Showing posts with label Srinagar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Srinagar. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Blurr

WINDOWFRIENDSHIP
BLURR

Recently I was visiting some places not very far from Srinagar city (JK, India) and shot some pictures.

The first one was an ancient temple in a distant village off Srinagar, thousands of years old (place called Naranaag, en route to the high lying lake--"Gangbal") and I named it "WINDOW". I feel the way the window is looking at the wilderness is very touching. Generations must have looked out of it and seen the apparently changing times. However "time" has made the window "timeless" as it has refused to change.

The second one were two little girls holding hands playfully and singing childhood tunes. I like to call this symphony of marching happiness "FRIENDSHIP". The holding of hands is very appealing and the marching very confident. The blur in the surroundings seems to reinforce their closeness and make rest of the world irrelevant to their happy little niche. The innocent look to the stranger (me) is very peculiar. One is skeptical and fearful, the other happy and careless. Will they still hold hands when they grow up and be adults. May be. But I am skeptical like the first one. How and why do we lose that innocence?

The third one was a child running alongside my car excited to see me, near the same village. The child and the foreground are blurred. The background is relatively in focus. It reminds me of the fleeting moments of happiness that the innocence of childhood carries. The boy and his immediate surroundings are waning with the same pace as his excitement will very soon after I leave. The good innocent happy days pass off soon, and even one day we all pass on. The world remains same though. It has and will remain the same just as the "window" has seen it. People will continue doing similar things. The little schemes we all make are naught in the sands of time. Nothing lasts-childhood, men, fame, happiness or gloom. Our present is a "mere blurr in the background of eternity". I'm sure the "window" has seen enough of this.





Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Streets of Srinagar

In an interview today on NPR, Steve Coll talked about a recent article he published in The New Yorker. It brings to light some of the many unfortunate happenings in and about Kashmir to the broader world. (Click here to go to the abstract and the audio-slide show)

The audio slide show below are pictures and narrartrion by him in the same issue of the magazine, and what he thinks is the current situation. Lost sons, burnt homes, graves and gloom stricken faces with lost hopes greet you in this very short haunting video clip. Not that they are something new, or the entire picture--just a reminder and a lament! One of the pictures--the old woman looking at the news paper scraps probably for her dead son's picutres is especially a riducule to the leaders on all sides, the world at large and fate itself!

"The Streets of Srinagar"
March 2, 2009
Steve Coll discusses tensions and the recent election in Kashmir’s summer capital, and visits a village graveyard where local police bring unidentified rebel fighters. With photographs by Alixandra Fazzina. (full article)