Been a really long time until I could post something in my blog.
(Anybody who happens to follow my blog and likes my posts, my humble apologies to you.)
I've kinda lost track as to what actually kept me away from posting.
Mostly college-stuff actually, including working my ass off for clearing my first semester. Another reason was an old friend who visited Calcutta recently from Ahmedabad ; had to find time for her too.
This picture bears memories of her visit, and some time spent in a potter's colony where we visited together.
The visit, initially intended to capture moments of people whose lives have developed around artistry, and are solely dependent on a potter's wheel, soon changed its inclination.
I steered it, actually, though it was unconsciously done.
Both of us went in different directions, with an occassional call or a text keeping us updated about each-other's whereabouts in that geometric maze.
I, after trying in vain to artfully capture a series of toobris, (hollow clay cups stuffed to their mouth with a kind of flammable powder, which are used extensively as a firecracker) kept for drying in the sun, wandered into an alleyway.
Flanked by gigantic (and I am sure haunted) quaint houses, typically representing their North Calcuttan designs, the alleys themselves served as eye-soothers. (Yes, I am this romantic.)
It was quite late in the afternoon.
I sat on the front stairs outside a house opposite such an alleyway, for quite some time, minutely observing a crow that was swinging on a low telephone wire and absent-mindedly listening to a conversation between two women, apparently housewives, talking to one another across the distance of their separate balconies.
After a while though, I thought it wise to get up from the stairs and 'cultivate' those alleys instead, fearing that I might get shooed away by one of those women who had a good chance of spotting a stranger in their neighbourhood, sitting and doing nothing, apparently.
It was then that I texted my friend to come and meet me there, reminding her of an old idea of mine about doing her photoshoot in different locations of Calcutta.
She duly came, hopping with excitement.
By then, the visit has shifted course entirely ; the whole potters' colony remaining in oblivion.
The photoshoot, ideas of which I had even scribbled as a draft somewhere in an all-purpose diary, would probably never have started if I had not wandered carelessly into those musty alleys.
Needless to say, not much could be achieved about the desired photoshoot as neither of us were prepared. But come as it may, memory of the alleys still kindles a light of affection whenever these photos glimps past my cluttered head.
Also reminding me of a simple fact : mystery and memory knits around the unlikeliest of places.Nothing beats the charm of suddenly excavating places, and finding, it too like humans, crave some company every now and then.
