A Room With A View

What started off as a fancy has today become a passion. It is enriching, overwhelming, mesmerising and humbling to capture moments, amazing range of emotions, feelings, nature and so much more. Photography is diverse and one has lots of options. I personally like to click landscapes, kids, candid shots of people. These days I have developed a keen interest in street photography.

In the last eight months or so, I clicked a lot but one thing I absolutely loved clicking was clouds. Most of the shots were from my room. After two or three times I started noticing the varied patterns and colours, every time different from the last. It was fascinating indeed. I then started looking forward to the sky being painted in different hues.

Here are a collection of images, all taken from my room window.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”

- Rabindranath Tagore

“Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!”
― C. JoyBell C.

“It is a very beautiful day. The woman looks around and thinks: 'there cannot ever have been a spring more beautiful than this. I did not know until now that clouds could be like this. I did not know that the sky is the sea and that clouds are the souls of happy ships, sunk long ago. I did not know that the wind could be tender, like hands as they caress - what did I know - until now?”

- Unica Zurn

“Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.”
― Stephen King

My Must Do List

All of us invariably have a list of things that we want to do. Unfortunately as we grow up, we get so entangled in the web of life that we hardly have time for anything. We start leading a mundane life and all our interests/desires take a backseat. We attribute it to lack of time and then the must-do list becomes a wish list. Something like that was happening with me. However I am glad I did not get trapped in it. I have lost out on time and some opportunities, but never mind. I will not let those desires be only desires. I will try and fulfill as many of them as possible. So here goes my list; not a WISH-LIST but a TO-DO List :)

1.  Learn a Foreign Language, preferably French – I think most of us have this desire to learn a foreign language. But how many of us do it? Several of them do enroll for a one year course, but is a year sufficient to have a command over a language? I don't think so. Anyway, I missed out a great opportunity that had come knocking my way. My college, Hans Raj, offered a foreign language course in French and German. I remember getting the form and filling it. However, since the timing for the course was in the afternoon from 3 to 5, friends suggested that it was an odd time and I would be missing out on a lot of fun. Actually we were new to Delhi and the first thing that was there on our minds was to explore the city, roam about, and have fun. So when one of them changed her mind, the other did the same and eventually following the herd mentality I too dropped the idea. Oh how I wish I had made the right decision at that time! Anyway, there is no point regretting. As they say, there is no age for learning. Perhaps I will sometime :)

2.  Play a musical instrument with panache – I have an intense passion for music and a deep fascination for musical instruments. Music, in fact, has such an overwhelming effect on me that I sometimes wonder if I were a musician in my previous birth or had some kind of connection with it. Anyway, I like many instruments but the GUITAR has always lured me the most. I wanted to learn how to play it. And I am so glad that I have finally started with the classes. I could have done this long time back had it not been for my habit of procrastination but the good thing is that I have begun. So far, so good. The teacher also seems to be nice. His fingers move so effortlessly, I just love to watch him play! Someday I too want to be play like him.

3. Travel – Travel is like an investment in oneself; it transforms and changes us. There is so much to learn from travelling. I want to travel around and be amidst the lap of Nature, exploring, indulging and discovering the self. I would love to go to Europe, but there are so many places in India itself that I long to visit – Kerela, Mumbai, Ladakh, Shimla and the entire north-eastern belt. Being in Bengal for so long, I am yet to visit Gangtok. It can’t get worse. Moreover I keep talking about it but do anything. It’s time to stop talking and act! I am seriously going to start in August. Fingers crossed for this one.

4.   Photography – Photography has captured my attention for quite some time now. And there are no barriers except that I need to get a camera. I don’t want to buy any ordinary camera and yet it would not be a very good idea to invest a lot either, because knowing me my interest might just wane once I am in possession of it. Things look attractive only till the time they elude you. At least this happens with me a lot. So I want to start with something in the mid range and I am saving for it. Once I buy one, the escapade will kick start. Only hoping it is not too late!

5.  Write – I want to write more. I want to move on from narrative accounts to some serious writing. Nicky wrote a post on The Existential Dilemma. I was writing a comment and then realized it was turning more into a post itself. Maybe I can begin with that itself. Existentialism and it’s variants of any kind have always enthralled me. So it would be a good topic I suppose :P

This is not all. This is definitely not an exhaustive list. There must be some other things that can make this list, but this is all that I am reminded of currently. I, however, do not want to wait in the hope of remembering some more and extending this list. There can always be an addition later.