Ramesh Gandhi |
mahaprosthaner pothe (on the final journey) email me: rameshgandhi@vsnl.com metaphysics, search for absolutes, philosophy, medicine (western, homeopathic, ayurvedic), psychiatry, law and jurisprudence, political science, advertising, history of religion, poetry, photography, history, music, cinema
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Recent PostsHEAT, HATE On Photography as Art and Expression The Ice House, Its History and Heritage ESP or make-believe? Aging Badly A Cool Picture for a Hot Day Externalise, Stand By, Let Life Pass You By My Poem: A Priest Pleading With Me: Religion Simply an Organised Form of Superstition Infrastructure, Indian-Style Javed Akhtar, A. R. Rahman, Great Lyric, Great Music Satyameva Jayate Archives
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HEAT, HATE In school once, when I was a child, the teacher asked that we write a two-standard-notebook-size-page essay on anything that we liked. This assignment was given to us, not out of tutorial compulsions, but because the teacher was moonlighting after our early-morning charity school hours, and therefore wanted to take a nap. I won the contest, the remarkable thing about it being, I did not write my work in two pages. It was as follows:
Well, the point I am trying to make is, I still hate to hate, but heat makes me hate, and therefore I hate heat, and there is just no end to it anywhere in this country, air conditioning notwithstanding, except in the hills. And I do not like to hate. So I am doubly heated. My parents always told me that I had a higher temperature than was normal. Having had me examined by doctors, experts and charlatans, they contended with pride that I was a very warm person. That has caused another problem: I am a great target for mosquitoes. People who know me claim that I am a mosquito magnet. If there were one mosquito on the North Pole, frozen or in torpor, it would have to wake up and target me. See my picture below, and find out whether it is effective or not. On Photography as Art and Expression Recognition of photography as an art form has been, contrary to logic and expectation, slow and gradual even though now implicit in international proclamations at various forums. That such acceptance is not ungrudging and somehow leaves an unexplained feeling of lingering doubt is a stupendous anachronism. My pictures are composed by establishing an emotional rapport with the subject. While I do not scoff at the profusion of possibilities for variants with mechanical, chemical and electronic aids having limitless scope, my personal preoccupation has been with the aesthetic. This obsession has limited me to the gentle, rueful, poetic and melancholy and distanced me from the larger segment of reality. I am as much wearied of comprehension as of incomprehension. One thread, however, which binds the many lives I have lived and lost is an obsession to communicate, somehow, anyhow. I feel obliged to explain everything, including why the unexplainable is unexplainable, the easiest way of doing so being by talking incessantly. If these pictures and words speak to you, then more words by me would only be in surfeit; on the other hand, if they do not tell you anything, then anything more that I say would be dismally worthless, compounding what is probably already an imposition. I invite you to pry into my search for comprehension and beauty -- and into my discovery, alas, of the perpetual futility of the existence of life itself, especially the conscious form of human life, which has the ability to know its futility, but by and large succeeds in burying that knowledge deep in the recesses of its subconscious. As far as is known, humans are the only creatures conscious of their being, and constant seekers of subterfuges to escape the unbearable burden of this consciousness: that they are, that they exist. Through these photographs and poems, as I sing to you of life, love, and loneliness, perhaps you will talk back to me. Visit an abbreviated version of my gallery - colour and black and white, on my website. The Ice House, Its History and Heritage I received a query from someone of Indian descent, now living in the United States. She wanted to know whether I could give her any information about the history of the Ice House, which had at one time belonged to an ancestor. She wanted to be able to tell her children about their proud heritage. Here is my reply: If at all, most people's interest in Ice House is either because it was indeed an ice house in a sultry countryside, or because of the spirituality it acquired due to Vivekanand's visit there, as well as his supposed stay for a considerable period. (the picture comes from padalis) ESP or make-believe? Someone dear to us recently wrote us a sentimental and nostalgic letter, and asked if I believed in ESP; and if not, how I would explain it. My response, which was a quick riposte, and therefore brief, follows: Among mankind's myriad varieties of wishful thinking, one is the notion of extra-sensory perception. The universe being never static, infinite accidents, or if you will, coincidences are continuously occurring. It is unavoidable that some of these events establish unity in the lives or minds of people - which is to say that inevitably similarities in thought or event can not only occur simultaneously in different spaces and times, but also among people who are connected, by relationship or at least by acquaintance. When such a thing happens, we like to consider it meaningful, and therefore special, attributing to it some higher motive or purpose, while in actuality it is, plain and simple coincidence, with the difference that it occurred between two known people. Aging Badly In old age, waiting for youth is an endless wait. The end comes, mercifully, sooner. A Cool Picture for a Hot Day At a time when the Indian plains are seething and writhing with heat, staring at this picture, which I took years ago in Bangalore, may cool you off a little, as it did me and my guests. Externalise, Stand By, Let Life Pass You By “To avoid bewilderment, dejection, unhappiness and incomprehension in conducting the act of living an imperfect life in an imperfect world, externalise your feelings,” he pontificated. “But if I externalise my feelings, that means that I might not be able to feel happiness either, because I would not be able to feel anything internally, right?” I said. “Yes, true. But then, since you have externalised your feelings, you won’t mind not feeling happiness, because not enjoying would also be externalised. You see the point, don’t you?” His eyes glinted. “Well, sounds very good. How do I go about it? I continually feel that I am chewing all my internal organs because of my total maladjustment. So I would find a release. Now, pray tell me, how do I start to learn and practise externalising my feelings?” “You have a problem there. We are all products of our environment. If you do not know how to externalise, or your system does not do it automatically in self-preservation, then it cannot be learned by you at this point in life. So you are condemned to suffer not only this deficiency in your system, but also the knowledge of it.” I actually know people who externalise their feelings; a few whose bodies externalise the effects of wear and tear – remarkable. They make suitable societal statements, and demonstrate expressions, without actually experiencing them or feeling them. I envy them, and since I cannot externalise, my envy adds to my overall misery. My Poem: A Priest Pleading With Me: Religion Simply an Organised Form of Superstition This is my own poem about religion, creating an imaginary dialogue where a priest pleads with me to validate him and the necessity of god, even if he was missing or did not exist. (Larger versions of the photographs can be seen on my website: WHY DOUBT AND GRUDGE ME THE SMALL PRICE I SELL HIM AT IN CONCOCTED PARTS I AM YOUR CONNECTION TO GOD AND I REPRESENT YOU TO HIM IN RETURN TO PANDER HIS INVIDIOUS WRATH AND RETRIBUTION I DISTRIBUTE RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION HOW DOES IT MATTER IF BOTH ARE THE SAME SO LONG AS THEY GIVE YOU FEAR FROM WHICH TO ESCAPE WITH HOPE ENSHRINED IN A POLICY REDEEMABLE CONVENIENTLY AFTER DEATH ON A CERTAIN COMMISSION ENSURING MY EMPLOYMENT WHY REASON AGAINST THIS MYTHOLOGY AND SEEK OSTRACISM? HAVE FAITH IN THE TERROR OF DISBELIEF AND BELIEVE IN SURRENDER TO THE DETRIMENT OF NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH -- ADMIT: DO NOT YOU AND I NEED GOD MORE? Infrastructure, Indian-Style Some foreigners once asked me about the state of Indian infrastructure. I took them for a drive, and passed a trade fair where a politician's cutout, some 60 feet tall, was shaking precariously in the wind. I parked the car and took my guests behind the cutout, which was supported by crooked scaffolding of casuarina poles, held together with carelessly tied coir. I grandly announced to my guests, "This is India's infrastructure." Don't ask me whether they were impressed or depressed. Javed Akhtar, A. R. Rahman, Great Lyric, Great Music Both Urdu and English were written by Javed Akhtar for the film 1947, Earth, and were set to music with great sensitivity and tenderness by A. R. Rahman: The English version: My Lord, O God The Urdu version: Ishwar Alllah
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