Life through a convex lens

Anyone and everyone that knows me also know that I always and I mean ALWAYS go around with a camera. There have been times when I have forgotten my wallet but I don’t think I have ever forgotten my camera! My first camera was an analog yashica....I call it mine although I cried and forcefully took it from appa when I was 10. He was my first Guru w.r.t photography. I used to stand and stare at him patiently taking pictures, everywhere we went and he would also make us pose and afterwards he would meticulously get them printed, put them in photo albums and label and store the negatives carefully ! There are 3 suitcases full of photo albums in our house today and every time I start looking through them, I need at least a whole day to live through them. Oh..well...I digress....

Coming back to photography, although basic physics and howstuffworks taught me about aperture and objective lens, appa was the one who taught me how to load the film, how to wind it during and after, angles, when to use the flash (those days you had to manually switch on the flash and set it up) and above all, he had an eye for pictures and thankfully, some of it rubbed off on me too (I am not giving myself airs, let's say I am an optimist :D) . Although I still use and love my analog yashica (they do not make such lenses anymore), I am a staunch fan of Canon. I think I have purchased at least 4 of them in the last few years for myself and for family or friends. I now possess a canon SD 870 IS. The main reason in buying it was that it fits in the pocket of my pants and the quality for this level of compactness is really better than most others in the market.

Over the last few years, I have collected gigabytes of photos, some of them good, some interesting and some just for the sake of it. I have had many people appreciate them, so I suddenly had an idea of creating a photo blog (start meesic: papara papara papara payn…..) to display a select few…..and as a thank-you, I named it after my canon.

In general, my photos strictly display the ‘I love people more than places’ argument substantiated by the reasoning that I can always find pictures of India online but I cannot find pictures of my family in India online, can I? well, probably with Google’s total disrespect for privacy that can happen in the near future, but you get my point, don’t you ? But in the blog, I would restrict displaying people pictures in an effort to protect their privacy.

I did consider using Flickr but it is overwhelming to see the great pictures and the even greater talent in there and since I believe I have a long way to go, I decided to start simple with a blog. I know its quite ambitious to maintain 2 blogs with regular posts and so I will smartly not commit to updating both at the same frequency :D

So here is hoping that my readers enjoy my photos and help me get better……if I do end up winning a Pulitzer, I will include each of you in my thank-you speech, deal ;) :D ?!

1 year of blogging gave me.....

...at least 50 regular readers – 27 blogspot followers and many others – thanks to blog readers and blog aggregators

...new e-friends, people I have never met but keep in touch with that Google decided I should follow them in buzz.

...motivation to write in Tamil after 18 years

...audacity to ‘publish’ an article in German :D

...2 articles in the local newspaper

...an offer to co-author a book

...a flurry of enquiries about Studying in Germany and I love playing the mentor :D

...a travelogue to share with my colleagues and friends

...a forum to discuss, participate in charity and related activities and publicize the need for it

...a marketing platform - 2 companies thanked me for promoting their products and no, they neither asked me to nor paid me for it, I would like to think of those as my good deeds for the day :D

...a driver that tripled the time I spend in reading - am running out of english books at the Munich library, God bless e-books !

...a simple way to overwhelm Thatha on his 70th B’day

...an outlet to reminisce about the family- homesickness can really do weird things to you !

...a way to preserve memories – if ever I am in the ‘Ghajini’ stage, I don’t need a diary :D !

and above all, it makes me feel alive (Blogging makes me feel alive, does this make me a nerd and am I secretly proud of it ??), provides me with an independent outlet (since talking would mean imposing on someone else’s time) and of course clears the clutter in the attic !

Interesting stuff...

I discussed crème brulèe with a Google engineer from San Francisco and I generally don’t discuss desserts with strangers !

Most of my readers are from Germany, the US and Australia (Blog stats show 14 countries). India is 4th in line – the hmmm-interesting part is I know just 3 people in Australia and the eyebrow-raising part is that most of my family is in India.

The fun part – definitely the compliments...after all, vanity is my favorite sin. How can one disagree with Al Pacino :D ?!

Appa said I should write for magazines...Oh..well...parents...

A friend said I should write a book...

Another suggested I write a newspaper column...how does 'Gossip and the city' sound :D ?! I can make that a book and possibly a movie later ;) !

Another said I deserve a ‘Blog with most topics’ award...how nice this sounds instead of 'why do you have an opinion about everything under the sun' ?!

Dewdrop gave me a blogger buddy award a couple of days ago....THANK YOU (this is not just for the award, you know that right ?)

For a few hours I spend every week, this doesn’t seem like such a bad deal...so yeah, I’ll keep going...and needless to say (and I am still saying it :D), I just completed a year of blogging !

PS: This is probably the right time to ask about suggestions to improve, I do have a couple of ideas but feedback from the readers would make a lot of difference, right ?

Gold fish translator:
Thatha - Grandfather
Appa - Father
'Ghajini' - refers to an Indian movie (in Tamil and Hindi) about short-term memory loss

Nandri, nandri, nandri

It was New Year’s Eve and among the many other wonderful things the day brought me, there was an email, an email that completely overwhelmed me! It was from a friend, let’s call him Ram and I take the liberty of quoting a part of his email here.

“I just finished reading all your 121 posts.........'t was like reading an unputdownable novel........a few chapters (chapters here akin to posts) were not as interesting albeit; as they were not within the precincts of my fathomable perspicacity.

None-the-less at the end of it, felt like Conan Doyle just killed Sherlock Holmes and he wouldn't return. It's gonna be a fanatic impatience waiting for the next post after this impasse. And that's just one of those ways it made me feel.

I Salute You my good friend........you are a humble person and a noble soul......your words enunciate wisdom, strength, resilience, conviction, agility, steadfastness, tenacity and innocence. I now wonder how can someone be as liberated while fastened by the physical, mental and emotional bonds of humankind..........I wonder??? I shall continue to awe at the mysterious and intimidating yet simple truth that you portray..........the scales of life will keep tilting no matter what, but in search of what is the question. If it is in search of balance, then you see 'what is' in everything; but conversely those who seek 'that what isn't' are looking for justifications and opinions.”

Obviously there are reasons as to why I was not simply flattered but completely overwhelmed….

- I envy Ram’s command over the English language, his wonderful style of writing and his powerful expression of thoughts (as you probably have already noticed). When he compliments me on my writing, I am speechless

- I worship Sherlock Holmes and I cannot count the number of times I have read his short stories and novels. Even mentioning Holmes (and in turn Doyle) in the context of my blog gives me goose pimples.

- I consider myself a voracious reader and I read many blogs regularly but never once have I bothered to read all the previous posts in any of my favorite blogs. So someone reading all the posts and comparing it to a book is just too much for me to take….

Weirdly, this email, instead of boosting my ego, is humbling. A few years ago, when blogging started, I checked it out and thought “This is for writers, not for someone who rambles on like me” and then suddenly one day a simple email made me start blogging. Life brings with it many surprises – from things like finding someone who would turn out to be one’s best friend to life altering decisions. My tenure in Germany (I never even knew where Stuttgart was exactly located before coming here) is one of them and today when many unknown people thank me for the information in my blog, I am surprised again since this was never a part of my plan...but then...it never has been my plan....the plan comes from above and I simply execute it, don’t I?

What can be better than beginning this year’s blogging by thanking him ?! Thanks Ram, I will keep writing and I will consciously try to improve hoping that like the perfect artist, I have the knowledge of when to stop……or let the divine plan take care of it :)

Why did I start blogging ? thanks to D !

I believe one has to answer this question to assuage the curiosity of the readers (and to save myself from explaining this to numerous people using numerous different media....)

So, why am I blogging ? D asked me to.

Who is D ? My e-friend (and I have to protect my e-friend's privacy!).

Is there a story behind this ? Ofcourse, read ahead.

Last month, I had a forward from one of my friends and the content was such that it prompted me to take the liberty of sending a reply with my views, not only to my friend but also to his friends in the CC. One of them wrote back and I am pasting the response here, verbatim - "I couldnt resist typing this email in response to your fast well-written and expressive email. I love this attitude of saying what you have to say, no matter what. I like your view point. Do you write articles? If you have not attempted, you should sometime. Trust me, if you are anything like me, you'll surely attribute a reasonable percentage of success in your relationships and profession to your blog, as all thoughts that occupy quite some space in your brain is out on paper, so you can keep it free to buy in more of thoughts and this blog or any writing for that matter keeps you sane and expressive most of the times. It works that way for me. "

Like Sherlock Holmes, I am accessible on the side of flattery too. So I gave D's response a serious thought.....there are two things that have always made me communicative (am known for writing long emails, without always hitting the reply button). Why ?
- I am a people person and I always stay in touch
- I have an opinion about almost everything under the sun

and lo....(imagine a sunrise with suitable music)....I decided to 'blog' (it is amazing how technology causes the language to evolve - for better or for worse is a matter of perspective!)

D was perfectly right. I feel so light and seem to have a clarity of thought when I have put everything down in black and white. I am really going to this often....thank you D !