AUTUMN LEAVES - IMAGES OF THE FALL AND WINTER 2018

AUTUMN LEAVES - IMAGES OF THE FALL AND WINTER 2018

In 2014 I had written in my book ‘I am just an Ordinary Man’ what at that time seemed prophetic for it was a projection into an imaginary future. Four years later as I sit here writing I can’t help but wonder that it has come to pass. Though the timeline is stretched beyond the two years that I had indicated, the images are now very much real. I am reproducing the relevant portion of the chapter here.

My wife and I just returned after a six-month stay with our elder daughter. This time we came back with the onset of winter, having spent the entire autumn there. I watched the brilliant colors slowly fade away and the leaves fall to the ground and before I left, I experienced the first snow of winter; a sheet of white shroud covering the ground and what lay underneath. It was once again a reminder of what lay in store; the end of a cycle. During my stay at my daughter’s place, I was soaked initially in the surrounding colors and above all in the company of my grandson. I was seeing him after three years. As I watched the leaves slowly turn brown and wither away, the rumblings started once again. My writings had been sporadic and as I read what I had written over the last one year, I sensed a lack of conviction in what I was trying to say. It was as if I had already exhausted myself and there was nothing more.

The year that has passed by has been satisfying with the publishing of my book ‘Autumn Leaves’ and subsequently the trip to the US to spend time with my grandson and daughter and revisiting the locations where I have based my books especially the last one and find that I have not erred much in my descriptions.

The colors and grandeur of the Fall and the looming grey despondency of winter are images that I carried back with me this time in the form of photographs which I took in abundance not wanting to miss the moments of transition indicative of the turbulence in our mind.

Excerpts from my book ‘Autumn Leaves’. The accompanying images tell it all

The winter chill had set in and with it, the last leaves of the sugar maple tree in the backyard floated, slowly drifted and fell to the ground. Soon the first flakes of snow would come and cover them with a white shroud. Vishwam loved the fall and the changing colors that seemed to envelop him all around. And as the leaves of the trees went through their complete cycle from several shades of green, then from yellow to orange, and finally to red in autumn, he would start feeling restless for he never wanted to see them turn brown and fall to the ground. He hated winter.

Winter had come and gone and so had spring and summer. It was Autumn once again, Kavita and he sat in the backyard of their home letting the colors of the fall sink into their consciousness. And when the leaves turned brown and fell on the ground, they were busy clearing their garden and preparing for the coming winter. Krishnan no longer felt sad as the first snow-flakes arrived, for he knew – ‘there would always be the spring, and the river would flow again after it was frozen.’

However, I did not hate the winter. Just like I had drenched myself in the colors of Autumn, I watched the blizzard blow from the confines of the house and marveled at the changing landscape outside. The cold only made me feel more alive and resilient.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger—something better, pushing right back.”

– Albert Camus

We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives.

– Gary Zukav