Musings

Recently I met a friend who does pottery. She said something interesting-

"Megha! You should try my pottery workshop. You'll have fun!"

"Absolutely. But I have this feeling that I will be horrible at it."

She paused for a bit then,

"Yeah probably.

I mean, you might not enjoy the initial days because you are quite competitive."

I reciprocated with a confused look to which she explained,

"You see, pottery bends our competitive spirits into submission. It is an art of patience. You are at the mercy of a million factors beyond your control. Even when your throw is perfect and you've shaped your vessel better than you imagined- you still have no idea if it is going to make it out of the fire in one piece. There is nothing you can do but hope.

Your perfect craft can turn to shards even if you did everything right.

That humbles you."

This is especially relevant to me today. Last week on March 1, there was that rare phenomenon where you just get out of your bed and start writing. Without putting any noticeable effort, words just kept coming to me. So I kept writing till two in the morning and dozed off after. The website I use always autosaves my work except, when I opened my blog a week later, which is today, I found out that it doesn't always do that. Not a single word was saved. My perfectly shaped vessel did not survive the fire and I was presented with an agonizing blank page.

Now that my masterpiece is gone (I can call it that since we are never seeing it), this becomes my first post to make it out of the fire all right in 2024. This is also the first post I am writing without a clue as to what to write about. How about we do something off-beat this time? I'll write whatever random thoughts come to my head and let's see how that goes.

Only for the next paragraph I shall pretend it is March 1- the day I threw my artsy vessel. Not to recreate it, but to reminisce a little.

Today my friend from engineering days, Samiksha, clicked some pictures of me. Yes, that happened! And that too after so long that just saying 'I did a photoshoot with Samiksha' puts me in a time machine and sends me right back to our 2016-2019's golden era of 'half an hour shoot and four hours chitchat'. Speaking of time travel, day before yesterday I finished reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, making it my twelfth book in five months. I feel good about getting back to reading regularly after so many years. To be fair, I can't remember the last time I read so much. Yesterday I devoured my thirteenth one. So it goes.

Back to the real today. Sometimes I wonder, if life were to have a physical structure and if we were to plot a graph, would it be somewhat spherical? Not sure of how many dimensions are involved here, but I suppose it would be cyclic in nature. A circle, sphere or even a hypersphere! None of this is scientific really. I haven't researched anything, neither have I given it much thought. I have not looked it up on the internet too. So far, just a thought casually floating around in my head. It could be because of some terms that we use in our day-to-day life such as, 'Right back where I started from', 'Cycle of life', 'I feel it in my core', 'We have come a full circle' or just general observations of human behavior- mood-swings, ups and downs (if I still remember surface waves correctly, they move in circles). The universe's most prominent components- stars, planets, moons, the mysterious black holes are all somewhat spherical (thanks gravity). However, there is also a possibility that life could be flat, infinite like the universe. Only if we could be sure about that too. What if the universe is enclosed or even spherical but we think of it as flat because of its vastness? So vast that the curves are almost straight? Being a human, I am trying to fit something I don't understand into a structure so that it becomes easier for me to comprehend. But I'd rather have the true answer be something entirely beyond our imagination. Something we cannot figure. Not yet.

I am now starting to wonder if I took 'writing whatever comes to my head' a bit too seriously. Let's move on.

Simple stuff - I have been well. Mom and I have been losing sleep recently because of animal problems in the building (especially mom, because I wake up much later than her, lol). I wish I could get them adopted because they keep fighting amongst themselves and keep getting injured. They are so lovely with humans and are the cutest babies. They deserve the best and a loving home. Please let me know if you are from Mumbai and want some angels in your life :) Other than that, I recently did a guest role for a short film. Quite excited about that (especially because of the look), I have started reading for the next one, let's see when that happens. You keep asking but these things aren't so much in my hands you know. I met some old friends, have been eating good food and getting fatter, reading great books as you know, brushing up on whatever skills I have and some new ones that I want to develop further in several domains. I have somehow watched very less films and series and am considering watching more of them (at least some good films).

Anyway, coming to the actual subject - I have received the pictures from our shoot and have decided to put some of them here. I am excited to share these with you because they have flowers in them, haha!

So, what is it about flowers that we love so much (or hate if you are psychotic (except if allergic))? The first few words that popped up in my head are beautiful, delicate and short-lived. How is one supposed to feel about this combination where beautiful means 'I could keep watching this forever', delicate means 'I must protect this' and short-lived means 'I better not get too attached'? If we can answer this, we can probably find the answers to many of the problems in life.

It is time to bloom. This is spring.

The planner I was using last year had the title 'Bloom with Grace' written on the cover with pretty flowers printed all over it. Somehow 2023 was all about that for me. It was about growth in all fronts making my life and lifestyle a little more graceful and well-rounded. That cover title stayed with me, so I put it in the reel. In the beginning, it sounded a little superficial, but made much more sense as I watched it happen to me.

If you like our work show us some love on our Instagram as well : @megha_ray & @samiksha.b

Photography : Samiksha Borikar

(also my friend who does pottery)