Time, Photographs, and Amateurity.
All this way and no picture? We just have to remember it then. Remember it always.
My last email to you was in December. Hope you are doing fine. Winter is fading out in Hyderabad. I am afraid of the summer that is to follow. The last time I positively anticipated summer was the summer of 2019. A teacher told that this is the last summer break you will get as a student and asked us to enjoy it as much as we can.
Every summer that followed 2019 had it’s peculiarity. The rise of Covid (2020), entrance exam preparation(2021), writing a string of exams (in 2022), a 2 week break after first year of college (2023) , internship (summer of 2024), internship (2025), and this summer will be consumed in preparation for my thesis. Every summer after 2019 had a specific goal to work towards. If I knew, in 2019, that this was the last summer break I would play cricket all day, maybe I would have cherished it a bit more.
There are so many things, which we will be doing for one last time, but never realize our retirement from that act in the moment but only realize in hindsight.
Time, like river, flows without stopping. To feel alive, you must occassionally obstruct it’s flow with a cup shaped palm and feel it’s temperature and wetness. Know deeply what is to be a river, before mixing into the ocean.
It’s exciting to be a few months away from turning 21. It feels like life is just starting.
Photographs
A photo, often thought to be a preservative of a particular now for an undefined tomorrow, triggers a nostalgia that reminds me of all that I once had but lost to time. They capture moments that are gone forever and are impossible to reproduce in authenticity.
The difference between a photo and painting is that in a photograph, breathe stops becoming air and all faculties converge to capture a fleeting reality while a painting is built from ground up with it’s seed truth limited to how far and wide the painter can see. A photograph, despite it’s ability to capture details our naked eye might miss, can never be the complete truth. The actual reality is multidimensional. When you project ‘reality’ into two a dimensional space and print it out as a photo, a lot of information and meaning is lost. All photographs are accurate, but none resemble truth.
“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.”
― Ansel Adams
In the movie ‘The Namesake’, Ashoke (played by Irrfan Khan) and his son ‘Gogol’ who is 11-12 years old, take a short trip to the seashore. When they reach the seashore, the end of the land, where the sea begins, Ashoke realizes that he forgot his camera.
All this way and no picture? We just have to remember it then. Remember it always.
“Will you remember this day, Gogol?" his father had asked, turning back to look at him, his hands pressed like earmuffs to either side of his head. "How long do I have to remember it?" Over the rise and fall of the wind, he could hear his father's laughter. He was standing there, waiting for Gogol to catch up, putting out a hand as Gogol drew near. "Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”
- Jhumpa Lahiri
What you see and what you photograph are two different things. Certain moments are better off captured by your retinal camera rather than the one in your phone, because when you capture moments, you fail to experience it’s weight in reality.
‘The Namesake’ is novel Published by Jhumpa Lahiri in 2003. The movie was an adaption of this book, directed by Mira Nair in English and released in 2006 starring Irrfan Khan and Tabu in the lead role.
Amateurity
‘Root word’ is the core part of a word that carries it’s basic meaning. We add suffixes and prefixes to the root and make newer words. The root word of ‘amateur’ is ‘amare’ which means ‘to love’. An amateur, in it’s purest form, refers to someone who does something for and out of love.
The word is now used as a criticism. ‘Amateur’ is the perfect phase to be at, because you are driven by a fuel that never burns out. It is the condition that has the potential to create mastery and art.
Civilization is built by people who loved something enough to pursue it past reason, thereby making the world a meuseum of passion projects. When you care for the work you do, you breathe oxygen into it and let yourself be more alive.
Think less. Do more of what you love with care, grace, effort, energy and all this at a steadily burning flame for long enough. The reward is distributed unevenly across trying, failing, bouncing back, adjusting parameter, and achieving.
Running
I finally ran the 5km marathon I was preparing for.
I recorded my first running session in mid September 2026. My breathe ran out after 1.25 km. But over time, my endurance has gotten better. I can now run at a slow pace for 20+ minutes.
I prefer to run alone, because it is one of the best ways to get a long stretch of time to be alone with your thoughts. The other place you get this is in the shower. 4:45pm to 6:15pm is a beautiful window for running just outisde campus because you get to see the sun set, sky turn orange, all with minimal vehicle disturbances.
One reason for sharing this table, is to prove my point that if you stay on course long enough, you will eventually get better. Maybe I could have completed a 5km before December 3rd if I tried. But the point is, you keeo showing up and believe that it’s not over until you win.
There is no perfection. Once you run 5km, you show up the next day to do better. It’s a continuous process.
The thresh hold for the discomfort associated with running varies person-to-person, but at some point we all find it difficult to carry on. If you expose your brain frequently to experience what it is to be at the burning edges of your physical capability, then you give yourself more chances to choose hard over easy. And this attitude transmutes to every challenging situation you might find yourself in.
I like to turn music on in the near end of my session. If you plan a 5km session, the fatigue in the 1-1.5km forces you to reconsider your goal and settle for a compromise. That is exactly when you are supposed to rage against the desire to quit and keep going. These are the moments, I sometimes turn to music.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself. - Murakami
3 favorite quotes lately
A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.
Not all those who wander are lost.
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to share any feedback or message here. Take care.