Through the shades : Book reveals the relationship between photographer and camera
Gurugram: Sometimes photography needs an eye more than a camera, Accepting this idea, Gurugram-based author Shikha Setia has given it a place in her new book through a story, in which she reveals the relationship between photographer and camera in her new novel ‘Through the shades’. She says intuitive and complex is the relationship between a photographer and camera, artist and muse, building and sciography, life and bliss, How do we see it? People will know through this book.
Shikha is a practicing artist, after having practiced architecture for over two decades, she resumed painting about two years back. One of her paintings, as an abstract symbolism of an Indian motif and the like, done in soft hand, is on display in an art museum in UAE. Shikha hails from a small town in Punjab and is the daughter of a horticulturist. She is trained to be an architect and had run her own practice. Also a writer since her childhood days, she has recently authored a book, Through the shades.
Telling more about herself she says “Life interests me, and life happens. Again and again, but then flowing like a water body, smoothened by air sometimes, ruffled by winds sometimes. And then a large river, vast and welcoming, encompasses you, completely. Through the Shades is my first literary work on a professional scale. On a soft humorous note, it is ready to be at the editor’s desk in a publishing house. While I sit now, happily soaking in the winter fog.”
Introducing herself as a farmer’s daughter, she believes that natural elements and materials in the field of architecture interest her at every moment. Architecture, travel, music, art, and culture, she feels and believes are synonymous with our living. And they bind us all. All of us, without boundaries, are demarcated or created.
The novel is about the story of desire, achievement, and expression. Life happens in the middle east where Ria recently shifted to Sharjah. Ria is happy after moving to sun-drenched Sharjah from the cold London. She is a natural in photography and is a charmer by natural disposition. Weaving stories in her head, she lives in a mini- utopia.
Going ahead with the story Shikha says “Sumit and her villa in Sharjah are in the vicinity of a lovely, fairly vacant beach and the huge art area is close by. She learns the importance and effectiveness of laws and trains herself with many skills and gets herself a driving license for photography escapades in the deserts and around interesting architecture.”
In the past, she had been taught by Abhiyansh, a seasoned photographer in New Delhi. Ria’s natural style gets polished in the realm of architectural photography and portraiture working along with him. A blessed friendship, that is also her marriage with Sumit and being a mother to Suryansh fulfills her days and what seemed mundane in the past revealed its importance day to day. Domestic help workers from Bangladesh striving for themselves in the gulf came across as unsung, everyday heroes.
She realizes the allure through the mind, the complex and creative relationship that it had been with Abhiyansh. The intensity of the realization spurting up from the past and interfering with her present confuses her. Sabah, a Photographer based in Sharjah, further hones Ria’s skill. Also, his unconditional support gives her the liberty to experiment and master her trait further. Also, Ria experiences just how cousins, Indians and Pakistanis live outside their countries.
Abhiyansh had indeed fallen in love with Ria. As a teacher, a friend, and a lover in mind. But he remains unsorted about Aika, an earlier muse. And ruminating about her builds a conflict in him. The global meltdown and the return to Gurgaon take its toll on Ria, Sumit, and their kid. The safety, charm, and exhilaration of their place gave way to a statue in NCR just like that of Delhi’s in Commonwealth Games preparation.
Considering herself a balanced person, she is blown over by her own role in the journey of serendipity and the confusion of being a muse or the artist or the muse. The greys of Ria’s intensifies and with a bang, bursts into the theatrical play she watches. The romanticism between the characters of Conman and the Muse goes for a tumble. It’s here that it dawns on her that she had been chasing gameplay in her mind.
She had to redeem herself and become the artist she was born to be. Abhiyansh happens to meet Ria in her exhibition. “She is grown up now, she thinks and speaks. And her work now carries my signature” he smiles. Ria comes to bid goodbye and there is a handshake, one that wasn’t required for either. Sumit arranges a trip to Goa, a land of beaches. The serendipity of the place, the pool, and the wide expanse of sea beyond uplift the trio’s fervor. It’s all in the color of glasses one wears…in the shades, she contemplates. Here on the wears the shades of joy, serendipity, and hope.
