The renewal (and after)

As resplendently dark
as the eternal truth,
as overpoweringly soulful
as the silent hum
of divine nothingness,
the night of Shiva is here.

ॐ नमः शिवाय

I wrote that on Mahashivaratri.

Once again, the temptation was to give it up all, leave this constant fight to be, and go on the path that the hermits walk, the yogis walk, the Shiva trippers walk...and this time the temptation was far more powerful than it has been before, ever since I have heard the call of Shiva, known it as the wellspring of my faith (and sanity). Especially so, because the last four-five months had left me more or less mentally punch-drunk. Because its one thing to be in a boxing ring and getting slammed around and its another when punches hit your core, your self-belief and sense of dignity, your very sense of being human. 

Surprisingly, I did something else all-together -- decided to shave it all away and get a haircut as well. After all, I am anyway very lot low-maintenance and frugal in my wants -- with due respects to the ascetics (and the real men of God). The rest can wait, till I photograph some more birds :-)

I did not manage to do anything much on Mahashivaratri either. Did not go to Varanasi or Prayag (had vague plans to do both and of course, all the time in the world as well). 

But I had my inner renewal all the same and this post is in to commemorate the same. 

Notes from the full frame world

I have been the happy (slightly overwhelmed) and very jittery owner of a Nikon D600 for almost a month now. The decision to go for this camera is a bit illogical because technically it decreases my reach (as it is a full-frame and doesn't bring in the 1.5 crop factor that comes with the Nikon D90) but this was a camera I anyway needed because I had more or less grown out of the D90 (at least in terms of having to deal with its ISO limitations, and living within its limited focus points and effective Megapixels). Hence the decision (very very long drawn, involving a lot of heartburn and trepidation) to go for the Nikon D600.

But then -- considering that I have no formal training in photography, that I am allegedly restless and lacking in patience, that I am mostly a loner with not much support from a peer group and so on -- my progress in photographing birds has been surprisingly fast. And in a bit less than three years since I progressed into the digital photography world, I was shooting full frames (on the D-90)  like I was born to do just this.

Naturally then, it was time for an upgrade. And I have been very very very happy with the Nikon D600 overall; and it would seem I can permanently live at ISO 800 (that lets me do a lot in terms of Shutter speeds and its worth a lot out in the field, a lot indeed) and not have to deal with noise. Then again, I stand to gain a lot thanks to the vastly more focus points while shooting birds in flight as well (though I still have to try it at length) and now I will not need to "zoom out" when I manage to get very close to birds, as happened on numerous times when I was at Wardha -- getting to touching distance to a family (parents and a sub-adult) of Common Hoopoes and had a Common Flameback overflowing the frame more than once...

I do miss my "reach" and I am lusting for a Nikon 600 mm, but then overall its good to be in the full frame world and then again, as they say, not having enough reach is a good problem to have all said and done, for photographing birds is mostly about the skill to get closer than ever before.

Then again, I can always shoot in the crop mode :-)            
     

An entry into the diary of my humdrum existence -- two falls

I have had quite a chequered (though lately more or less idling) career as a highwayman -- on my Bullet that is. I have been careful (in my own recklessly adventurous way) even though I have had my own share of crazy rides (mostly solo) in which I have pushed my endurance while riding; in terms of time spent in the saddle or in terms of surviving aches and jolts all over (as happens when from riding on almost non-existent roads).

But I have been damnably lucky, in terms of falls -- getting away with only one major fall... fell on my nose, was knocked out and saw the stars, but apart from a broken gear lever and a chipped tooth, there wasn't much damage -- in fact I walked the two or so kms home, if a bit groggily (pushing the Bullet along). This is, if one doesn't count the countless falls I have had slipping on black ice in Ladakh, or skidding off while off-roading closer home, both at piddling speeds.

Or maybe I have been living (and riding) under the watchful eyes of my Grandmother and my Gods.

So there, whichever way you look at it, I haven't fallen much and its been a while since I have. But then, as the saying goes, even the Gods have feet of clay; so it happened again, on balmy day in December.

I am getting the Bullet out from the homestead and down the incline onto the road and I am blind-sided by a Yellow Bells / Allamanda shrub that grows right outside our gate and thinks its a tree -- and is sacred (according to my ordinance) since any numbers of Sunbirds and Prinias and Sparrows (and some very timid Tailorbirds) visit it all through the day -- and can't see a school bus coming till its too late. I still manage to brake and take some evasive action by turning the handle in the direction the school bus is going, but still there is an impact and I fall. To make matters weightier (and worrisome) I had the camera bag on, so I must have fallen more heavily than I should.

The bus stopped, and its conductor and one of my neighbours made it to me almost simultaneously. I was a little stunned and a lot shamed, there were no bruises and as expected the Bullet started at first kick. I did go on the ride as planned (to Amma's consternation) and even shot some River Terns at Fox Sagar.

But then, falls are funny things, however innocuous they be -- for its not the physical damage that matters but the mental. And the fear that comes from falling.

And yet, there has to be learning from every fall. My mistake was, I wasn't mindful enough (and I was thinking of the birds, the weather -- it was cloudy and so on). I do it differently now (though the Allamanda is still there blind-siding me), I blank everything from my mind when I am getting the Bullet out. And my father stands out on the road as a spotter.

And I have got my riding confidence back as well, thank you kindly.

Which is really something. For don't let anyone tell you otherwise, success in life is primarily about confidence.

And (oh well, as goes without saying) money, but then I am not qualified to speak of that kind of success, am I?

**********

The second fall was even more mindless and though it did not involve moving wheels, could have resulted in a hell of a lot of damage.

Here's what happened (lifted from my FB status update)

"Was out for a bit of birding today afternoon and walking away disconsolately after finding that neither the pair of Oriental White-eyes nor the flock of Common Ioras were in the Neem where I had seen them yesterday (this tree grows on the side of a deep well and has a wicked perimeter -- of rusty barbed wire and inch long thorn)...was a bit mentally preoccupied to be honest and then it happens, I slip on the uneven ridge abutting the well and crash to the ground.

Must be my luck or my instincts as a biker (or maybe the goodwill of the birds), the impact was totally on the left shoulder and left side of the chest. And though I felt the jar of the fall (I could have been a poleaxed tree for all purposes) nothing happened to the camera and the bazooka lens (which I was holding by the barrel, as usual).

Yes, read that as NOTHING, must be my TLC for my gear (or maybe the goodwill of the birds), it did not even so much as touch the ground (my left elbow did).

So, I brush myself off, shake my head to clear it and walk around a bit wondering if I am too early for the Ioras.

And then retrace my steps, cross the barbed wire (and one inch thorns) and sidle up to the Neem, to find them there again.

Eventful, huh?"

I wasn't exactly exact there -- it was a pair of Common Ioras and flock of Oriental White-eyes. But the rest is more or less how it happened.

And I did shoot some lifers right after the fall, too.

However, I am still thanking my stars that nothing happened to the camera (and lens) and that I did not fall into the well. What was I thinking? Truth be told, I wasn't exactly being a mentally pre-occupied Salim Ali, my thoughts had more to do with my father who has been having major problems with his insulin shots (post his bypass he administers the insulin to himself using an "insulin pen")...with the insulin leaking out at times, the needle getting twisted and bent and cutting him up and so on...we had been away on a trip to my paternal aunt's place (to lovely and quaint Wardha) and also to Nagpur (to my brother's) and it was agreed that the problem was with the pen and my father will get it replaced once we are back in Hyderabad.

But once we are back, he decides to get it "repaired" and I get to see him poking himself with a needle and the resultant blood and tension as the stupid thing gets jammed again, even when I try to give him the shots. Using that pen isn't a very pleasant thing at the very best of times -- you know you are poking a needle into your father and that it is hurting him. And it was sheer torture since I realized it was jamming, because the pressure applied onto the pen's plunger got transferred onto the pen and from the pen to the needle.

All this meant a lot of tension all around (and added consternation for Amma) as we had no idea of how many shots have gone in and what to do when the damn plunger won't move. Naturally then, that morning we had a row at home and my father promised to get the pen "repaired" in the evening.

So you can imagine my thoughts while I was "mentally pre-occupied"...I was mostly blaming myself for not having realized all this earlier and for not having changed the pen earlier. And I was also trying to figure out if my father's irrational, irritable and ill-tempered behaviour for the last month or so was due to wrong dosing. Not that he did not have other cause for worry and tensions (how can anyone who is father to someone like me be totally unworried?), but somehow I was feeling that a large part was played by the wrong dosing...something that I could have spotted and corrected long ago -- provided I wasn't gallivanting all over the country.

Anyway, so that was the second fall and whatever I may say to explain my state of not being mindful, I cannot say I am feeling very dignified about it, even now.

But then, one has to move on, no?

An upshot of that fall was a frank conversation I had with my father. And I am happy to say that there were no arguments this time when I said he get the pen replaced. And the new pen works just fine, too.  
                

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.





-- Wallace Stevens

This poem strayed into my being (and is still roosting there) when I saw some photos of a Blackbird on a friend's FB feed. In fact, I couldn't ID the bird, as I have never been outside India and never seen / photographed any Blackbirds. But then, its a bird that seems to be almost a celebrity if one goes by the volume of bird poetry devoted to it. Another (in fact, a dryly prosaic take) would be to see it as a common bird that is almost common in bird poetry. And still, this poem elevates it to nearly mystic and mythical levels, does it not?

One wonders -- what deliberation and effort must have gone into the minimalism and pithy nature of these lines. And one wonders -- what kinship must the poet feel for a bird before he / she can see so much in it?

Thoughts to ponder -- for me -- as I start putting together my own book of bird poems.      

THE DOOR

This thing
wakes me like a hand.

Grass waits

and rock
takes the wind's place.

Huge door
drifting
with feet of light,

my eyes
quietly open
before the night's.

-- Jayanta Mahapatra

(From "The False Start" )