Kala Ramesh
Lens
You may call a tree a standing man, and a man a walking tree, says Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.
A young girl is spending a lot of time trying to capture that one perfect picture of a tree, which, she exclaims aloud, is just too good. She goes to the opposite side to see sunlight through the branches. She tries a distant shot and comes in close again, looking up at the massive banyan surrounded by prop roots.
A street dog sniffs the girl’s camera bag lying on the ground. The girl smiles at the dog and goes over to the canteen to get some biscuits. The dog wags its tail and follows the girl as she goes back to taking that one perfect shot of the oldest tree in Chennai. Judging by the expression on her face, getting that one picture might take hours.
somewhere
between thirst and non-thirst . . .
this ever-shifting
boundary
between yin and yang
About the writer:
Poet, editor, anthologist, festival director, Kala Ramesh’s initiatives culminated in founding ‘INhaiku’ to bring Indian haiku poets under one umbrella in 2013. A foremost practitioner and pioneer in the field of haikai literature in India, her book Beyond the Horizon Beyond: Haiku & Haibun was awarded a Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize Certificate for “excellent contribution to literature” in 2019. In July 2021, HarperCollins is publishing her book of tanka, tanka prose and tanka doha. She teaches haikai literature at Symbiosis International University Pune and has conceptualised and curated seven haikai utsavs in India.
Image: The Lonely Cedar by Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry (1853-1919). Oil on canvas. 76.3 x 97.6 inches. 1907. Public domain.
Kala, loved this piece. It resonates a lot. When I’m traveling or walking outdoors, I forget everything except the subject I’m photographing. Sometimes, I will sit for hours just to get the right light!;)