Unlike Mowgli, we live in cities – urban epicenters of a materialistic world. When we return from a trip to the jungles it takes us a day or two to get used to our routine; to fit into the rut. Once we have done that, the exciting and refreshing experiences from our time spent with nature takes a back seat in the theater of our mind.
For example, how many times did you think of the tiger last week? Or, in the last three months how many times did you try and imagine what the tiger would be doing?
It is not a cry for action, but, a call for thought. I believe that if the thought is there in our mind it is easier to act upon it when called for. But how do we keep that thought alive in the back of our mind? Sometimes one trip a year is too little (time) for nature to make an impression so that it registers in our subconscious. How do we keep our subconscious sensitised to nature, when everything around us is so anti-nature? It is easy to forget what tall trees look like, when all we see around us are skyscrapers.
I travel more than the average bear. Yet, whenever i see good visuals, on TV or in print, i am deeply moved. Alastair Fothergill’s Planet Earth series on Discover Channel was splendid. National Geographic regularly prints photo features that make my knees go week. Good images immediately teleport us to the location but excellent images not only teleport us, they also activate our senses. You can feel the cold winds of the Himalayas, soar in their heights, and be exhausted climbing them – all this, sitting in your swivel chair at work.
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Yes Wildlife photos inspire me and infact beautiful photos spur me further. And yes I have photos taken by me on my walls attracting the wrath of my wife but awe of the visitors. Talk about office, I have posters on wildlife put up in my offices. Yes Wildlife Photos inspires me.
Thank you, Sanal for sharing your views.
Hi Meethil
I have never had a chance to visit a national park, the closest i have been to wild animals is in a zoo .. and definitely NatGeo and Discovery. I have only seen a tiger once in my life (in the zoo) and with my eyes closed i can still admire its beauty but it is true that i am so busy with my concrete jungle life that i don’t think about it every now and then.
Infact i sometimes just stand on the side of the road and enjoy the site of stray puppies playing with each other or their mom … it is just a beautiful sight to see their carefree attitude.
I dont have a picture of a wild animal in my home right now (am still waiting for a wildlife photographer to gift it to me
) but very frequently the pictures of wild animals are on my desktops.
Good luck dude …
Excellent post! I haven’t read anything like this for a long time — “It is not a cry for action, but, a call for thought.” I thought about what you said about the power of images and I agree. Out of sight, out of mind. Unfortunately, like you said, we all live in the urban epicenter of a materialistic world, therefore, nothing like images — wallpapers, photo frames, calendars to do the trick and “teleport” us back to where we came from.
In fact, as soon as I went to your post, I went hunting for a few good background images (all international vistas unfortunately) and gazed at them, one by one, for a long time. The thing you mentioned about feeling the heat and the cold, that happened after about 60 seconds of just walking into the picture. I did this seven times, I looked at a bear fishing, a butterfly on a flower, the ocean, a still forest, a lion yawning, a fish feeding on something and a bird rising above what looks like a really huge mountain.
So yes, images work for me. The problem is now to get powerful images to feed on.
Yes of course!! I think photographs are one way of visiting places which I might never have a chance to see in person. And I think every person I know definitely is click happy during a trip to anywhere
And such photos are quite often on my desktop as well.
Living in the urban jungle that Bangalore has become, getting lost in the daily grind, and never having the time to stroll through the now few and far between gardens that were once the pride of the city, I have been literally and figuratively miles away from nature’s true beauty. But a recent trip to Kashmir changed all that. When I looked through the images we captured, those magnificent snow peaked mountains, the rushing ice cold white streams, the grazing cattle led by people whose livelihood and living have been frozen in time — I’m overwhelmed with emotion. Today, I’m back to the grind. But I have these images to remind me of a world where time stands still.
Wildlife photographs are the closest we urbanites get to nature. The photos the videos of wildlife just seem too out of this world, too good to be taken for real
But the catch is they ARE real and very much from this beautiful earth of ours. They just ring a bell somewhere within us making a call for the need to witness the action ‘live’. These pictures are what give us the first impression of the life of the wild and woo us to take a chance and it was for these pics I’ve been to 2 tiger reserves. The ‘Kanha National Park — MP’ and I got to see the ‘real’ tiger while i was perched safely on an elephant. And another
’Periyar Tiger reserve — Kerala’ where though I wasnt lucky enough to witness a tiger sighting but the wild life at its best. The memories from both the trips still linger and while keying my thots here I’m reliving those cherished memories. Thanks to you Meethil I’ve long forgotten those and truly they have taken some far flung backseat in my memories. But a picture, a scene, a narrative just rekindles the lost love.
And once again I’m gearing for the call of the wild. Pictures are just our windows to the wild and they beckon us to take our calling and splurge in the joys of the wild.
yes it does. like some portable refuge.…
Vivek has won himself a book!
Congratulations. A book will be shipped to you at the end of the week.