A Thrilling Blur
Both Riley and Claire can testify that a lot of my experience here in India has taken place behind the lens of our fancy Canon camera. I can’t help it; the indescribable, unfamiliar beauty around me compels me to attempt to capture it all.
One evening, I was trying to take a picture of a sunset (a revolutionary idea, I know), and the dim evening light made it difficult for the camera to focus. As I pointed the lens at the sky, it kept zooming in and out, struggling to adjust appropriately. It couldn’t decide what part of that vast blue, pink, and orange sky to focus on. Should the central focal point of the photo be the rising moon in the distance? The swirl of a rose-gold cloud on the bottom right? Or the bird flapping its way across the shot?
The resulting picture was an undefined, unsatisfying blur.
I am that camera lens. I know that sounds like the weirdest analogy ever, but I couldn’t think of a better way to somehow explain what I am feeling. The newness all around me is so vast and overwhelming, I cannot figure out what to focus on. Like that immeasurable golden sky, India is an endless expanse. Everything feels unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and unnerving. Oftentimes, I fall into my bed at night and my thoughts are no clearer than my failed attempt to photograph that sunset: the day reflects back to me as an undefined, unsatisfying blur.
The few times that I have had a bit of space to absorb what’s around me have taken place in our taxi rides throughout Kolkata. With each drive, I witness something new. I just sit in awe at the coordinated chaos taking place outside that car window and take it all in. There is a mishmash of people, dogs, rickshaws, cars, buses, and piles of trash mixing and swarming around each other, but never colliding.
Sometimes I see something that amuses me, like a circle of old, half-naked Indian men sitting on a blanket in the middle of the sidewalk playing cards.
Sometimes I see things that confuse me, like a barefooted toddler running across the street alone.
And sometimes I see things that leave me shaken, like the skeletal elderly man huddled in a corner, tenderly holding a bloodied bandage across his wounded left eye with blood spattered all over his ragged tshirt and hands.
These first few weeks have felt like an eternity, but I have also experienced a never-ending whirlwind of thoughts, reflections, and emotions in what feels like such an abbreviated amount of time. It has been exhausting and emotionally-depleting.
But it has also been a thrill.
I have been immersed in a world where life is so raw; survival is made so public. Here on the streets of Kolkata, people bump into one another, sweat together, bathe openly, and barter for goods amongst each other in such an unrefined and colorful way. This city is teeming with life, a life that is so foreign to me but also fascinates me. I have never done anything like this before, but I have already decided that I definitely want to do it again.
