The Light

I always find it interesting to notice the light when I travel. As a photographer, light is everything, but the light when you travel is more than that. Yes, it’s the atmospherics—here in Mysuru (once Mysore) the sky is hazy pale and the air is perennially tinged with diesel smoke. At the same time it creates a misty light that places a glow across the green rice and sugar cane fields.

But the light also seems to come from the heart of a place. So far, in India, I see the light in the eyes of the people and in the temple flames that burn before Lord Vishnu and the pantheon of gods. It is there in the reflections off the water of lakes and rivers, and off the skin of the bathers at the ghats.

Yesterday, our first day in Mysuru, we visited two temples. The first, the Sri Rangnapatna temple in the ancient city of Sri Rangnapatnum is a living temple with hundreds of pilgrims trying to enter to pay their respects to the Lord Vishnu. We were allowed entry and actually went into the nave to bow to the reclining God. He had half-mast eyes, which our guide told us is typical for South India, but still, they caught the light with a serenity that seemed to fill the air even through the shoving crowd of pilgrims jostling to bathe in the God’s flame and to drink of the purifying water offered by the Brahmin priests. All through this holy time, our guide chanted his prayer so it was a soft song that carried me through the voices of the throngs and the bells of the priests.

Light in the air. Light in the water. Light in the hands reaching. At times it feels as if the light can get inside of us, too, if we will only see and listen.