movement of realities: a note on grief

Photo Essay by Anusha Datta

Grief is an intimate experience. Everyone journeys this path differently. I wandered through a variety of coping mechanisms when I experienced loss more than once. While some may grieve in order to let go, I look at it as a process of recollecting and memorialising. After all, life is a journey in movement and impermanence. The nescient harps about the inevitability of Death, but the well acquainted will remind you of her distinct nature: unpredictable, unreasonable, and untimely.

In 2018, I photographed my maternal grandfather’s physicality as he grappled with Parkinson’s Disease. A visual narrative of the frail human body, the degeneration of muscles, weakening postures, and immobilisation.

It allowed me to explore a more personal narrative of remembering him; and the grip of his feeble hands holding onto mine. I wanted every inch of that feeling to be captured in an image that would remind me of him, even when he wouldn’t be around. His touch, the softness of his wrinkled skin, his frail limbs, the poky surface of his shaved chin, the dryness of his scalp, his pale, milky complexion, the surfacing of veins and the growing freckles on his forearms.

Nana Ji passed away at the beginning of this year, and as miserable and daunting the experience of loss is, it gave me a chance to revisit these photographs, to remember the loving grandfather he has been to me and my sister.

I remind myself that life is a consequence of movement. One that makes it a bubbling, shimmering, and crumbling experience. A journey, where death is our only point of stillness.

Additional note from artist:

In loving memory of Shiv Nath Kaul (1933-2021)

S.N. Kaul was born into a Pandit family in Srinagar, Kashmir. He studied Chemical engineering at Banaras Hindu University and joined BARC (Bhabha Research Centre) where he was part of a select group to be sent to the United States to study nuclear engineering. After receiving his Masters degree from Kansas State University, he joined the Heavy Water Board under department of Atomic Energy where he worked as part of a program developing heavy water enrichment technology with the aim of indigenous production to support the Indian Nuclear Power Program. Following an early retirement, he spent a large part of his time practicing Yoga and Homeopathy. He was known to have a keen spiritual inclination and was an avid reader of the teachings of Ramana Maharishi. He continued to be a tech enthusiast post retirement, and even had an interest in photography. Lastly, he is remembered as a doting grandfather, and I feel proud and honoured to have been inspired to create this series as a tribute to him.

Volume 09

clay | chlorophyll | crimson

Grass is green where you water it. LC’s words float along over Misch’s guitar. It’s a phrase that feels so obvious, and I’m sure those who tend to gardens know this more than most, but it seems to land more than before. The impact noticeable, memorable, echoing through my being. Perhaps we’re ingrained to think it’s greener elsewhere. This patch is the problem and not whether we’re watering it. The key is in the watering. How we go about this practice is what defines our patch of grass. No matter where we go, our patch is, perhaps, the same. Some attributes and characteristics have been changed but the essence is the same: Us.

Stepping into Volume 09 of imprint, marks our third year. I am learning that this patch of green that we have been tending to for the last several years will mould, shift, and sculpt. This depends on how we water it and allow it to take its own shape. It has already happened in wonderfully unexpected ways. There is only so much structure or shape we can predetermine. Beyond that, it will absorb what it needs and reject all that is unnecessary. And perhaps, in this practice, we are changed. Our grass is watered as we water that of our writing, our image making, our practice, our magazine.

From light to dark, rigid to supple, new to old, there is so much in between that is bright and vibrant and unexpected. The practice of our magazine has focused on being open to what we receive; being open to deeply listening to what is shared; being open to work taking us to new journeys. This volume, and this year, will be no different. We will continue tending to it as we have done, learning along the way, from past seasons and present ones.

And yet, I know it will be entirely different.
But still.
It will be watered.