lalithambbigai

 

2010

Eleven years ago, these photographs were taken within my school compound. Manic magic pierces through the towers housing girl power! energetically exchanged between small weirdos aged 12 on this day. The big apparently life altering papers were answered. The obedient ophelias parade the stage with a piece of paper stating they did better than most. So of course with non-questioning, non-obscene obedience comes Orion riding on Rudolph the red nosed wiener with stars upon his tongue in forms of Okay, okay, you're allowed one day to bring your cameras and other obscuras for you to capture and remember these fleeting faded days. Sure enough, right here these pictures lay.

2010

I neglect to nitpick at the exact distance of the sun from the faces of myself and the peers I had at the time, or how many trips I made to the bathroom that day. These photos exist to remind me that I once found comfort in crooning crowded halls and words I could understand and spell both big and small. Wow, my handwriting used to look like that. I don't remember paying too much mind to anything outside of the life I engrossed within those colourful erect walls in Jalan Yahya Awal. 

Now in my big bold age of the world's my stage, I sit, read and wonder of it's history. Not at that time though, no. Gladly, I would accept the we said, she saids of there's a ghostie in a green dress in that room and this (fiction) In the September of 79, a dragon once lost his temper in the gallery chambers (fact) 

At the time somehow those 7AM trips into the compound claimed their real estate in my membranes as profound experiences. The company I had surrounding me were the better quarters in those lost years of unreasonable unispirals of worry and hours upon hours of crap talking intensely.

It is the August of 2021 as I write this with a zero want for notices from friends I've lost the numbers of along the way. Through this perennial process of ones' everlasting evolution, I've managed to save from the sorrow gates of an almost permanent damage of no resurface, a split down the center contact card memory lacing pretty the digits of one body that has and continues being nothing but good to me.

ENTER: LALITHAMBBIGAI

Like many other stories I failed to salvage from the pits of my previous eternal slumber, my story with Lalitha is as such. No, I cannot remember the first day we embraced, when we decided to take in each others' graces and place each others' faces in higher regard through the slippery times and the hard. But here we are, at our big bold age of the world's our stage phase with full knowledge of each others' existences and whereabouts. When we were both 11, my family and I attended the much celebrated birthday of Lalitha's dog, Roger the German Sheppard. I never mastered distinguishing a dog from a dog before the day I was taught from what breed of this world Roger was brought. I (Read: My mother) had bought Roger a present that was a pink (or was it blue?) hard chew toy shaped like a bone. It was that same night that Lalitha's mother introduced to me the concept of vegetarian meat, which made me think, think and think of all I've ever eaten. My mind was blown, my stomach was full. Fate shook hands with chances exchanging glances deciding to meddle with the circumstances agreeing these two beings would meet again in the middle. 

Sure enough, the turbulence of strange solitary emergence allowed Lalitha and I to sail on same ships. In each others' minds, we take temporary dips from time to time. It is rare that we now share a chance to appear together within the same sphere in line with the vicious sick overtaking the home planet. On my current expedition on yet another period of pilgrimage, a familiar face appears on my rectangular miniature pocket computer remembering me by my birth given name. Something about the unexpected ring reminds me how I have long awaited this union. The symbiosis that was never soured by success and fine dresses, never bittered by agendas hidden under lingerie. 

"One is not born, but rather becomes woman", Simone De Beauvoir writes. Slowly I learn to understand the branches of definition this sentence presents as I learn my place for myself and what communities I have around me. This same transit in perspective allows myself a chance at recalculating meaning in all things I used to accept that I was aware of. So simple is the premise as is the rest that comes after it. Both our birth names are chosen as the centerpiece to keep safe in a time warp diamond bile encrusted case that is the internet for this small scale portrayal portrait project. 

LALITHAMBBIGAI: of Hindu, Indian origin. Lalithambbigai is a feminine name that means 'Fine Arts' 

YASMINE: of Islamic, Persian origin. Yasmine is a feminine name from the Persian word for 'Jasmine flower' 

In accordance with the voyage towards acceptance of personal experiences, these portraits are taken with a strong regard to the root word and bodies that embody their given meanings. 

1. Lalitha wears decorations of West Indian Jasmine flowers reminding her that a friend is always near even through distances that appear more evident. This specific breed of Jasmines are commonly found in Malaysia at almost any given corner. Jasmines are associated with multiple meanings depending on the culture and setting with emphasis in Hindu and Indian communities. In this series, it is chosen to embody the presence (of the flowers) even in an on screen absence (of the person) through fine art. 

2. Fruits are bitten into on two ends by both persons and documented for the next few days. Locally grown fruits are chosen for this experiment for it's nourishing properties and sweetness. The geographical origin of the crop is taken as another contributor to amplify the factor of 'so close yet so far'. In the moment the photographs are taken, both persons are present to indulge in the impressions and savour in the flavour which refuses to remain a fact in future timing. With circumstances that surround two individuals growing in going through a universal viral ridden adulthood, being together constantly is not an easily granted state of affairs. Yet the local fruits continue to grow in abundance within the same soil we step. The fruit is only bitten into on both ends by both persons, but not finished. It is observed and left to take it's natural course with time implying the non-permanence of being. Upon it's rot, the fruits are returned to nature in the act of a burial for it to decompose and in itself become a catalyst for other possibilities. The unfinished sweetness is also an indicator towards a probable promise that it is far from the end of the relationship.