Photography, philosophy, and a spoonful of Surf excelmatic

I watched keenly as my wife poured a careful measure of Surf excelmatic in the protruding chamber of the washing machine, close it, put in a select number of clothes, firmly shut the front door and then do some magical fiddling of the auto controls… and that’s it… she beckoned me that we were now free to do whatever we wanted to do.

‘That’s it? That’s all there is to washing clothes?’ I asked feigning an incredulous expression.

‘Yes. This wash cycle will last for a couple of hours after which the clothes will need to be put out on the clothesline outside for their final spell of air-drying.’

This was when I asked for some Surf powder, placed it on the white palette that I had and looked at it intently.

‘You have two hours,’ she said almost challenging me, ‘can we have a photo-session with this detergent?’

I brought out my palette and poured some of this powder on it. I touched it and even smelled it.

‘Your camera,’ insisted my wife. Her focus is always one step ahead of my inquisitiveness.

‘Both these pics look so different even though they are of the same thing and were clicked at almost the same time,’ mused my wife.

‘Hmmm… the particles look so calm, undisturbed in their own silent world of light and shadow…’ I paused for a moment to watch my wife nod thoughtfully, and then continued, ‘See the light and the shadows. Doesn’t it appear like the play of good and bad in real life?’

Thoughts on a detergent - 01

I then looked closely at the next picture that i had clicked and wondered at the texture that I saw. I also noticed that it was the presence of colour there that seemed so much like a city as viewed from above. A snowed in city with houses having rooftops that were blue and orange. The snow in mounds in some places and the short pathways that told me of neighbours having stepped out to meet another. I told my wife about this fantasy of mine.

She said, ‘Hmmm… yes, and it also tells how lifeless everything is from a distance. Silence everywhere. No people singing, no children playing games, no dogs barking, no radios blaring away some melody, no…’ and her voice seemed to trail off as if she too was suddenly under the spell of this thought.

I smiled and thought: ‘A mere spoonful of detergent has given us some really deep moments of introspection.’

Thoughts on a detergent - 02

It was at this precise moment that my hand accidentally pressed some key and the next picture popped up on the screen. my wife simply gasped at the picture and said, ‘This is amazing!’

‘Amazing?’ I wasn’t so sure of that judgement.

‘Yes,’ she seemed confident of her pronouncement, ‘look at the picture in continuation with the earlier one and you’ll know how life seems so complete, so endless… and then this picture throws that feeling out of gear. This immediately tells me that there are ends, there are shores, there are boundaries, and there are worlds other than the one we are aware of.’

I looked at the picture closely, thought for a while and nodded an agreement.

‘Yes, this picture probably also tells us how much there is to be discovered. How much there is that is not evident and that…’

‘Well,’ interjected my wife, ‘we are all genuine islands like a spoonful of detergent spread on a tiled floor!’ She looked triumphantly towards me and I smiled a smile that clearly meant that she did have the ultimate creative slogan to this picture!

Thoughts on a detergent - 03

The next picture that we opened seemed to echo a similar thought. What appears so consuming at close quarters seems so lonesome, so alone, so isolated when seen in a bigger perspective! Some detergent in a glass was actually like watching an entire galaxy… or maybe a part of the universe…

‘And what I like in this picture,’ said a thoughtful wife, ‘is the hazy hand that is holding the glass. God really doesn’t have a definition as yet and we don’t not know what there is beyond our immediate vision.’

How true. We keep presuming that the entire universe has certain similar or familiar structures… but look at this picture. Doesn’t it tell you how wrong perceptions could really be? All you need is a little detergent in a glass to open your mind to a futuristic vision that is non-existent right now!

Thoughts on a detergent - 04

The next few pictures seemed to be going all out to agree with us. We saw islands, we saw islands trapped in a perspective that seemed familiar, we saw islands that could be shaken into a different shape or size by a mere flick of the hand… we saw how vision must really go beyond what is obvious, we saw how minds in a different thought-set could conjure up conclusions that would be true and yet so untrue.

We actually sat down after some time to wonder if we had ever gone so deep into philosophy earlier… and if not, why?

‘I know the answer to that last query…,’ I said.

‘No big deal,’ replied my wife, and continued, ‘it is because we never had surf excelmatic to give us some exclusive moments of thoughtfulness!’

I smiled. She smiled.

Thoughts on a detergent - 05

We then thought of giving captions to some of the other pictures that followed.

‘Let us call this one “A Mini Guide To The Universe”, I said.

‘OK,’ came the prompt reply.

Thoughts on a detergent - 06

‘Wait,’ warned my wife, ‘let me think of a caption for this one.’

She thought for a while and wrote: The bubbles that live.

‘Seems good,’ I said, ‘ now we are philosophising on not some detergent but a detergent powder that has gone and created an entirely different form of existence with water.’

‘Quite appropriate, as hydrogen and oxygen are indeed the basics ingredients of life!’

Thoughts on a detergent - 07

We spent some time admiring the way bubbles behaved, the way they appeared in direct light. Life did seem so pure, so unadulterated, so transparent…

Thoughts on a detergent - 08

Even when all around was dark, it was this picture that made the two of think of the wonderful opportunities that were still possible.

‘Darkness isn’t really something to be feared.’

‘Yes, as there is always a source of light that will come to rescue sooner or later,’ I hesitatingly added.

‘Do sources of light really come to rescue us?’ wondered my wife.

I kept quiet but did tell myself to resume such thought-debates every time that was washing to be done.

Thoughts on a detergent - 09

This picture below seemed so much like people getting closer to one source of light.

‘Is this why we take up religion? Is this why we want to read the scriptures? Is this what the wise men are always trying to tell us?’

‘Sort of….’ said my wife.

Thoughts on a detergent - 10

‘What is this space for?’ I asked.

After a lot of discussion we concluded that gaps were a natural phenomenon. Gaps or spaces were the only entity that made life possible. Gaps were the catalyst that made creative conclusions possible. Gaps were meant to be filled… and yet, there were gaps being created everywhere, all the time. Gaps and spaces were not life itself… but their absence would not possibly be very healthy for life as there would no longer be much left to find and discover.

‘Almost like having clothes that never get dirty.’

‘Now that’s a good analogy,’ I said.

Thoughts on a detergent - 11

This one was a monochromatic version of the philosophy of bubbles and we looked at it for a long time before reminding ourselves that it isn’t colour that is everything in life. Depth can be seen and felt even when colour cannot be perceived.

Thoughts on a detergent - 12

‘Let us call this picture… Curious Lives,’ I said, almost in a whisper.

Seeing my wife not able to understand, I continued, ‘I had put in a drop of red ink in this detergent solution and then the same source of light that we had been seeing in earlier pictures turned into something that the mind could never have thought of.’

‘OK, so it reminds you of curious lives,’ she asked, ‘ does it?’

‘Yes, because when I saw the result, I had forgotten that I had dropped some ink… and and was curious to know why and how this effect came by.’

‘That explains.’

Thoughts on a detergent - 13

‘So did you drop some black ink here?’

I smiled and replied, ‘ No, this is the same picture in black & white mode.’

‘So it is obvious that what we do and how we behave can affect our own conclusion.’

I was amazed at this conclusion, I must say. I looked admiringly at my wife and said, ‘This is an amazing answer. And this is certainly true.’

Thoughts on a detergent - 14

By the time we reached the last picture I had clicked, the philosophical juices had been converted into an animated discussion on the role of different colours being mixed in a detergent solution.

‘See this picture,’ I said, ‘ even though there is colour mixed in the bubbly solution, does it really affect the shape, the size, the behaviour of bubbles?’

‘Yes,’ said my wife, ‘ and it doesn’t affect the way they seem to be converging upon some solution for their own existence. This probably tells us that language, region, and any other form of difference added to life cannot really change the basic search patterns of a human mind.’

‘Well said.’

Thoughts on a detergent - 15

We had spent almost two hours photographing surf excelmatic powder and then discussing life and its intricacies as they appeared… and this was exciting. We were convinced that we would repeat such exercises every time the washing of clothes allowed us that liberty.

Arvind Passey
25 November 2011