Vaishu in the rain
When my subject looked like art in every single frame.. உன் மூக்குத்தியென மின்னும் மல்லிகை பல்வகையும் நரம்பினும் மெல்லிய நூலால் கோர்த்து செண்டினும் மணக்கும் கருங்கூந்தலிலே சாற்றி மலர்ந்தும் மலராத கமலங்கள் கொண்டு கிண்கிணியென ஆடும் மென்பாதங்கள் வருட என் கனவனைத்தும் கதம்பமாய் உன்முன் பணிய ஆயிரமாம் வாரணம் பலம் கொண்டு என் மனம் துவண்டெழுந்து, மலர்ந்து, உணர்ந்து, உன்னை அணைக்க, பருவமழையுடன் உன் துணை சேர வருகுறேன்.. இன்னும் ஒரே நொடி எனக்காக காத்திரு.. For those of you who do not know how to read Tamil and might be interested in knowing what’s written here, I’ll attempt to explain what I tried to convey. Vaishu came all the way from Vellore when I told her I’d like to shoot her, and with her comes her face hidden with a 100 layers. She’s composed. She’s collected. She is a person enough for herself. And yet, as I shoot her, when our eyes graze past each other in an unprepared for moment, it is almost as though I can see a deep yearning in there, now pulsating within me. Who are you waiting for, Vaishu? What are you looking for? Why am I pining for it as though I am lost in the vastness of your momentary glance piercing through me? With this feeling crawling all over me, I picked up words from her creations: ‘sendu’ (flowers strung together), ‘kamalam’ (lotus), ‘kinkini’ (the sound of bells or ghungroo), ‘kadhambam’ (a string of all kinds of flowers & aromatic leaves strung together for a woman or a deity), and ‘vaaranam’ (elephant), and I let these questions lead me to what I wrote: What if I were the person she was looking for? What if my arrival is all she needs to fill her soul? What if I were aching to get to her, to trace the maps on her skin like the monsoon rain that was already by her side? What if I could ask her to give me just one more second to reach her, witness her, and dissolve in her? - Vaishu has her own line of handmade jewellery and a number of other handmade trinkets that she offers for sale at @_thulika_ on instagram. Go check them out; these are quaint little pieces of personalised magic.
