Wander Girl

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Tuesday, November 8, 2011 | flickr photos

The fumes from India's economic machinery seemed to all settle in Mumbai, icing the entire city with a layer of ash and dust. The city was on high alert with news of 3 suspected militants on the loose there.

Yet Mumbai taught me that despite the dust and tension, there is so much passion in being alive. The Mumbaikars embraced the vibrancy and fullness of life, as they danced in the street to heartbeat-altering Bhangra music, swirling their rainbow palette of saris, their bejewelled bangles tinkling to the beat.

My favourite photographs and documentaries are the ones that show all creatures - man or beast, great or small - interacting efficiently with their chosen habitats to live with passion. These photographs and documentaries are a rabbit hole I always fall in, and I am in that world, seeing what they see and knowing how they feel.

I live in Singapore, a tiny urban jungle. The kings of this jungle are money, cars and iPhones. I can hardly imagine a place where lions, leopards and giraffes roam free across lands larger than my tiny island. This freedom must surely be embodied by its people.

To capture South Africa would be to see and experience a return to a simpler, even primary, form of life. Yet such a life is no less than city life, if lived with passion. In these tumultuous times, the world could do with being reminded of how happiness and contentment can sometimes be so simple, and how a life lived with passion is the only kind of life to strive for.

The opportunity to send my message, under the tutelage of a professional who has moved millions with just the click of his finger, would truly be a dream come true.