gufa

amdavad ni gufa

it looks a bit sci fi and marine from the outside, but on the inside it is very earthy, playful, much like a madhubani painting at times, on handmade paper. You follow a line, and it forms a woman standing... you follow the body of a horse, and it completes itself across many roofs... It is raw but crude too at times, nonetheless a delight for its unbound surface and terrain.

winter cleaning

For the past few days, I have been emptying my 'to see, to do's...'

It's time to share what I've done in the past months. See!

sari ree

Am fascinated with the sari. Wrote a bit about it.

wake

My half asleep, half awake reasoning persuades me to wake up with the thought that- 

everything is just a bath away.

To curl up, fly, float, porous-ify or scatter. 

All I want to do. 

When every day is a deja vu.

carefool

not that i am after success anyway.

* source unmemorable

miles of gypsum

from one of my favorite clicks.

shuffle up

Its very easy to make things complicated, 

but its very difficult to make things simpler.

~mommy

with that, i dive again, and work hard.

cute ravana

the last time i saw him burn, i was with my father.

we drove around the maidan in sadar bazar market, delhi

i think. or was it in mathura? or dehra?

damn.

anyway. this ravan was extremely friendly. quite like a toy.

nothing evil about him. and the pink made him cartoonish.

with eight little heads as big as his ears, quite a devolved state he has gotten into.

faster faster, its not too late to be a pessimist

the film:

home

what is left to be seen, or known

what can i do

to reverse the catastrophe's

that gained multi fold

in the last 50 years

?

our ecosystem doesn't have borders

what affects me, affects you.

a responsible consumer

stops drilling the earth

starts cultivating the sun

what am i upto

miss graphic designer

rajas

It was all about me, a dead fly and a paper boat that cant float.

rise

One early morning. Really really early morning. I saw the sun. I saw the world awake after me. I mostly see it awaken after an unslept me.

well, if Angad sees this, he'll realise, that I am stuck at making cylinders, and cylinders only.

Its time t get curves!

i just glazed them, made by mohanty sir. they are no big deal, but they are.

some interesting people in the last month

though i didnt get to know him at all, personally

his present is fascinating.

theatre write-director, printweek editor.... ah, who would have guessed

i had my share of learning bharatnatyam for 3 years when I was 9 years old. I hated it back then, for all i remember is wearing the big fat ghungroos (which i loved) around my  ankles, and taking peripheral rounds of the carpet borders at the beats of 'ta thai tat tat thai', and being taught by a dhoti clad fat guru with a peculiar smell around him.

then came dr mandakini trivedi, and she sure did enlighten us about not only what classical dance is about, but how dance, like music and other arts are means of attaining a state of no conflict, highest peace.

he'll be the only khadi clad guy finding supreme satisfaction in the deep fried world of KFC. he travels light and travels widely. He is the primeval water, with unmanifested potential. Restless, but with a fire within. He won't mind filling his stomach with snickers just before dinnertime. Not for the love of snickers, but out of love for the moment.

radar activated- HAYAO!

Hayao Miyazaki

Princess Mononoke

what a film!

time and again i gravitate towards japanese stuff.

all the animations i have ever seen are of pixar, or dreamworks.

boy have i missed the magic.... yes!

my one girlfriend told me about miyazaki 4 years back regarding his manga illustrations, and manga being on my blacklist (thanks to another gothic-icised girl who used to zombyly read dark trashy looking stuff on the computer, saying it was manga... i carried my prejudiced distaste on the superficial exposure i had), i never got to know his work in reality.

i am sure there might be more 'godgiri machane wale' animators, but for me, he is the first one. 

his imagination, narrative, allegories skyrocketed my excitement!

no other influence 'from strangers' has hit me so profoundly in the 'creative' field.

frank lloyd wright was the first one. to build a home on a waterfall, from the stones on it was so romantically pure.

dylan happened gradually and i am completely consumed forever. talking heads, beirut, joan baez, decemberists, magic numbers were instant... hough not all their songs, just a handful... but un-missable.

maeda cleaned my mind and made me see computer drawn stuff as a work of art.

tara by mahesh dattani gripped me deeply.

hayavadana scandalised me for i couldn't believe one could write in such a way.

children of a lesser god followed my intuitive reactions, and the scenes unfolded surreally, suitably.

zaha hadid and laurie baker, two extremes if on a scale, awe and humble me respectively.

pollock and souza unashamedly were a smash hit.

shoji hamada is legendary, its impossible to not be influenced by his life, if you are learning pottery.

all of them made my heart flutter and float, its almost like a high. thats how i know, this is it. its happening. the influence.

they are all strangers from the 'creative field'. nobody is a scientist. or mathematician. escher comes close. nobody is a sportsperson.

hmm, who else is off my radar?

baker

If a building embodies life, then its got to be made by mr baker.

if i dream of an ideal home for me and my family, it would be his make.

Its not the glaze, or make-up or paint,

its the form, the rawness of the spirit.

Unpretentious, imperfect, alive, 

the building has a life of its own.

laurie baker's website

fare thee well

my brother's gone

his boots no longer by my door.

he has been with my mom,

while i was away.

now mom is alone.

and she will be with me

once i am out of here.

one is out to discover the unknown,

another will rediscover herself.

it was almost like his marriage. far more grander.

my mother is a rock.

she has done it all. and more.

all that one could do for one's child.

for me. for my brother. she has done it all alone.

a son is tough

and mothers are gentle.

when will she save, just for herself?

its always for this

or for that.

may she rediscover her freedom

and do what her heart desires.

may her children not be dependents

may she not work to pay off the loan.

may she paint and mould and weave

all that her heart desires.

may i be with her soon.

amen.

oo

Time after time,

I patched the old bucket.

Tonight the bottom fell out.

No water. No moon.

a nun

'this is what i call poetry

something about nothing

just here body, just now mind,

just this act will leave behind

nothing in the shoreless sea

of nothing which envelops me.

Eye just see, just taste tongue,

ear just hear, just breathe lung-

just this moment you may find

just now body, just here mind.

a Buddhist lullaby

~

In a river mist, if another boat knocks against yours, you might yell at the other fellow to stay clear. But if you notice, then, that its an empty boat, there's no one to yell at. And when you find out you also are an empty boat, there's no one to yell.

Chuang Tzu

esoteric

My one eye looks in the past.

The other sees the future.

The third eye never opens...

it belongs to the third time zone- now

They say its the inner eye, the eye of wisdom

marked and flaunted by sadhu's and wive's?

carved in outlines in statues of stone.

when i close my eyes

what do i see

what do i see from my third eye

what am i

is it what i see

what i think/ like/ remember/ know

is it my body

i have no whole

only parts.

on your toes

all the time.

is what printmaking demands.

it is an endless exploration.

you have to 'see' the final output in your mind

before you see it on your hands.

ah, what fun!