This post belongs to the original post titled ‘Letting Go‘
I pulled out the scrapbook from the bottom of the cupboard with the intention of scanning a few pages. The paper has yellowed, the edges of the paper are torn, and damp hands have removed some of the colour. But as I flipped through it with my mother, we fell in love with it all over again! So I decided to scan the whole book!
A part of me wanted to retouch it, but the better part of me (read lazy) thought it best to upload it untouched – yellow and torn. The scans don’t reveal how beautifully well preserved the actual photographs are, though the newspaper clippings reveal their age. Hope you enjoy!
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The images are the property of their respective owners. I apologise for being unable to mention the sources (I was just a 12 year old kid who didn’t really care about intellectual property). It is very very very old! Some that do come to my mind are – The Hindu (Newspaper supplements), Brochures from The Sanskriti Museum and India Habitat centre.
The dust has finally settled – quite literally. Here are the sights (no sounds, since we’ve gone cracker-free) from this year’s Diwali.
Deepavali (Diwali) is a time when people celebrate. Reasons and ways of celebrating vary.
Lighting the stairs
But the lights are the main features of the festival. In the place where I live, the festivities begin only in the evening, whereas in the place where our ancestors lived, the festivities are over even before the day begins. Its complicated, and I’ll save that for another post.
Decorative Earthen Lamp
So while the whole society around us celebrates, we have nothing to do. A feeling of loneliness, and isolation, inevitably begins to creep in. Something I term festive blues (okay, there may be others who’ll claim to have termed it thus).
This year, to fight the festive blues, I decided watch our neighbours making a rangoli outside their house.
A Traditional Brass Peacock Lamp
Again, in the place I live in, rangolis are made only on very special occasions, and are a form of recreation. In the culture we belong to, new rangolis are made daily. So when we see people making a big deal about rangolis, I really can’t understand it.
Small Decorative Clay Lamp
Since our rangoli had been made early morning, there wasn’t much to do. So yet again, I picked up the very intimidating camera and captured some sights of this diwali.
* * * * * *
Fighting against darkness
If you intend visiting India during Diwali, it could either be the best, or the worst experience of your life. All the bazaars are flooded with the most beautiful lamps and idols and what not. All houses are decorated with lights – both electric as well as oil lamps/candles. And since The Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi, enters only clean houses, all houses are squeaky clean and colourful rangolis are drawn. Of course, all the shops are crowded and everything is expensive. So you have to have great bargaining skills. And if you don’t like crackers or loud noises, well, then nothing can protect you against them!
Pots of Flame
Cheers!
PS. The photos here are free for anyone wanting to use them for non-commercial purposes. A link would be appreciated 🙂
‘The Lamp Is Lit’ is a book authored by Ruskin Bond.
I love my gypsy-like, bead bracelet. I love it so much, I’m dedicating an entire blog page and several photographs to it!
A few days back I was fiddling around with a bead necklace… err… bracelet… Its just a really long piece of thread with lots of tiny beads.
We belong together!
All the beads are unique in their own way… Some are broken, some have cracks, some which have holes in weird places, and some which have strange shapes. In short, its made up of rejected stuff a.k.a junk!
A few of us in college had gone to a local market and we found a hawker selling these, dirt cheap…
Up close and personal
One look at those beads, and it was hard to resist… I immediately wrapped it around my wrist.
I loved it!
And then it broke – what else could you expect from a piece of junk.
In search of the next bead
But then, I loved it so much! So I repaired it, adding a few other beads from another broken bracelet.
Since then, the bracelet has been my constant companion. Wherever I have gone, its been with me. I’ve lost count of the number of times its broken. And the number of times
She strings sea shells...
its been repaired. But every time it’s been repaired, a little bit has been added to it – a few forgotten beads lying in the corner of the cupboard, beads that had fallen out of old dresses, and beads that had even been ripped out of fancy wedding invitations!
Standing out of the crowd
Not all of them were old, some were new, like sea shells, bright seeds collected during one of our holidays…
Panchayat
There is nothing orderly, symmetrical, or perfect about the bracelet, yet, to me, it looks beautiful…
As it was being repaired for the umpteenth time, I decided to photograph the imperfect, pretty little beads. I’d borrowed my brother’scamera. I don’t know much, except that it had a special lens, which had a fixed focal length. I clicked a few times, and the result was horrible! That was enough to scare me.
Odd one out
If the camera wasn’t intimidating enough, I realised I had no clue how to go about taking the pictures. So I just switched to the auto mode and let the camera decide everything else!
Galaxy
All the photographs here were taken by the camera! Hope you enjoy the photographs.
Cheers!
Imperfectly perfect!
Since I rely on material distributed over the internet, it is only appropriate that I do the same… The photographs here may be used for non-commercial purposes. A simple credit would be appreciated 🙂
Musings of an eccentric mind 