When there is nothing to do.
there is still something to do.
one has just to find it,
like I did, right now.
on a long train journey.
Caged in my coupe,
sitting by the window,
I found myself drawn into my favourite pastime
‘Looking up at the sky,’
The sky, you know, accompanies us everywhere,
and can be accessed from anywhere, in the open.
With monsoon receding,
winding up its tumultuous season for the year,
the sky is left with sketchy, ethereal patches
of clouds floating here and there,
mesmerizing through innumerable shades,
white to gray to dark
or pink to orange, at approaching dawn or dusk.
entertaining through funny shapes, like those of –
a bird or a dog, a child or a man
an elephant or a fish.
Fish! Aha, a fish floating in the sky!
isn’t funny enough?
Then suddenly, touched, nudged by a gentle wind,
The shape starts moving, in slow motion,
but in just a few moments,
begins melting, disintegrating, fragmenting
and scattering away,
to get into some other shape, or just vanish in the thin air.
Watching it perform its acts is indeed
pretty amusing, entertaining and absorbing..
Ain’t it?
The hues and shapes,
Their forming and unforming and re-forming,
Aren’t those part of their ethereal, transient existence?
and so also, of ours, our lives’?
Incidentally, that piece of deep wisdom
descended upon me, just by
looking up at the sky, the clouds!
When I had nothing to do!
———
Mumbai monsoon has always been a photographer’s delight.
—-Ashok Misra
Creative Expressions 