Time… and hope

This was a picture taken during our recent trip to Wayanad. It remains one of my favorites, a snapshot in time which makes me think.. and wonder

To me, it depicts the eternal flow of time , from the old to the new; the seamless flow from the sleepy, ancient ruins of a forgotten temple still basking in its long-lost, yester-year glory to the vibrant, modern perspective of a young lady looking ahead, ready to take on what the future has to offer and make the world her own. It’s a cycle, the “chakra” of time each and every one of us go through, irrespective of whether we want to or not; somehow, this seems to capture the essence of life - albeit in reverse order. We start off by daring to stare at the future, ready to take on the next big challenge and scale greater heights; then someday, somehow we find ourselves peeping back longingly into those glory days. And THAT moment, as the past takes over from the future, as regrets start taking the place of dreams, we become old. Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to never let that happen, to never let our past catch up with our present and taint our future, to always have the fire of eternal hope and optimism, unshaken belief and unabashed curiosity burning brightly in our lives?

PS: A special thanks to the subject, this picture (and a lot of other things as well :) ) would be incomplete without her; an even bigger thanks to the friend who allowed me to use his DSLR for this :)

PPS: I chanced across something very similar to “regrets start taking the place of dreams” somewhere else; just can’t remember where though :)

Refresh with a rewind

1st post since eternity; so thought I would start  (rather re-start) with my 1st post displayed in some public forum. This is something I had written to the Telegraph India and was published in the Opinions column 7 years back. Here it is verbatim:

Sir — When the Americans created the myth of Jessica Lynch, the 19-year marine who was allegedly rescued from the clutches of the Iraqis, the media played along. Newspapers were splashed with reports, then still unconfirmed, on how valiantly she had resisted her captors. She was portrayed as the epitome of American gallantry. Such eulogies are sadly lacking for the teenaged grandson of Saddam Hussein who, much like Lynch (if hers had been a true story), resisted his captors till the end and died fighting bravely with his father and uncle. Why? Is it because Lynch belonged to the side of the victors and Qusay’s son was among the losers that his misery went unreflected upon? True, both his father and uncle were of ill-repute, but should the little boy bear the responsibility for that? Where are the voices that once grew alarmed at the torture of a teenager like Lynch? Why do they not speak up for the killing of Qusay’s teenaged son by the American forces?

Yours faithfully,
Ranajoy Sanyal, Calcutta

and here is the link to the opinion page.