Image Isolation
To see the bare remains of a tree in the middle of the river when there is foliage in the background is a rather humbling experience. Shorn of its identity, its faith in where it belongs remains intact. Personally, in the melancholia I see immense composure…it comes from the water surrounding it. Still and accepting.
Location: In the middle of the Periyar Bird Sanctuary, Kerala, South India. But it could be anywhere.
Camera: It was a simple Canon, not even digital. This is a scanned image.
Keywords:
She writes with anguish and pessimism, a journey into hearts of darkness with no light at the end of that distorted prism, mainly because as she astutely observes, “every few years Pakistan writes a new fiction” to keep the embers alive. ”
—India Today
About Farzana
To be categorised is near-death. It would be nice to say that one is a literary vagabond, but it just does not convey fully the sense of rootlessness and ruthlessness one strives for constantly.
Have written opinion pieces, feature articles and interviews for...
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Farzana’s Favorite Books
Every writer, besides the ones I have listed, who has had something to convey that leaves me with the taste of bitter chocolate...that I like.
You ain't seen desolate until
You ain't seen desolate until you've seen the North Slope in the dead of winter. :) But it's gorgeous. Only truly insane people can appreciate it. I feel right at home up there for some reason. :)
Eric
If there are a few insance
If there are a few insance people who love it and inhabit it and feel right at home up there, then where is the desolaton, Eric?!
State of mind.
~F
The Photo
Farzana,
It's dark but beautiful photo. Looking at it, I hope the water level decreases soon. It must be a beautiful place with many different kinds of birds flying.
Keiko: It is dark and I did
Keiko:
It is dark and I did not touch it one bit, not even cropped it. A beautiful place - but do you see the irony that this is a bird sanctuary and there are no birds visible here.
I see this picture as an image haiku...one of the reasons I did not write a lot about it, quite unlike me!
~F
image haiku
Farzana,
Yes, it is an image haiku. You know what? In Japan, photo haiku is a new genre.
Great. I did not know about
Great. I did not know about this. Just checked. I believe images are used with some words or characters often. What I meant was the minimalism. I think you should try this photo haiku, since you experiment with Japanese characters and calligraphy.
~F
Arresting Image of Our Existential Condition
Farzana,
While I was looking at that forlorn tree ("shorn of its identity, its faith... remains intact"), what immediately came to mind was the arresting image of Yeats' "aged man" with the "tattered coat upon a stick" and proclaiming itself more loudly "for every tatter in its mortal dress." It's a fitting symbol of our human existential condition, right?
The "use-it-or-lose-it" guy,
Brenden
Arrested too
Brenden:
Indeed, it is. And "arresting" as the image might be, the existential condition is also as much arrested as it is in flux. While the tree will be renewed - imagine it so bare right in the midst of a life-giving water source (too much of it?) - I fear that sometimes such automated renewal is also a form of stasis.
More often that not, human growth is chronological and dictated by circumstance rather than any delving into oneself. It is all about reaching out to grasp that graph of achievement based on other people's yardsticks. Who cares about "the pilgrim soul in you", to quote Yeats again, whose words you so aptly connected with this image?
Thank you for going beyond the picture.
~F