write? Writing has to be a consistent endeavour. To rephrase Samuel Johnson's words, An amateur, Sir, should keep his writing in constant repair. Scrutinize, abuse, critique and compose like a madman. Gibberish is gibberish because we understand the frivolity of the whole text, while we read through. But any exercise in attempting a piece of writing, gibberish or otherwise, should not be futile. Writing a page every morning, is it so difficult? I ask myself. But that was a rhetorical query I suppose. So many things to express and yet I fall short of proper words and shy away in the veil of metaphors that might make sense to me but what is writing if no one reads it, attempts to reach his own meanings and than finally delivers his verdict and tosses it away. Well, the esteemed reader might even save the article of writing to read, re-read again at his own pace. But I come back to square one again. What is the point of endlessly cribbing about the paucity of time and the mundane nature of a comfortable life when I can cry out in words, release myself from all that binds me and fellow human beings? I might not be doing much at all but at least, I will have a reference point to come back to when I question all that I have been taught to accept.

The search proceeds…

10.10.07, 18.48hrs

A workshop of five days on TV Training for young journalists of the Northeast region (that bloody clichéd definition again!). and it’s intensive, grueling, information-overload and than some more. Per diems and cocktail dinners, that’s what fascinates some of them. While others try to unlearn and yet cant resolve the conflict that thinking individuals experience in short, spastic bursts of restlessness. I go through the motions of the first three days with a spring in my step though occasionally my eyes burn, my back hurts and I catch the flu. I keep to myself on certain hours and than again, I go wild with a forgotten vibrancy at moments that catch me unawares too. And the creative energy within me keeps pestering me, driving my mind loco and compelling me to seek out my own moments of white noise.

I try to channelize my stream of consciousness. Ah, consciousness! The bane of human beings. And I scoff at established notions of feminity and folks think I am just a rebel without a cause. I wish I could explain them about all the colors I see and all the ideas that fool around in my head as I sit on the pot blankly gazing at the white tiled wall in front of me. I wish I could debate libertarianism and Dadaism with some like minded drifter. I wish I could be articulate enough to discuss and question political ideals. But some things have to wait and some things are more private ofcourse. And yes, prince charming, I never was searching for u. I am just dreaming a living dream. This life has never been enough ever, has it now?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"To me the only success, the only greatness, is immortality." - James

Dean, quoted in James Dean: The Mutant King, by David Dalton ( well indeed! Haha)

Air conditioned hospitals and heart surgeons with multiple degrees from fancy universities eloquently spell out the many benefits of a long life. Who the fuck wants a long life now!!! I remember the debates I had with my pa about smoking. He tried to reason it out with me. And I listlessly said, “Health is dispensable”. I don’t hold the same views today. You see, I learn from moment to moment and though I have always been an existentialist I like to see the larger picture and the larger picture doesn’t look so bleak (no thanks to doomsday prophets). And I don’t realy care about many things, many things that make life worthwhile I guess. But the things I care about, I feel too passionately and as I wait for a proper understanding for essentials, I still think pride isn’t a bad thing. As long as it hurts no one else. And as long as I am still open to exploration. Who wants to buy immortality when mortality can be so multifaceted and revealing.

10.10.07. 19.20 hrs