Author: Ajmal

“The Song of Sparrows”

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I admire the beautiful Persian films by Majid Majidi. They’re so full of life with vivid moving visuals. The Song of Sparrows is such a gem. I saw this in 2008. Happened to recollect it today. The warmth of relationships and the subtleties in this film is absolutely nothing but sheer brilliance.

Theme:
Karim works at an ostrich farm outside of Tehran, Iran. He leads a simple and contented life with his family in his small house, until one day when one of the ostriches runs away. Karim is blamed for the loss and is fired from the farm. Soon after, he travels to the city in order to repair his elder daughters hearing aid but finds himself mistaken for a motorcycle taxi driver. Thus begins his new profession: ferrying people and goods through heavy traffic. But the people and material goods that he deals with daily start to transform Karim’s generous and honest nature, much to the distress of his wife and daughters. It is up to those closest to him to restore the values that he had once cherished. Grammy-nominated composer and musician Hossein Alizadeh, a master tar and setar player, provides the haunting score.

Perceptions

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I’m glad to start the “ ponder “ series with this beautiful theme. What is illustrated below is something that we don’t think deeply normally in our routines.

When I’m looking at this tree, it might seem as if I’m seeing the tree directly. The scientific consensus is truly breathtaking and worth pondering. The scenario is completely different than we directly perceive it to be. Light entering the eye would trigger chemical reactions in the retina and these would produce electro-chemical impulses which travel along nerve fibers to the brain. The brain then analyzes the data it just received and then would create its own picture of what is out there. Then I would have the “experience” of seeing a tree, in this case. What is deep and exciting is that I’m actually experiencing not the tree itself so to speak, what is experienced is only the image that appears in the mind. This can be extended to anything and everything we experience. We only experience the form appearing in the mind for everything we know, perceive, imagine for every color, sound, sensations, thoughts, feelings. It’s all and in-forming of consciousness. Think about it : )

“Ponder” Series

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22 Dec 2018,

Today I’m laying the groundwork for  “ponder” series, which is a pilot project of Border of a Mind Studios  arm and is aligned with the vision of this page. Often in the rush of our routines, we fail to appreciate certain hidden subtleties and nuances of living in this universe, which we can only admire if we consciously make an effort to think deeply with profundity.  We have to pause for a moment and ponder, and hence the name of the series. I shall endeavour to share my reflections based on what I’ve read and pondered, and I’m more than delighted to start this journey of exploring in the realm of mind with you. God bless you friends!

Resonating with the vision of Border of a Mind Studios, I’m delighted to begin this series and I’d like to put in a lot of effort to bring in more illustrations and themes in this series. The above  theme header page is from my old website which I had in 2005, back in college days which I prepared by sewing in different illustrations from different pages.  Makes me very nostalgic to put in a revamped version of it.

Richer

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” If you’ve a family that loves you, a few good friends, food on your table and a roof over your head, you’re richer than you think”
– Unknown author

Original photograph by Mervin Harif.

Camels on the Horizon

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This illustration is inspired by a visual that I photographed couple of years back on an afternoon in the outskirts of a desert area in Sharjah wherein I found some camels ambling through the desert boundaries and the sun decided to set in the background in the evening.  The shadows and the colors along with the warmth of sun rays blended into a visual ecstasy.  Sunlight is indeed painting : ) 

Moving to a new domain – Dec’2018

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I have been migrating the website to a different host during the past few days. Took some time until the DNS cache issues got cleared. The website is up and running back again : ) 

I’m planning to write a small tutorial on moving from wordpress.com to a self hosted wordpress.org blog, some time soon. I took some time to figure out a procedural workaround to do so. I’ll link it here as I write it some day if that could help someone. The earlier theme we had is flushed off, and is back with this minimal theme that resonates with our storytelling. ; )

“Ephemeral Pause”

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I got this beautiful message forwarded. Couldn’t identify the original author online.

A lovely little girl was holding two apples with both hands. Her mum came in and softly asked her little daughter with a smile: “My sweetie, could you give your mum one of your two apples?”

The girl looked up at her mum for some seconds, then she suddenly took a quick bite on one apple, and then quickly on the other. The mum felt the smile on her face freeze. She tried hard not to reveal her disappointment.

Then the little girl handed one of her bitten apples to her mum, and said: “Mummy, here you are. This is the sweeter one.”

No matter who you are, how experienced you are, and how knowledgeable you think you are, always delay judgement. Give others the privilege to explain themselves. What you see may not be the reality. Never conclude for others. Which is why we should never only focus on the surface and judge others without understanding them first.

– Anonymous writing found online
This ephemeral pause before we judge would possibly help. Hence, the title 🙂
God bless.

“Instrument of Intuition”

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This is the old vintage film camera that my father used during my childhood days. During my previous visit to home, I took this to have it in my wondercrate. It’s a Yashica Electro 35 GSN.  Yashica is Japanese camera manufacturer who was originally active from 1949 until 2005. From the photos my father has taken with this nostalgic camera, I can upright tell that this thing is almost my age.  To dive deep into the geekery,  the body of this camera is made of solid metal with a clear viewfinder and rangefinder.  This was easily one of the most popular camera brands of the 1970s. It’s equipped with a silent electronic leaf shutter which is much quieter and has lesser vibration compared to the counterparts of Leica and Nikon. When this came out in 1966, it was very advanced at that time. Happened to stumble across this beautifully written write up by photographer Ken Rockwell on this camera.


“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– Dorothea Lange

“Photography is the story I fail to put into words.”
— Destin Sparks

“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy…For me, the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity. ”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson, ‘The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers’

Being a Violin

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I’m really fond of violin. In one of the earlier posts titled “The Ladder to a Star“, I had shared one of my favourite violin renderings.  Here is another one.

“It takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin, you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert. ”
– Jacques Yves Cousteau.

Artist: Roopa Revathi.