PILGRIM OF INNER SPACE
LIFE POSITIVE, JAN 1999
 
   


Sky is another space, another world not part of mine. Perhaps it’s an experience where you can be another thing. I don’t know how to define that space. Maybe I’m trying to find myself in it.
There are so many beautiful things in nature. But the beauty I seek is not conventional. I love barrenness, shadows. Perhaps they appeal to me because I’m a loner. I was full of films and people after attending the 1998 Film Festival in New Delhi. I wanted to get away on my own after that stint. I went off to Ladakh and stayed in a small village. Everyday, I used to go for a walk with my camera. Never have I clicked pictures so carefully. That's because I had with me only five rolls of film, I had'nt planned this to be a photography trip. It just came about that way. That’s why I call my collection of photographs ‘In Search of Another Sky’ (recently exhibited at Gallery Espace, New Delhi).

OUT ALONE

She stood at one end of veranda
A naked bulb glowed
At the other end
Staining the dark floor
With dull yellow light

Beyond the empty ward
Dragged echoes of the
autumn night

From pillar to pillar
In severe silence
Moved brilliant shadows

Out alone in the cold she stood
Night after night
Fighting her demons

Her body frail and brittle
Flapped life-like
On two glass feet

The torched face broken
Then tracked together, so bluntly
The ridged joints showed

Hounded eyes that did not blink
Frozen in a deathlike glaze
Her fragile spirit, splintered…

These are not the features
She was born with
This is the face we gave her

(a poem from Deepti Naval's forthcoming collection - about a woman in a mental ward)

For me, nature is God. The rest is man- made, like religion. Spirituality is often mixed up with religion. . I’m opposed to all religious practices. Spirituality means living life with basic things. I think of an existence that is not acquisition oriented, a quality of life which is quality of mind.

I spent about 10 days at Igatpuri near Bombay, doing vipassana. It was a soul-searching experience. There were no chanting, no rituals, nothing. It was difficult because they compelled you to look at yourself. But to me, that made sense.