Graphic Reflections

One raisin, that I could have dropped out of a box of dry fruits without noticing, turned out to be a mountain of food when it was presented to a typically hardworking group of red ants who decided to explore my kitchen. An incision was made on top of the raisin and morsels were eaten and taken away with great care and at ant’s pace

While walking through the Jaipur walled city one evening, I came across a very small, dimly lit, one-man shop that specialised in repairing sewing machines. Some of the machines with him were very old, pieces of antiques in their own right. A walk through the old part of most big cities in India should reveal small repair shops / repair men who would fix anything from old blenders to radios to the oldest model of scooters. The not-so-well-to-do, the poor and many others in India do not (or can not) embrace the ‘throwaway’ or ‘upgrade’ culture.

These photographs were taken a couple of years ago in the city of Jaipur (Rajasthan) India. The one on left shows a wall from the historic walled city (also known as the Pink City). The one on the right shows a conglomerate rock located inside a city park. One major difference between these two is that the wall is less than 300 years old whereas the rock is estimated to be about 1600 million years old (yes!). Many (man-made) walls and structures in the Jaipur walled city are in a state of decay, some have crumbled, yet the rocks in the nearby Aravalli hills look as good as new! Isn’t nature’s ability to ‘maintain’ itself amazing?