FRAMES & STORIES
Frames. Since 2020, I have been defining the world I see in frames. The frames that please my creative kink,
are captured in my phone. Some frames tell stories that entice, and some are just pure aesthetic coincidence. No picture present is under the category ‘Just Because’. I guess that’s why most of my pictures,
where in I have snapped humans, are not shareable with the world.
Picture, of my father and uncle peeling peas and thirty minutes later are self-acclaimed ‘Super-Husbands’. Pictures I clicked at a place of worship where the ladies seem to have found themselves in a juicy gossip and somehow, dragged me into it as well!
Or maybe a picture of village ladies, washing their family’s clothes on a Tuesday morning, who refuse to pose for the camera because their
husbands get furious.
All I have ever wanted to do is to capture stills that will always have anecdotes to share. I never want to run out of stories to tell.
We all live in the same world, yet everyone has a different eye to see it. Every picture develops with three films: Blue, Pink, and Yellow that’s constant. However, frames, on the other hand, differ with different people. No one has the same lens, i.e. perception as the next person. People see the world in the way their outside world has shaped them.
We’re all made up of layers, those we might not even be aware of. Behaviours, tones, inputs we accept, thoughts, the words we speak, these combinations are meticulously different and complex.
Imagine how animation happened in the olden times. Each sheet had the character moving ever so slightly, with the surroundings changing and along with it the frame changing. The
progression of these sheets made developments in the character and its situations, and that’s how the ‘Kahaani’ moves forward.
દરિ યો એમા ના હા મે
દિ કરા ……
I am built from my grandfather’s unique way of life, my father’s sensitivity and weirdness, and from the stories of their early days. My grandfather would bring his work home; after dinner, he and my baa would tally the accounts while my father and aunt did their homework as if they were working too. They all sat up on the terrace under a single bulb and were together as a family, doing nothing extraordinary but still something with a beautiful sense to it.
I am made up from the stories of Dhruv Bhatt, Zaverchand Meghani, Phil Kaye, Sarah Kay, Jane Austen, Sudha Murty, Enid Blyton, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, among many others. Dhruv Dada taught me to see the subtle things.
Villagers actually taught us to co-exis
in the correct terms, where even a cow is called ‘Mavdi’. The people can be so sensitive and observant that even the littlest of creatures is taken note of because yes, nothing truly happens without a reason.
When Dhruv Dada was traveling somewhere at the coastline of Gujarat, he saw two sons carrying their old crippling mother.
She wanted to bathe in the sea just one last time, seeing the affinity and dedication of the two sons, Dhruv Dada suggested that they bring a pail of water from the sea and let the mother bathe there itself. To this, the old women who could barely see, said,
‘દરિયો એમા ના હામે દિકરા ‘.
How would you fit the sea in a bucket? The water in the bucket is just water, sea is not sea just because of its water now is it?
I am Janhavi Khandhadia, my own unique being (not writing person but being because I want to be, to act, to exist), who always sees in frames; finds stories in people, places and situations. Even imagining, stories told by others and live in them even if it is for a minute.
Like those two kids playing, where the younger one is seated in a duffle while the elder one drags him. The joy they experience, we might have never had or could! Or like the small rituals at a wedding or funeral, where both the sexes have their own unique set of tasks because both are equally
important.
Even imagining, stories told by others
We are witnesses to stories, be it ours
or anyone else’s. My aim is to capture
these stories, as aptly as I can, with my unique lens that’s quirky, smart and has a tangy humor to it.
Fin.