The jasmine bush, seen in the photo above, was soaked with water drops from the long rain fall at night, when I watched it at the day break in our garden. The bush looked ornamental more because of the water drops than because of the five petalled flowers that had a luminance in the morning light.
It was when I downloaded the photo, I noticed the remnant of a solitary strand of a web of a spider, attached to one flower with no clear visibility of the other end !
Although a day had passed I went back to the jasmine bush searching for the other end of the strand of the web. It was too late to search for it! I even missed it when I was looking at the jasmine bush while taking photos.
I had one more photo which revealed more about the strands in the web, in the 11-12, 0' clock position ! They were just visible, reminding the story of the labour of a spider, which the rain had disrupted!
Only few strands were left after the rain! But sure enough, the few were strong enough to resist the rain! A spider has a size of about half a centimetre usually! Its creation survived the long spell of rain at night!
What appears slender, fragile and flimsy weathered the wind and the rain!
A girl, struggling to take care of her ailing mother worked in the vegetable shop in the evening to earn pocket money to join a community college for her graduate studies. Her attempt to qualify as a front office staff in a corporate office failed. She trained herself by reading and speaking in English, standing before the mirror every day and asking her friends in the neighbourhood to take several mock interviews to build her confidence. She got through the interview at the next round of recruitment. Her mother remarked: "Priya turned her failure to get selected in the first instance, into an opportunity to do even better "! Priya said in response: "Mum, my longing was to rescue you from all your debts, which you incurred, while looking after papa during his long illness... He is not with us, but his example of faithfulness inspired me"!
To most of us this girl looks a fragile, broken and struggling girl! But she had an inner tenacity and resilience which went beyond her age!
What does not appear visible or prominent does not exist in our optic. That was what happened to me. I noticed the leaves, flowers and water drops, but missed seeing the most resilient of all, which was the slender strand of a web! I missed seeing it ! The second photo gave me a chance to feel inspired although I missed noticing it live!
This spoke to me of how 'conditioned' living can blind our eyes to miss seeing sights that have a depth of meaning!
Raihan Vadra is a young photo artist, resident in New Delhi. His mother used to take him along with her when she used to go for wild life photography. At the age of 7 years he too got interested in photography. While playing cricket at school he got injured and lost vision in one eye. He thought of it as an end to his dream to be a wild life photographer. He overcame all the disadvantages associated with limitations in his vision. He is now a contemporary photographer of some repute, specialising in wild life photography, street scenes and installation art. During a solo exhibition of his photographs, a large collection were of photos of the recent student protests in New Delhi. Raihan presented them in the exhibition, an exquisite collection of rare inspiring and adventurous street scenes, which the photographers with full vision had missed capturing !
The inner strength and openness to take steps to triumph over hurdles come to us when we know that we are here on earth for a purpose. The earlier we sense that purpose, the more will be our aspiration to be pathfinders in spite of the obstacles.
It takes a life time of orientation to discern the strength in a strand of web... and yet to finally find it comes only from a purposeful journey! I feel glad that the second photo made that possible!
Often, we will be given, what we did not find ourselves!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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