How not to beat around the bush

The one thing that writing poetry does to you is, (over a period of time) help you craft a crystal clear mirror -- for your self.

This mirror doesn't lie, it just cannot lie. In fact, its a mirror that is painfully honest to a fault and best not seen into, even glanced into. But poets being poets probably cannot escape getting eye to eye with its "dazzling" visage. The result is poetry that cuts to the bone and shows everything in between (something that a lot people out there would call self-reflexive) especially the wounds that have not healed and the collected scar tissue of the years.

Unless they are professional poets, or poets writing for a cause or something equally safe.

What do I see in the mirror I look into?

A fat middle-aged man with almost no social skills.

A professional for whom work means the hard labour of words.

A pair of bum ears who have never managed to deal with truisms like "what women want".   

A hustler of poetry books.

Hmmm....


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Talking of being fat (or well-built and big and lumbering), one thing many people (and not necessarily women or for that matter dainty / waifish women) have wanted to know from me is how I can handle the weight of the Sigma and the Nikon D90 (D600) so well, while not using a tripod*. I guess in an evolutionary sort of way, totally self-taught, I have managed to learn a stance that works for me, and a stance that uses my girth to the best advantage.

Other advantages of this girth are a "full frame" and a shoulder breadth that helps me lug my photography gear for long distances pretty well. Can't say comfortably; even a mule wouldn't like being laden with 5 kilos of weight day in and day out, no?

But how do you hide all that to the cameras? And lately, I gave away my Ray Bans as well...

I know for a fact that birding burns a lot of calories, its just that I haven't done it with much consistency for almost two months now.

The question is -- does writing poetry (and the worries of bringing out a book) put back all those calories? 


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Indie.

That's a good, honest and even fashionable word.

And its "indie"cative of someone small and low-budget and someone more concerned about the quality of what is being created -- a film, music, poetry or other art -- rather than the thousand and one associated / supporting / supplementary things.

Also, someone who is broke plying a trade and trying to cut costs to the barest minimum, of course.

I have talked earlier about lugging my books (the full frame and the breadth of the shoulders help, also I am slightly mulish when it comes to weights, I can carry a lot of it) and I must say they weigh a lot, they weigh a lot...a new experience this time was carrying my own bird photographs.

Thankfully, they did not weigh that much (is it because they were of weightless things, birds?) but still, all that bulk and still the fear of all that glass breaking!

Poets, its said live in a world of heartbreak.

Bird photography is more heartbreak than any other genre of photography. Comparatively shooting glamour is like turning up at office and writing code (or clearing files).

But transporting glazed photographs in an Auto wheezing and stuttering its way through the maddening and chaotic traffic of Hyderabad takes the cake (and the Double Ka Meetha) any day.

Or maybe I am just getting old.       


*The credit is not entirely due to me, the Sigma 150-500 has amazing Image Stabilization properties, and this is digital after all...