At the heart

Make the best of what you have– My mother

 

We’ve all heard that one. The one in which the hostess welcomes the photographer by saying that I love your photographs, you must have a really good camera. At the end of dinner the photographer returns the compliment in the same vein by remarking that I loved the food, you must have a really good stove.

Some of the most memorable meals that I’ve enjoyed have consisted of no more than 5 simple ingredients, often cooked on a ‘primitive’ wood burning stove (called chulla in Hindi). In hostel we would cook a sumptuous feast of Maggi (a brand of instant noodles) and toast on a small electric heater. You get my point, don’t you? 

A thing is memorable and enjoyable in itself, and not because of how it was produced. * Also if we all had a chulla and 5 simple ingredients we won't necessarily end up with a memorable or enjoyable meal.

Even if you have the exact same camera as Henri Cartier-Bresson it will in no way guarantee that you’ll be able to take pictures like him. Till you don’t have his eye, his intellect, in fact, till you are not Henri Cartier-Bresson himself, I am afraid you can only attempt to copy his style but in no way can you become him. The camera won’t be of any help. Just as any person with oil paints, brushes and an empty canvas can’t become Van Gogh. Or just learning the ability to read and write won’t make you Shakespeare. 

Do not confuse the mere possession of tools with the actual skill. And never underestimate individual genius. No matter how hard society in the 21^st century, that counts social media as its crowning achievement, will try convincing you otherwise. Most importantly, if you have the talent and the inclination, make the best of what you have. Even if it is only a “shitty” cameraphone.

* Any person earning a living as a creative will concur. No one is interested in what you ‘suffered’ during the creative process. If the end result is good, and you manage to become famous, then your suffering will make a good anecdote. However, in time of struggle what you suffer, you suffer alone.

Three Poems, One Art

 Or You May Leave a Memory, Or You Can be Feted by Crows

 

Last night we sat talking, as it happens ever so often when the rain refuses to abate and all life and meaning gets erased by the sight and sound of water. From water we came, and water shall obliterate us. But in the meantime we talk– about art. For when life all around us seems to be going down the drain, art is the tiny straw that one clings onto in a desperate attempt to keep one’s head above the raging waters. Nietzsche said we have art in order not to perish of truth. I would like to say after we had been talking for hours the sun broke through the clouds and once again it was glorious spring. But the truth is there is only snow and rain. And the forecast for the next seven days is equally grim.

But we continue to keep talking about art. Sometimes late into the night, sometimes via email. Is it a comfort to know that you too are not waving but drowning? We keep repeating the same things– our sacred chant. Few words suffice– craft, judgment, sanity, fun. However, three poems would be, perhaps, even more eloquent.

I

In My Craft Or Sullen Art

By Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed

With all their griefs in their arms,

I labor by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

II

After Arguing against the Contention That Art Must Come from Discontent

By William E. Stafford

Whispering to each handhold, “I'll be back,”  

I go up the cliff in the dark. One place  

I loosen a rock and listen a long time

till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush

of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind—

I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side  

or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward. . . .

I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble  

by luck into a little pocket out of

the wind and begin to beat on the stones

with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth

in silent laughter there in the dark—

“Made it again!” Oh how I love this climb!

—the whispering to stones, the drag, the weight  

as your muscles crack and ease on, working  

right. They are back there, discontent,

waiting to be driven forth. I pound

on the earth, riding the earth past the stars:  

“Made it again! Made it again!”

III

You May Leave a Memory, Or You Can be Feted by Crows

By Dick Allen

Three years, Huang Gongwang

worked on his famous handscroll,

Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.

As he put successive applications of ink to paper

over the “one burst of creation,” his original design,

it is said he often sang like a tree frog

and danced on his old bare feet.

One day, he adds one hemp fiber stroke,

the next a moss dot.

What patience he had,

like a cat who comes back season after season to a mole’s tunnel.

Honors may go to others.

Riches may go to others.

Huang Gongwang has one great job to do.

And he sings like a tree frog,

and he dances on old bare feet.

The Science of Sleep

The Science of Sleep (2006), Directed by Michel Gondry.

Either you get into a film since the first shot, or you slowly slip into the lives of the characters as it progresses, or sometimes no matter how hard you try the film completely eludes you. The science of cinema is much like the science of sleep. Not surprisingly people have such divergent experiences even when they have watched the same story unfold on the big screen. Though what is surprising is how everyone is such an involved and passionate critic when it comes to films but has so little to say about the events in ‘real’ life. However, I digress.

It is not yet time for bed. Tom Waits playing in the background sings,

When I'm lyin' in my bed at night
I don't wanna grow up
Nothin' ever seems to turn out right
I don't wanna grow up

And then after a few more songs he starts to say,

but you're innocent when you dream
when you dream
you're innocent when you dream

But again I digress.

As adolescents we’d stay up well through the night because life was short and sleeping was a waste of time. But then we also believed that we could grow up to become almost anyone we wanted. And the story of our adulthood would be dominated by only one character – the almighty me.

However, now as thirty somethings there is nothing we look forward to more than sleep time. In fact, we are often reluctant to wake up to face another day in the life. For in dreams lies our real world.

At last coming to the film in question – what is there not to love about this whimsical (you say, write genius) film about Stéphane meeting Stephanie and (we all) meeting his world of dreams? As the boundary between dreams and reality blurs, how does one distinguish between the two? They say in our dreams the ‘impossible becomes possible’. But who is to say what is impossible to begin with?

People may either dream about a plane not taking off or of a dead relative gifting them a ruby ring. Similarly there are many ways of ‘seeing’ this film. Best to let our imagination and creativity make sense of our dreams and reality.

I'm exhausted, I'm gonna wake up now.

(On cinema part 3)