'A thing of beauty is a joy forever'..... not a cogent sentence unless you categorically define 'beauty' and 'joy'.. which would in effect take away the very essence of these two words.
However, I have made an attempt to apply this line to my life and it fits like a missing block.
Photography for instance. I clicked my first shutter when shutters made more noise than a mini air-gun. Papa's camera weighed significant enough to alter my center-of-gravity and throw me into an unstable equilibrium. Of course, dad wound two full rounds of the leather strap to ensure his Zenith SLR did not hit the ground even if I did. I was 4 or 5. Dad set the aperture, shutter speed, focal length et al. He even set the frame from point to point. There were clear instructions to me to hold the breath, keep the hands steady, hit the shutter hard so it went all the way down .. and then stand where i was in attention till dad came and manually wound the film for the next shot. The first photograph i took was a blur.. it shows my parents' heads (the rest of their body could not make it inside the frame). In that blur you can see one smiling face and another frowning one looking directly towards the lens.
That particular photograph (i.e if you can call it so) cannot be called 'beautiful' by any stretch of imagination. However, every time in the past 20 years that I have looked at it, I have seen that smiling face and that concerned look. It is a beautiful medley of parental love and concern for their child. I have taken many photographs till date ... good, bad and ugly.. but there is that 'thing of beauty' in this one which has made it 'a joy forever'.
Books. I have read few books in my life belonging to myriad genres. At a very tender age ma and dad gave me one called The Charlie Brown Dictionary by Schulz. I walked a mile holding their hands through the Calcutta Book Fair with the single motivation of Benfish fish fries (they always used to put up a stall at the fair) and came back home with this book which was significantly bigger and heavier than any of the books my parents bought for themselves. A concrete reason for a child to feel happy and important. Oh and i had the fish fry too ! The last time i went home i was 25. I went through those now yellowing pages where Snoopy, Lucy, Woodstock and Charlie Brown taught me the basic words in the english language while they kept playing baseball , going from one escapade to the other. Baseball is still as alien to me as it was then, but the game has given me as much fun as it intends to. Charlie Brown has been a joy forever.
Apart from 'beauty' and 'joy' there is the 'thing' in that sentence.
Can the 'thing' which is a 'beauty' and thereby gives 'joy' be abstract ?
Can the 'thing' be intangible ? Something like say 'memories'
All i have been doing in this blog is to list out memories which are beautiful and are a reason for joy. Therefore in 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever' , the 'thing' may not be a thing.. it can be anything.
As life moves forward, I keep looking backwards. I guess at one point we all do that, but i keep doing it chronically and regularly. Sometimes i feel i fall in the extinct class. But hasent the salmon and the hilsa done that for years and survived still? So may be i will too.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever... as of now that 'thing' is a short nap... so long.
However, I have made an attempt to apply this line to my life and it fits like a missing block.
Photography for instance. I clicked my first shutter when shutters made more noise than a mini air-gun. Papa's camera weighed significant enough to alter my center-of-gravity and throw me into an unstable equilibrium. Of course, dad wound two full rounds of the leather strap to ensure his Zenith SLR did not hit the ground even if I did. I was 4 or 5. Dad set the aperture, shutter speed, focal length et al. He even set the frame from point to point. There were clear instructions to me to hold the breath, keep the hands steady, hit the shutter hard so it went all the way down .. and then stand where i was in attention till dad came and manually wound the film for the next shot. The first photograph i took was a blur.. it shows my parents' heads (the rest of their body could not make it inside the frame). In that blur you can see one smiling face and another frowning one looking directly towards the lens.
That particular photograph (i.e if you can call it so) cannot be called 'beautiful' by any stretch of imagination. However, every time in the past 20 years that I have looked at it, I have seen that smiling face and that concerned look. It is a beautiful medley of parental love and concern for their child. I have taken many photographs till date ... good, bad and ugly.. but there is that 'thing of beauty' in this one which has made it 'a joy forever'.
Books. I have read few books in my life belonging to myriad genres. At a very tender age ma and dad gave me one called The Charlie Brown Dictionary by Schulz. I walked a mile holding their hands through the Calcutta Book Fair with the single motivation of Benfish fish fries (they always used to put up a stall at the fair) and came back home with this book which was significantly bigger and heavier than any of the books my parents bought for themselves. A concrete reason for a child to feel happy and important. Oh and i had the fish fry too ! The last time i went home i was 25. I went through those now yellowing pages where Snoopy, Lucy, Woodstock and Charlie Brown taught me the basic words in the english language while they kept playing baseball , going from one escapade to the other. Baseball is still as alien to me as it was then, but the game has given me as much fun as it intends to. Charlie Brown has been a joy forever.
Apart from 'beauty' and 'joy' there is the 'thing' in that sentence.
Can the 'thing' which is a 'beauty' and thereby gives 'joy' be abstract ?
Can the 'thing' be intangible ? Something like say 'memories'
All i have been doing in this blog is to list out memories which are beautiful and are a reason for joy. Therefore in 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever' , the 'thing' may not be a thing.. it can be anything.
As life moves forward, I keep looking backwards. I guess at one point we all do that, but i keep doing it chronically and regularly. Sometimes i feel i fall in the extinct class. But hasent the salmon and the hilsa done that for years and survived still? So may be i will too.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever... as of now that 'thing' is a short nap... so long.
2 comments:
hi your nostalgia of the one childhood being beautifully presented,your first hand experience of clicking your parents in the camera eye was really hilarious.During that time itself you are smart because you captured the head of your parents in the camera.you know among the parts of human body Head has the prime one.Yes the thing of beauty is a joy forever.Thouh rose is a thing its graceful petals,the fascinating colour,fragrance it spreads to the surroundings brings cheer,joy,soothing effect to any being on the earth....
keep on writing these kind of dictions quite often ..prakash wodeyar
Long time...But worth the wait.
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