Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Diary of Pain

I have decided to embark on a project--or a journey--whatever you may want to call it, to expunge this very bad thing that is bothering me. The first thing that I will do is to download some of the photographs that have been clogging my icloud for a very long time and talk about them to expunge their power. Stop them from bothering me. Leave them behind in a place where they should be: that is, in a limbo where they could not exert power over me.

But a voice within me warns: Not in limbo! That place could be tricky, shadowy, those demons could assume many dimensions and could come back to you in another form!

So, I will bring all of them into the light!  So that I could look and examine them and see them for what they are! 

For example, that particular shot where a dark chair outside framed an illuminated newsroom. That's where I waited for the call that never came many years ago. It was maybe, past 8 p.m. or was it almost 9, I was already done with the work at the newsroom and was preparing to go home. But I sat there waiting for the call. It never came. I looked at the shining metal frames of the glass windows surrounding me and felt their efficient coldness; rendering work in the newsroom was sheer efficiency. I long for the warmth of that call that never came. The warmth of home.

Then, I realised that no one was helping me. No one was taking my side, no one was backing me up.  That photograph was taken five years ago. 

Last night, I talked to my sister. I rarely visited them now because doing so would distress me so bad it would take me days and months to recover. But I went there prepared. I thought I could shield myself from whatever distressing things that they might have to say.

Then slowly it came, innocently, and right in the middle of the conversation. I was telling her how before, in my twenties and in the midst of the circumstances I was facing, I had given up pursuing a particular path. Then, she cut in and said, "Had you become a lawyer, you would already have had so many enemies by now." She laughed a long, hard laugh that scrunched her face, made her look very ugly. 

I could not understand why she said it, where such unfair and wrong notion came. I did not know how to answer. Stunned, I merely stared at her. 

Now it dawns on me. They always view me as a troublemaker.  This is a badge of honor as a journalist, but if you hear your sisters telling you that in a totally misconstrued and negative way, I wonder what would you feel? I should lessen my contact with them as much as possible. 


Friday, November 03, 2023

Things we discover at 55


 




































                                                       That we are utterly alone in this world. 

Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Sunday, October 01, 2023

Malagos


I traveled all the way to the forest just to try my camera before it finally conks out and say goodbye to me. But I brought the wrong lens so when nature revealed its astounding beauty to me, I was stupefied. 

I was only able to capture it in parts and not the breadth and depth of its grandeur. Also, I was too busy worrying about the exposure that I simply, simply failed--

So, here I was, trying very hard to be a photographer, when nature was just saying, "Hi, how are you, why are you so worked up, my dear?"


 

 

Sunday, April 02, 2023

Bust of Brutus

Shshsh! I know it's not perfect but - maybe almost! Besides, the young artist who is my Art Teacher already moved me to the next (and the more difficult) level; enlarging by mere approximation. Which means, you only have to look at the subject and draw it without any aid of a ruler or any tool for measurement. You are completely on your own!

But let me talk about Brutus. "Is that the guy who killed Caesar?!" Ja asked as soon as I got home and opened the new plate. "Yes," I said, "The person of interest." 
The way the young artist who is my teacher had said to me who the guy was made me think that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't Brutus; he wasn't Brutus at all. When I looked at the guy in the picture, I began to wish he were a Roman General instead of a Senator. He seems to match the image of a military man. There was something about his patrician forehead or is that a patrician nose. Or the way he pursed his lips that hinted of a smile or cunning; his shrewd, calculating gaze, his thick neck, which suggested of a  physique that could be achieved only through long years of training and discipline. 
I stared at him for hours. Ja could not understand why I sat there for hours, staring. "What are you doing? Why can't you start your drawing yet? Why are you staring there for so long?" I began to understand why artists stare. Van Gogh spent days staring at the potato fields when he did the potato eaters.  Or was it the potato peelers? (Yes, I came from the kitchen. I use peelers a lot!) Basta! Potatoes! Look it up in that book of his letters.  
But I stared and stared almost to the core of the soul of Brutus (if this were really Brutus. I searched the images on the web and I only found a younger face, so, I'm still in doubt). I like the guy to be a Roman General but I also tried to think of him as a convicted criminal, a leader of an underground syndicate, a beggar, a pedophile. Just to see if the characters and the picture could match. 
My drawing failed to capture the ruthlessness of the man. Nor his brute strength. In my drawing, he is not a Roman General at all. He does not even look like a Roman. I'm not making any judgment. I'm just blabbering.



A view from the Tower


There's not much to see from here. This is a lonely place to be but I like the isolation and the total privacy.  You can type anything on your laptop without anyone peeping over your shoulders. You can write letters, diaries, journals without anyone asking, "What are you writing? A journal again? Why do you write a diary? What for?" As if diaries were filthy little secrets; and sounds like diaper. The voices in your head. You can turn off the TV set here, shut all the voices and sounds.  You can finally face yourself, ask what's bothering you. Explain why you did the things you did and those you did not do. 
No one would bother you here, except yourself. You'd be completely on your own. That's a scary thought, though; to be completely on your own.




 

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Friday, March 24, 2023