An ode to writing.

For as long as i can remember i have always written. Yes i've done the whole romantic teen novel thing back in the day too... and i kept diaries- i hear now they call them "journals" so as to not sound geeky. So yes, i still keep a journal. I blog too. Also, every time i start working on a project and need to vent, i keep a separate "journal" for that too.
Why? asked a friend, Why do i need to write?
Sometimes your dreams can seem so impossible, your targets seems so unreachable, your life seem so impractical that you just can't sit there and explain it to someone else. I did once. I told someone who i thought understood me years ago about how i dreamed of moving to New York and doing my Masters and living on my own. He called me silly, told me i did not have the finances and by the time i would earn enough to go, i would be too old for masters and it would be pointless. Another friend told me, "you aren't that smart but hey, you *are* a hardworker so mayyybbee you'll make something of yourself."
Sometimes you start believing such people and their comments- sometimes you ignore. You learn to keep your mouth shut after that and share your dreams with yourself.
You become you own best friend first when it comes to impossible dreams and unachievable targets and other friends follow, because only YOU can assess you. Face it, family loves you too much, they will be biased :). Utter losers that walk this earth have been the apple of their mothers eyes and hero's in their fathers.

I have about ten diaries. I started back in 1991. I am so glad i did. Ofcourse i look back and see how i made a big deal of everything back then. Things i cannot even remember now- and that is the amazing part- you see the change in yourself- you witness internal evolution- you see who you were and who you have become in just over a decade. You might hate yourself or laugh at yourself ( i know i'm in fits when i read mine)...but you just might be damn proud too, and you won't need anyone else to tell you that because it will be evident.

And so i continue to write.
I continue to promise myself things and Allah Mian continues to make them happen
even if others have a hard time believing.
:)

The right reasons

After me feeling the way I was feeling when I wrote my last post i pretty much gave up photographing "significantly" and as my advisor suggested, i half heartedly clicked around for clicking sake. And then Khizzy and I went to an exhibition. It was a desi guy's exhibition and anything desi happening in NY tends to catch my interest and attention. The photographer was said to have travelled throughout the United States for over a period of seven years photographing Muslim communities and people praying inside mosques. We all know what a no go that is and that permission to photograph inside mosques is close to impossible to get.
Impressed by him before even seeing the work i went excitedly to the exhibition prepared to be blown away.
Unfortunately, in all honesty, although I did really really like some of his photographs, the whole hype of 'seven years of photographing Muslim communities' fell short of what I was hoping to see. I wanted to see juxtaposition of cultures, of races, of something shocking happening...something that showed me the different ways Muslims managed to be Muslims in various parts of the US. I didn't get what I wanted from the show. In fact, I got motivated. I could photograph what I wanted to see myself. And why shouldn't I? Was that not the whole point of being a photographer? :)

And so I went begging mosques to let me in. researching their websites convincing them they could use a little upgrade on the web and were welcome to use my photographs once I took them ( what a way to sell eh?). Finally, one sufi mosque let me in.
They let me in after I made sure they understood I would not be said "no" to. I went and attended their Zaikr. I made sure the manager saw me. I made sure he knew i was not going anywhere till he let me photograph. Persistence pays off.

I have never really been in a mosque to simply pray. That is just not done in Karachi. I have never been inclined to try since Maulvi's back home, the ones i cross on the streets wearing perfectly decent shalwar kameez, tend to give me bad ass looks
( is it the hair i ask?) Over here, i walked up to about 5 or 6 uber religious ankle high shalwar wearing maulvi's in jeans, boots, a shirt and a scarf ( what my sister calls my rocker look) and have never been treated with more respect in my life. They smiled. Warmly. They listened to me and didn't yell "Astaghfirullah taubah taubah Jahunnum mein jao" to me. They refused politely and when i asked them to reconsider, heard me patiently and then actually gave me permission.
Is it odd that i feel closer to Islam away from home, apparently an Islamic Republic, in a land like the US?
I saw men and women praying in the same mosques on separate sides and chatting later after the congregation pleasantly. I wanted to be a part of that pure and decent community where if i man looked at you in a mosque he smiled and walked away or said hello...not glare at you like you were willing him to think impure thoughts and drive him to hell.

Everyday, every single day, i think how lucky i am to have had this chance to come to New York to discover this new side of faith and to finally get on the right track researching and photographing something i actually care about.

stay safe people,
especially my comrades in Pakistan.

k

The new me?

I'll admit it-
I'm having a photographers block.
Sort of.
I mean I don't know what to call it.
What do you say when you don't feel like photographing?

I just feel like reading Santayana and Gilson (Gilson not so much) pondering about Beauty and the sense of it ( no pun intended)- bicker with fellow philosophy classmates about whether there is such a thing as expressive beauty or whether the quality lies in the object and other such matters that will never affect us in directly or kill us if we don't find the correct answer, but nevertheless MEAN something to us eventhough we cannot explain right at this moment why.

I'm going through a phase perhaps where experiencing is mattering more than documenting.
Documenting.
That is a wholllee other issue.
Apparently documentary photogaphy is a no go in a Fine Art grad school program.
Sigh.
Where to go what to do?
I've found solace and energy and life in philosophy since nothing else in the program is driving me to produce work.
Perhaps it was too soon for me to come to grad school or perhaps i am just not interested in being institutionalized in the area of photography where i feel most of the education is geared towards producing for New York Art galleries and the race for who is in with which curator and what out of this world concept will someone come up with that will get them in MoMa.
Concept.
That again is a whole other issue.
My advisor told me I don't seem like the person who sets out photographing with a concept or an agenda in mind, that the idea comes to me when i look at my results. I agreed. Its like this blog. I don't plan it. I do it when i want to.. the images happen to come together, sometimes i put the words before sometimes i put them after i have laid out the three images...the point is..it comes to ME. My advisor says I'm a watcher and being in a new place is driving me crazy because there is so much to see. And untill i'm done seeing everything thats on the surface i cannot start to see whats beneath it. So true.
"Click the obvious and then throw it away and move on"
Thing is, i have lost the will to click even the obvious and i am being sucked into the wonderful worth of contemplation and pondering and philosophy and education.


so I'll end it just as randomly as i have written this post.
I have signed up to teach local New York public high school kids about Pakistan and hold workshops with them.
I have also signed up to Career counsel them.
I have also signed up to do the same with elementary and middle school kids.

I am seriously considering going to Nepal for one month as a volunteer and teach English to under 18 kids.

and that is what is making me feel alive and liberated these days!

cheers.
:)

New York, I love you.

New York-
i finally am in love with you.
i must admit, it was not at first sight.
or second.
or third.
but like most things... and most people...you grew on me.
i asked around about you when i came to you.
people had mixed feelings about your character.
some said you were rude and crude and mean and dirty...
others couldn't stop with the nauseating praises- willing me to love you like they did.
but i was never one to be influenced by what they thought.
i had to decide how i felt about you rationally-
see the good and the bad for myself-
live you-
feel you.

and i did.

i'll say it once again,

New York, i'm in love with you.

The Self

The self.
Most of us have a pretty good idea of who we are... especially if we are in our mid twenties. I mean okay, you may not have figured yourself out completely (i doubt one ever does) but you pretty much know what kind of a person you are...what category you would fall into if categorization were ever required. I have always been very sure of myself...more than others...confident in knowing who i am and what i am like and to a great degree i have been able to express that in the work that i do enough so that if someone sees my work in a group show they can say "oh yes, thats very kay-like".

So when i got to graduate school I have been told over and over again by peers and teachers that there is not enough "me" in my work. I'm stumped.
"You seem to keep the viewer at a distance by not allowing us to see what YOU are really thinking"
"It's TOO relative"
"Where are YOU in this project?"

Stumped.
I kept telling myself the teachers just didn't know me and therefore did not "see" *me* in my work and perhaps over time, they would. But they did not. Then i thought perhaps they were just disinterested teachers not willing to see me in my work. That turned out to be true to some extent till a new teacher i met last week saw my work.
"I see you in your work."

Finally.
"I see you, but you keep me at a distance. There is a wall around you and you are not letting me in."

I should have seen that one coming.
Okay, it was time for me to accept i keep the viewer at a distance. I put up walls around my photography.
Does this reflect the kind of person i am? Perhaps.
A Forever Friend told me a couple of months ago that the one thing she hated about me was that I never let her in. According to her, apparently, I never let anyone in and I have these spikes around me that say "okay this is close enough don't try to get closer". The words hurt at that time but since I've come to New York and my personality is obviously showing in my work, how can I deny it anymore?

Yes. Okay. I do have walls around me. I am surrounded by spikes. I subconsciously do keep everyone at a distance. And yes, all these traits may qualify me to be some form of an arrogant person but on the brighter side it's kept me safe and kept me focused and saved me a lot of unnecessary hurting and pining for people who aren't worth it in the first place. It's kept me level headed and strong and given me a good sense of judgement before i start depending on the wrong people.

I am not sorry I am this way...however, I think it may be time for a little bit of a change.
As they say, the first step to change is admitting to something that needs to alter.

cheers,
k

ps: Valkyrie, the little bit of posterization in these photographs are for you. :P

The Land of Opportunities

Where had i vanished?
In New York ofcourse.
Its been a tough 3 months of settling down but i am officially off living off the floor of my apartment and have actual furniture.
Its all set up and i am ready to blog.

One of the things people are constantly asking me is "what i think of living in America?"
They ask this with a tinge of wistfulness in their voices. I mean come on...who doesn't want to live in New York in the east village of manhattan on scholarship? God has been extremely kind to me. And yet when i say it's been great i am given the impression i do not sound sincere enough. I mean hello..this is New York, partyclubbingwondefulanythingcanhappeninthiscity New York.
I am sincere.. really... i do love it here...but you can't ignore the unhappiness of the people you see around you. Yes, it's true, where one drummer drums randomly on the sidewalk and you stop to enjoy it, you understand that this poor guy is trying to feed himself through the pennies we throw his way... or the funny guy on the subway cracking jokes, holds his hat out at the end of his ride for a reason...so the spontaneous art happening on the streets is awesome... but its sometimes a result of something not so awesome.

on a happier note,
eid mubarak people!
they first eid away from home they say is always the hardest-
i hope those of you who got to be with family enjoyed it thoroughly!

cheers

k

Forever Friends

Forever Friends. The ones you made years ago while growing up. The ones you know who will always stick up for you no matter how many rumours they hear about you. The ones who come to your house uninvited because there is no such thing as being "invited" when it comes to them. These Forever Friends change during the growing up years but don't change enough not to last forever when it comes to their friendship with you. I would never want to screw up my relationship with any of these Forever Friends of mine. So when two Forever Friends fall in love, i freak out for them and the foreverness of their friendship. What if it fails? So many people in the world to risk it with- why risk it with a Forever Friend?
These days all around me, my Forever Friends are falling in love with eachother and risking it, while i stand firm with my rules- firm in my stance of never screwing it up with a Forever Friend and wondering if i am missing out on something huge.

Al was a resister like me as well. But she finally married F on Sunday. Her Forever Friend is now hers truly... forever. Where as a part of me is thrilled she finally took that leap of faith, another part of is in awe of her for her bravery...her boldness. She looked beyond. She took the friendship to a new level, she gave it a chance. Chance. The word itself is so eerily risky.

I'm a bundle of emotions after this wedding...or perhaps its the great Karachi return...or perhaps both and more...

whatever it is, it made me blog again...finally.

:)

cheers,
kay