By Vaibhavi Pimplikar
My heart is a Pinterest poet, it loves to linger over abstract ideas like butterflies over a blooming flower. I wish to be one of them. But I know, If I were to be aesthetic, it would simply mean one picture with tea and one picture with book. That’s the life of a student, leaning toward corporate world, sliding into the days of 9 to 5 slowly, and gradually. But I used to love Pinterest, aestheticism always grabbed my eye so visiting it regularly was one thing I loved doing.
On one such day after immersing and surfing for an inordinate duration on Pinterest, I looked through my window at the sun setting which reminded me it was time to click pictures again. I click it, but oh well, it is not pretty enough. So, I buy another high pixel camera to click it. Now it somehow manages to look like one I saw on Pinterest. But the view could have been better, so I travel to Bali to capture a picture of sunset from Bingin cliff.
I show it to mom. She asked, “How was your trip?”
I stand next to her with a bunch of pictures in my hand, one in particular of an orange sunset filling the island of Bali in a golden glow. She held the photo in her hand and smiled, asking this one question again, “Did you enjoy the trip?”
I looked at the picture again. I was really happy thinking of my reasons. Maybe because I did something I liked. All this time, on almost all trips, I had been told to oh enjoy the moment, enjoy every second of the trip, detox, and digital fasting is essential, but what if capturing memories and carrying them together in one basket was my ideal world? Were I going to miss taking a click of all the places I visited? I wondered.
Later that evening, I changed into my casual clothes and laid on the bed my mother had made. I thought about it. Mom really got me a new phone just for this? I pondered. She really did love me that much. Enough to wield my dreams despite her wishes? Yes, she did. If my dreams had wings, they would be designed by her, I would say.
Had I ever imagined I would become a lover of a limitless potential like the sun, moon, trees that they would become art to me. What do my eyes love? What do they truly want when they are in search of beauty to capture? And why do we always find a need to capture it? I wondered.
I liked the sun’s rays that day, now that I think about it. How it gently touched my skin, giving me a glow, giving me life. How the wind generously brushed my hair, as my eyes focused on the lenses to take the perfect click. Yes, for a moment I was the art too. At that time it didn’t feel like it, but now that I look back; my mind has a picture of its own. A Pinterest board I never knew I made- of all the times- when I was feeling my essence the most.
Oh, maybe, I was good at it. Good at creating content which is all the rage. Maybe I saw something on the internet that I, like millions of others, wished to create? And that is why I loved myself at that moment, because I knew I was up to the standard that was set?
In this solitude, in this silence, I re-framed the questions in my mind; from why to what is it that I want? For a student like me, I have to go to college every day and prepare for the corporate jobs, especially the hustle that comes along with it. This could perhaps be my happy, but is the corporate world my calling? How can it be anyone’s calling- in my mind plays images of people rushing to get on trains, driving while attending meetings, missing out on vacations for work, and also paying off their student loans. How is this an ideal world? Or is the future of it, greener on the land later? Maybe. Maybe, they are good at what they are doing, but does it also mean they want to continue doing it all the time? Also, not.
I arose from my bed and chose to stroll, my headphones are on, but there is no music playing.
Hm, how the perspectives find its nature similar to change. Almost alike to water trying to fit in a vessel in a shape, and then realizing that there is more to it so the water displaces and finds another vessel to fit in its new shape. Ideas are simply a stream of thought passed down as tributaries from one concept to another, sometimes meeting at a point to form an idea or perspective less known and flowing together to a newer place, called reality. How it all starts with imagination and ends up slowly softening into a perspective which we later preach. When people stand on the beach they don’t usually see or figure the depth of water until they jump in it, and see how vast the surface area to travel becomes. Same is with other people you know. Your mind is like the sea, and not everyone will be able to cover an entire surface area to understand you. They are not you, and that is why the people that have known you for several years don’t really know you. The tributaries of perceptions keep flowing into that sea, the clouds that form over it and pour ideas, they will never know all of it. So we must forgive those who can’t swim; and keep swimming on our own until we learn how to get better at it.
As I walk, I look at a small block of rock on which sat a young boy playing guitar under the humbler hues of sky, his strings making rhythms that go with the sound of birds chirping or tapping of the shoes on a busy street. It goes with it, despite its difference, it fits in it, like a perfect piece.
And what if when I click a picture, it does fit in the box too; all my aspirations, my dreams. They have a roof under this giant universe, also. So, why must I be subject to society’s idea of better life? I think about the cost my mother spent on buying that camera, I didn’t have the courage to ask so much from her but maybe she knew what I couldn’t ask for many years, maybe she saved it up till today. I could never know. But if she could be patient for so long, collecting pennies and knitting a dream, then why couldn’t I too be patient with who I am becoming when I look in the mirror and see me.
I open my mobile app and play my favourite song, I have finally learned how to swim, amongst the thoughts in my own mind. As I go to the deeper portion of it, I see what it is, I see where it is I get all this from. Beautiful tiny fishes swim by as I wave at them, while swimming back up I see light, golden light from sun dancing on the surface of water, it is as if it's my calling to come out and look at the sky for how clear and plain it could be, to get back on the land and do what is needed to be done.
If inspiration is equal to the inspiring product, then what becomes of your work is only a copy. In this society there are lyrical ways of living in reality but sometimes it is distorted by versions of inspirations which are mostly all alike in nature designed to make believe that “It” conditions are forever cool. Expressing and being honest to your art is the only fundamental way to give birth to newer concepts. You are who you are, your art is just as unique as all the others there is.
By Vaibhavi Pimplikar
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