Photograph Backgrounds

I've always wondered why when people get photographs taken by 'professionals' at local shops, they wind up with their pictures being superimposed over the most garish and /or unrealistic backgrounds imaginable. Many couples also have wedding pictures of themselves, inter alia, emerging from massive hearts encircled with red roses and surrounded by butterflies the size of their heads.
This afternoon, I came across a passage in The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera which finally explained it to me in terms I actually understood:
"Solomon the township photographer is now a rich man. His studio at the back of the grocers is papered from floor to ceiling with photographs of Africans in European wigs, Africans in mini-skirts, Africans who can pierce the focussing lens with a gaze of paranoia. The background of each photo is the same: waves breaking upon a virgin beach and a lone eagle swivelling like glass fracturing light towards the potent spaces of the universe. A cruel yearning that can only be realised in crude photography. The sqalor of reality was oblliterated in an explosion of flashbulbs and afterwards one could say, 'That's me, man -- me! In the city.'"

Purana Qila

I went for a walk in Purana Qila (the Old Fort next to Delhi’s High Court) the other day. It’s surprisingly well-maintained inside. There are lawns and it isn’t very dirty. One can walk around the ‘perimeter’ of the fort – or at least those who have a head for heights can. On one side there’s nothing but a wall which is a few feet in breath and has a drop of about three feet on one side and at least fifty on the other – or what seemed like fifty to me. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

There are a few buildings which survive inside the compound of the fort. One of them apparently once housed a library whose stairs the Mughal Emperor Humayun fell down and died.

What struck me as a bit strange though is that there were notice boards all over the place which said that the buildings were protected monuments but there were surprisingly few boards which said what in God’s name the buildings actually were.

That’s one thing which I find strange about Delhi – the place is full of old structures. Few people know what they are. And even fewer care.

Growing Older

Sometimes there are things which you take for granted which one day, you find that you can no longer do. Your eyes may not be what they once were, and you may find that you can no longer embroider a piece of cloth as finely as you'd like to. You may find that your body has given out and that you can no longer spend hour upon hour out gardening. You find that you now know what means when people say that youth is wasted on the young.

Some changes you plan for. You create what you know will be your last tapestry in your twenties by which time, your eyesight has already begun to fail. Yes, you know that with even a minimal amount of luck you'll have half a century left to read but being able to read doesn't mean that you'll be able to spend appreciable amounts of time of petit point.

Other changes you don't plan for. You injure your hand and find that you no longer have the dexterity to be able to play the piano well. You remember the notes but your fingers are unable to reach the keys.

Both ways, with the passage of time, you realise that there are things which your body is simply ill equipped for. Going on a ten mile hike to watch the sun set is unthinkable. And waking up obscenely early to watch it rise is just as unlikely.

But even though you may quite literally be able to feel your body age, and see wrinkles form where there were none before, with every one of your experiences etched on your face for the world to see, the one good thing about growing older is that you begin to feel more and more comfortable with your body.

You stop wishing for a perfect body. You no longer value yourself with a tape-measure, and if you're lucky, you begin to realise that what you're worth has nothing to do with your appearance, that beauty is skin deep and that what matters is what lies inside of you.

You also begin to become more and more comfortable with your body. It's a part of you. And for that, you learn to value it. It doesn't matter if you're not really up to going for those ten mile hikes any more. It feels just as good to lie down in bed, in your own skin, hopefully, with someone who matters to you.

And not embroidering 'monstrosities with neither beauty nor charm' leaves you with so much more time for other things. Perhaps things which matter to you: time to spend with the people you love, at art galleries, at museums, in gardens, with your favourite books; all things which perhaps the passage of time has taught you to appreciate so much more than you did when you were younger. All things which are far more important than being able to run a marathon, or spend an afternoon out in the sun weeding without feeling fatigued.

Growing old, and having your body change in a way which allows you to accomplish less physically need not always be a bad thing.