Editor’s Note

The fabled explorer, oceanographer, filmmaker, and writer Jacques-Yves Cousteau once said—“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” The statement laid testament to a life lived in devotion to the earth’s wild waters and the mysteries of the ocean, one where exploration and conservation went hand-in-hand, all of which included his co-invention of the aqualung—a historic moment that would forever change how humans viewed the ocean, and their place within it.
Abinaya Kalyanasundaram’s net of wonder has turned out to be the humble, everyday window. An architectural feature taken for granted in the frantic clamour of urban life, the window becomes an act of meditation and a means of salvation for Kalyanasundaram, ensconces in her mountainous worlds or isolated in her chosen safe spaces. In modes of exile, through the window’s shifting gaze, she witnesses. Seasons change. Life withers. Stillness and belief. Another seasonal shift. The blossoming of life. The dance of humans. Fruit and faith. Kalyanasundaram sees it all, and breathes all of it in, with this framed existence helping her come to terms with an illness, and fight her way through it.
“Through the window, touch the world,” she proposes. And her vast array of windows backs up the statement—looking out on the snowy peaks of mountains, meadows in bloom, parched trees, errant bursts of cloud, clothes drying on the line, dawn bursting through in its first blush, the profusion of spring, the poetry in winter. And in each window, through each gaze, Kalyanasundaram is able to find an allied quote from a favourite writer or a cherished work of literature, turning this whole expedition into a modern-day fable.
The result is a moving piece that transports you to unknown topographies, a stilled state of mind, and striking passages from literature, thus answering truthfully to the Passengers theme within our Visual Narratives. Journey with this photographic essay. And at the end of it, open your own windows. Perhaps you’ll find the world gazing back at you.

—Siddharth Dasgupta
The Bombay Literary Magazine