Goa you shall me missed. Flying out in an hour, a great weekend. Reality awaits my return

In just a few hours i shall be away from this urban mundane existence, sitting on a beach, sipping on some schnapps, and taking in the sun.
No laptop, just two lenses, one camera and yes the resurrected blackberry. Honestly i tried not taking the same with me, but it just couldnt be done.
That said there will be no postings till Monday
Hope we all have a great weekend, and who knows maybe i get some magical shots in Goa.

Drowning the blackberry.

Yes, I am now an expert at drowning that darn blackberry!!

Second time in a month I have dropped my blackberry in water, the last time around it was a bucket of water and this time it’s the winter rain puddle.

As we speak its drying under my studio focus light.
Its nothing but pure déjà vu!!
When will I learn?

Weekend where art thou!!

I can’t wait for this weekend, finally a much-deserved getaway. I am headed to Goa, the beach, the sand, the sun, the wine, the vindaloo, no blackberry(s), no laptops, just me and maybe my camera(s).

Not sure if I want to shoot anything in Goa, have promised my self that I will not take more than two lenses, and only one 16gig memory card, which shall seriously hamper my ability to shoot like a junkie on coke!!

All I really want to do is give my ever aching shoulder some rest, just sit by the pool or on the beach and vegetate.

Another night spent hunting down the mutant mosquitoes, its been rather crazy the entire year, I don’t know who to blame?

Mr Kalmadi? For digging up the entire city? Or the MCD for not taking enough actions to curtail this epidemic?

I did write a bit about the commonwealth games but never managed to post it, maybe the time is neigh to do the same.

On a different note, I am stuck to the OST of The Moon- Clint Mansell has kicked arse!!!
Bloody brilliant I must say.

Website Glitches.

The past 4 months I have been trying to get my website reconstructed, the only glitch is the guy who seems to be working on it!!!

Off the record he seems to be going through a quarter life crisis, talented as he might be, he seems to be stuck in a constant state of high!!
Stoned immaculate, its hard to get anything across to him, every week or so I do catch him on chat and all I get is the same answer. –“ dude I am soo stoned and your website is almost done”

I wonder when Mr. R would finally wake up and have my new website up and running.

Morning blues

Its strange how you wake up hung over, despite the fact that the evening before you didn’t even touch alcohol.

Is it all those chemicals I sprayed to annihilate the mutant mosquito infestation?

Possible!

But then again its never normal to function after only a few hours of sleep.

Unfortunately I have a shoot in the next 20 minutes and I badly need my fix of coffee. The client is slightly stuck up on the hand that needs to be shot, it can neither be too aggressive or too submissive, just the right expression needs to be captured.

Have already shot for them three times, the same hand in all plausible postures.
Lets see what I get now!!

Winter where art thou?

My obsession with winter is well documented. Cold foggy days, the lack of sunlight, the comforts of a warm bed, the hot cup of coffee, large glasses of cognac, and the black jumpers that hide the paunch, all beautiful.
As I pen this, the 15th day of November has dawned on most of us (unless you are in the far west) but the fans still buzz overhead and the mutant mosquitoes still feed on me like I am a big fat juicy steak.

O winter where art thou?

PAIN

Its simple, you learn to live with pain, physical or otherwise, you just learn to adapt. With the passage of time it becomes a part of your soul, integral.

Honestly I cant remember the last time I was close to a 100%, age and years of abuse have finally taken a toll on this body I call mine.

Even though I lost 18 pounds the past few months, the pain in the neck (thanks to the multiple collapsed disks followed by three surgeries) never seems to abate.

Things seem to have taken a turn for the worse since I was laid low by a mosquito in October. Dengue!! Yes in all its glory laid me so low that I never thought I could rise again. A month later, and I still lie awake in my bed with my joints hurting like a bitch.
I can only dream of the days when this pain would abate and life would be like its meant to be, free from the shackles of pain.

A year gone by, and nothing to write about?
I should be ashamed of my self, the world changed while the days turned to months.
Job changes, profession altering decisions, bouts of dengue, et al.
So as i sit awake in my bed at 3 am while my dog snores at my feet and the urge to smoke is great i do hereby pledge to write in as much as i can before this year ends.

My Photoessay on Afghanistan

http://snehazareen.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/time-travel-through-kabul-guest-post-mehak-sethi/

30 and beautiful

I have heard it a million times- Life begins at 30?
Does it really, so what happened 30 years ago? What the hell was that?

At 30, everything is different; a slight sepia tone descends on your very existence. The entire picture looks a wee old and worn at the edges.

By 30 you have already gone through a lot in life, a childhood spent being victimized by the education system, where your school bags were heavier than your mother, where competition almost killed you, where all your freedom was curtailed by a dictator styled regimented existence, aimed at making you a better person and/or preparing you for the tempests that lay ahead( like really).

A childhood where it was the birth right of every teacher to treat you like you were in Auswitchz. Where all your parents ever worried about was whether their son would end up as a doctor or an engineer. Existence back then was beautiful. A peerless mirror of what lay ahead.

Teenage came with a BANG!!! literally, if it wasn’t the acne it was the million heart breaks that killed you. You suddenly realized you had a heart, which was meant to be trampled over. Baggy trousers and cool shirts with copious amounts of hair gel were your best friends. You were cool (or so you thought?) You were the epitome of every girl’s dream (who were you kidding?)

Teenage lasted almost forever, for the longest time you kept wondering would this ever end? It dragged along till you almost got sick of it and were even ready to sell your soul to devil just to be an adult.

And then one fine day just out of the blue you were an adult, teenage was passé.

Life was brilliant, alcohol, and drugs took over. Bright colors, drunken orgies and more bright colors were the edifice of your existence. Green was your favorite shade. You were never ever satisfied with your surroundings, everything always had to keep changing, it was fast but far from furious. There was an animal inside that needed to unleash. That’s when you became the rebel, you grew a beard, you had long hair one day which was gone the next. You had unleashed. You wore kurta’s and jeans you had to be different, you had to fight the system. You took part in every student union rally, you even went on hunger strikes, you were lathi charged by the police, you called your professor a wanker, you picked up fights, you bled, you made people bleed, you were arrested, you were bailed out, you were just discovering life.
You were an adult!!

And just as soon as this storm had hit you, it was gone, you were out of college as an adult, soon the animal within was tamed by the very system you fought. Bad paying jobs and idealism were now your building blocks. Hunger and cheap cigs kept your going. Women came and women went. Love what was that? You wanted to fall in love but it was a one way traffic.
On your own, with pennies in your pocket, you felt like a King, you wanted to buy gifts for your entire family with your first salary, but…
You were 20 something and broke. Savings? What were those?

And then in your mid 20s you wanted to study more, so you earned scholarships to go abroad and educate your self.
It was all new, you were a professional out to get a cutting edge education. But you were brown, poor and on a meager scholarship. You worked part time jobs as cleaners, waiting tables, on construction sites just to make sure you paid your loans and ate two decent meals a day. You worked very hard, harder than ever, you were always almost home sick, you missed your comfort zone, the animal turned king within was now beaten black and blue. You were never the same. A part of you died by the end of this.

Nearing 30’s and you were back, educated and regulated. Decent jobs with psycho bosses took over your life. You dreamt work, you lived work and almost died working. Your bosses always came from hell and you kept wishing for them to go back there.

They made your life painful, very painful. You hated your very existence.

Things were different now, you suddenly discovered stress and hyper tension.
The word blood pressure now meant more than some medical jargon your parents babbled about.
Pharmacies were now your favorite hang out joints. You also discovered that your hairline and waistline were now your worst enemies, they hated you and connived against you at all times.

Life nearing 30 was a relic of a once glorious past.

And then 30 dawned on you, it crept like cobra on a dark night and bit you. The poison caught you unaware, you were 30 and you were told that life has just begun.

3 vintage blue label’s on the rocks, and the urge to write this hot sultry and sticky April night is rather strong. Weird fishes plays on repeat, Radiohead croons for the 34th day on the trot.

My head and mind roll slow, I am tired but I cant sleep, like always I lie awake, musing about the unknown, tripping on the same song.

Spent the evening discussing plans to get to PNG to shoot the cannibals, honestly I am not sure if I will make it, but the prospect of having discussed has me quite excited.

A month, out in the open, with the stars as my ceiling and the earth as my bed, my cameras and me, has me super excited,

Why?

I believed, I could change the world, I believed I could make a difference, I believed that I could make this world a wee bit more sane. Sadly I also believed the lies, the deception, the farce.

On that hot and sunny day in Kabul when I sat a meter away from the landmine, my life changed, I had this to say when asked what happened that day? “i guess when you sit a metre away from a land mine in a war torn country surrounded by nothing but rubble and bullet shells, smoking high grade afghani charas , introspection comes easy”

To be honest I gave up, yes I am a quitter, and I aint proud to be one.

I couldn’t take it anymore, the lies the deception were too overwhelming, I couldn’t lie to my self no more, I couldn’t idolize those who spent their entire lives making the world believe that they were changing the world when in reality they were just filling their coffers.

Its not about the people, it’s the system, as cynical as I might sound, I had had enough, I had seen enough to make up mind.
I just had to walk away, it was tough, it was extremely tough, I fought my very constitution, my foundations when faced with the choices.

11 years of selfless struggle had to end.

Shot

Having crossed the ‘pond’ and having survived being labeled a terrorist I took on one of my greatest photo ops. Driving 4300 miles across America from Chicago to Arizona and back was mind blowing.

The open landscapes, the shades of blue, the crystal clear light, the windmills in the Nebraska, the Rockies in Denver, the snowstorm in Utah, and finally the Grand Canyons!! Breath taking.

I remember reaching the South Rim at around noon on the 24th, the light wasn’t great, a thin layer of cirrus clouds curtained the blue of the sky and I wasn’t too pleased. This was my only opportunity at the South rim and the light was killing my pictures, but by 4, the clouds slowly lifted giving me some breath taking shots, some of which don living rooms in Dubai, London and Chicago.

But what stood out for me was the light just post the sun set, hues of orange and blue dancing in the shadows of the canyon, lighting up the entire canyons in a surreal haze of enormity.

An almost successful day I must say.

Though I do have my regrets of not having spent more time at the South Rim, the reason, even though I did walk 5 miles along the rim, I didn’t venture down into the canyons from the South Rim, I mistake I guess. After reviewing the 2000 odd pictures I did click through the day at some level I felt they lacked depth and looked too flat.
However and thankfully I corrected the same on the following day when I drove 200 miles north towards Page to raft through the canyons.
More to follow…

Creativity doesnt come easy especially when you know you arent really 'creative'.

I have spent the past few months doing something i have always loved doing, photography, having quit human rights law and as some wise people put it " wasting your fancy foreign education" i seem to have come out unscathed except that when you concentrate really hard on one aspect of your creativity, the others are always almost certainly ignored.

At peace with my self and my surroundings, i have constantly felt that i should revert back to writing and the said feeling has been shelved for the longest time, but i guess the time has come when i can start writing again.

I hope to post a lot more soon, but it shall take time to shake away the writer's block and the cobwebs which easily find their way around one's thought process.

Website down for complete reconstruction... bear with me folks...

GRAND CANYONS CAPTURED

Finally

www.mehaksethi.com