Wednesday, November 30

.,

The phone

rannnnnnnnngggggggggg

I ran
to pickitup
pickkitpickitt

pickkit
picK.

Hello..?

huLLo!

Tuesday, November 29

who will you be

I will be a girl-woman
living on the fringes
with half dirty brushes
and half written verses.

.

Things are strange

Monday, November 28

er...


She said

something
tangible

ate
orange
papaya
at three
in the morn

maybe she was wrong
she
wouldn't know,
she said,
unless the silence
was
broken
by
another charmed
spell.

Sonata 9

Out on the streets today
a little boy with his toy plane crossed my way.

It reminded me to write this down
in my list of things - to - do.
It reminded me when you were cycling home the other night
and that bi-plane was chasing you.

I saw three boys walking with matched steps.
It was getting dark
the eldest must've been eight
the other two, six or seven.

Their knickers were dirty
not from a game of ball.
Dirty, from days of drape.
Their smiles were fresh,
oven fresh.

(Reminded me to ask myself
when was the last time I smiled oven fresh smiles. )

The eldest, tallest one walked in the middle.
His hands rested on the soft malleable shoulders of his mates,
the junior lambs.
They must've been walking home.


I stopped,
still staring at them.
Walked up and asked them
if they knew where shop no. 88 was.
Excited on being asked an important question,
they pranced in three different directions each.
The fourth one was left for me to fill in.

I was guided to a half lit tea shop
with blue faded walls
and yesteryear's red tarpaulin as a facade.
The old kaka looked up
pots of tea boiled
with day old tea leaves, brewing
like faded stars on the stage.

He pointed to the left
and after four minutes
told me to ask the person
sitting on the horizon.
The boys led me again.

I was a lot ping pong ball
bouncing in a narrow alley.
And they
were three flies.

They asked me more questions dressed in importance.
I answered nonchalantly, importantly.
The man on the horizon was a cobbler.
He looked at my shoes
I looked at his hands
leathery.
Brown,
tan,
golden,
ecru.



(to be continued)



Sunday, November 27

Once?


It's easy to be this way, pumpkin.
Why don't you see it my way, dumpling?


Can you see
the half cynical
face in the cloud up there?
The other half is facing backwards.
Let's go further up,
turn around
and see,what the other half is.

Do you read this ode, like I do?
It's lyrical
and tells circular tales.
I'll sit and watch you
smile tomato smiles
while talking to your distant cousin on the phone.
You can watch me
dig out my old sketchbooks
and give them watermelony looks.

We could backpack to the big tree,
cycle in the dark, guided by the moon.
We could survive on juicy oranges, sweet roadside ginger tea,
stale sweet-sour biscuits in big glass jars (and maybe, oily paranthas too).

The days would begin with groggy mornings
in the pitch dark
we can express our love for daybreaks, equally.
The nights would end with you removing yours and I wearing my socks
either clean or smelly.

Do you see,
the view is taking my breath away.
The dark blue starry sky makes me think of trapeze artists swinging,
I can't tell if it's too late in the night or too early in the day.


Saturday, November 26

storytime

In need to listen to fresh stories today.
So, c;mon
and write me something,
I can read while sipping on coffee.
Write anything,
an epic from last year,
a memory on a fresh loaf of bread,
tell me a travel tale,
spin me a yarn,
tell me a fantastic fib,
anything!
As long as it's not soppy.
As long as I can read it with my coffee.

Friday, November 25

S.O.S.

Mmm...
If The Police had sung 'Message in a bottle' in the present day, would it have been.." I send an SMS to you"?

Yus

So this is my revelation for the day. The earth is not an orb.
It is a hemispherical bowl.
A salad bowl, to be precise.
And we are mere fruits and vegetables diced and tossed up served with fresh dressing.
Yus, this is true.

And anyone who disagrees, is a garlic (you probably have a lot of good qualities but you still stink!).

Har har!!

Thursday, November 24

Fred

I'm going to be busy for the next couple of days with Fred. As it turns out, I must spend the weekend with him, atleast four hours each day. Yes, I've done the calculations right. On Monday, I shall send him across to those people to take a look at him. They'll tell me if he looks alright or if he needs to be taken care of a bit more. Their diagnose is important although for most part, I have to rely on my own senses. That, and a whole lot of images for reference. Fred the frog, on his lily pad...I've never lived a frog's life, how else would I know about a frog's day?

The book cover got approved, I have to do fourteen hand painted illustrations by Monday.
Yikes! I can't complain about having to stare at images of frogs and toads..all gooey and eeky etc..Never had a soft corner for them folks.

I do realise how surreal things are when I talk to my friends and we discuss what we've been doing. So, while a friend sits half way across the world and works on his thesis (management science = rocket science for me), while another friend cooks a great meal with turkey for Thanksgiving, while yet another one works out some user interface dilemma, while another one does some more model tests for yet another ad film, another one takes care of his new born baby boy without a name, another one travels two days to meet her soon-to-be-groom, and yet another one does things I have no idea about, I for my part, sit here and make illustrations of Fred the Frog on his lily pad, hopping, booing, showing off his muscles.

How surreal is this?

Surreal enough to make me see the various hues of life.

While I try and see which colour works best for the lily pad....

Apparently,

Wednesday, November 23

...



This is for Coyote's poem, 'Topography'.

Tuesday, November 22

Hmm..

Joy is such a wonderful thing, if we accept that like most other things, it isn't going to last forever...










It's 5:30 p.m. and the sky is a dark blue, the moon is peeping out from behind the curtains, preparing for it's show.

Monday, November 21

Aye Aye!

Someone wants to buy my painting!
I won't put it up here.
It is one of my favorites and since I've never sold any of my paintings before, I don't even know whow much I should sell it for.
But hey! Someone wants t o buy my painting!!

I'd made it one night, suddenly waking up from sleep at 4 a.m.

Sunday, November 20

What I really want to do...

today...

~ listen to dire straits
please baby
je suis desole
will you miss me
goodbye windflower
manifold de amour
the next time i'm in town
the way it always starts
one way gal
smooching
suicide towers
railroad worksong
sax

~ drink fourteen cups of black coffee, neither too strong nor too sweet

~ forget the ill-mannered boy from last evening. he really does need to grow up. and he needs to stop whining.

~ pull out (and find) twenty three old newspapers with undone crosswords. sit and do each one of them.

~ paint something while listening to the above mentioned music.

~ sit on the floor cushions in the corner with a book (i'll think of which one, later) and fall asleep while reading it.

what i need to do today

  • get work ready to show greg tomorrow
  • finish those three book covers and submit them by tomorrow
  • clean up the work desk
  • darn some things
  • forget the question asked in jest.

sigh!

i hate this painting i made two years ago.

Saturday, November 19

.

























Blue nude, Picasso

Friday, November 18

When conversations turn into soliloquies

Simple questions asked in jest
topic changed pronto
lest
I shudder
and utter
white truths
on black nights.

Took a while to reckon
the power of grey,
it beckons
to keep roaring silences meek
lest
the panoramas I seek
slowly but surely, leak.

Let it rest
we'll just talk in jest.

Thursday, November 17

Crash boom, it sang

I want to listen to stories today.

Wednesday, November 16

The second half

My eyes
can see
images written in time
getting blurry.

Words fail me
as I write again.

I miss the sea.
I miss many things.

My past has become
glorious
in my present.

Let it grow white
let it get washed
away
by those very waves,
waterless waves,
that filled up my present
in the past.
let it get bleached out
in an all consuming white.

And then
I will
fade out
too.

Tuesday, November 15

Monday, November 14

...and all that Jazz..

I'm plagiarising my own work. Since I don't think anyone has read my first few posts, here's a copy pasted something. Old wine in older bottles is what I like.

I'm listening to Charles Mingus belting out 'Take the train'. Wonderful wonderful jazz, you make a great accompaniment on the silentest day. You mesmerise my night. You make me want to get up and dance, oh you wonderful crooner! I step on it, in my tap dance shoes and fading tutu. I am a dancer again! I swish and baloosh and swing in the air, I jump high and what's more...I begin to fly...

Anyone got an image (photograph, drawing, painting, doodle, or any other sort of visual,even a lithograph will do), please send it and I'll put it up with this bit on jazz.

picture courtesy avalonian












picture courtesy 4th dwarf

About drawing from experience and drawing experience, itself..

Being content with oneself, on closer thought, is a different thing. I am talking about a different room, here. In this room, I feel, if there is some sort of pain, it leads me to think wider about other things, not just outside this room and in another, but outside the very box, if I may say.

In the absence of all pain, I fumble and draw compromises with cheese and bread, in contoured lines.
The experiences are utterly different. Much like being in different rooms in an art gallery...one, holding up paintings of Shergil, and another, empty, only with sparse pigeon droppings on windowpanes. These contrasts can perhaps both be classified as art of one sort or the other. However, the experience one draws from them, is what is and makes a world of difference.








(Having said this, how would I explain this drawing I made, it wasn't in happier times and yet, it is only an array of coffee mugs. I've called it 'Meloncholy', for now.)

Ode to a lost love

Sunday, November 13

Interview

This could either be called a phantom interview or just a tete-a-tete I had with myself. You can decide whatever you'd like to call it. I'm just getting on with it.

- What's the colour for this season?
~ Fuschia

_ Why fuschia?
~ It's bright, that's why

_ What season is it?
~ Dull burnt sienna

_ Do you always think and talk in colours? (how boring)
~ Not always, sometimes I talk in patterns and nexuses too

_ Describe the moon, right now
~ It's the same, each night.
Some days back
I ate a slice ofwatermelon.
My secret lover stashed away that slice of melon,
batik painted over it
with stardust and put it up
outside
my secret window.
Now
my moonshines bright.

- I've run out of questions. Your answers are stupefying me.
~ Aye aye, ask me some more, I'm just warming up now

- When was the last time you did something really important?
~ T'was the day I decided
to make Oskar Kokoschka
my warm and lovely
flaming babushka.
it was the day
I knew
Gunter Grass
does never, ever go to
sunday mass.
I left
my burning afternoon siesta
in search of that
gushing truth.
The hot hornet's nest of honesty
that had hitherto evaded me.

- This is getting a bit too much for me now. One last question. What will life be like, for you,
a few years from now?
~ I will be a girl-woman
living on the fringes
with half dirty brushes
and half written verses.

- Goodbye!
~ Ta daa!

,,,,,,

Saturday, November 12

Friday, November 11

Not my shadow

A needle deep under my skin
it doesn't stick out any more
embedded,
it hurts.
I'm sore.

When I stand
it rises
when i walk
it matches it's steps
when I sit it apes me
when I lie down
it makes me
want to crawl on all fours

I'm frowning wrinkles
bitter and sour

Everything's hurting
inside and out
upside and down
this way and that
every angle
hurts.


Slice by slice,
Slab by slab
Sliver by sliver

dust

pound by pound

pain.

We are all thingamajigs

Run run run
run
run
hurry
rush up
climb
that wall
and
this one here

don't!
look
down
look
up
up
up
up

and when you reach
where you're

headed

wherever
that is,
don't look back
keep going
going
going

tell yourself
time will heal
everything

but
keep running
don't stop
don't look back

run

numb
ness
se
ts
in?

sowhat!!

keep going
run
run
runrunrun

Up





Things are looking up

perhaps

it's only me
looking up

optimism is such a wonderful thing!
coming from a bumpkin, it surely is.
i was soppy last night,
i'm trying to be happy today.

Thursday, November 10

it's terrible.
i'm using lower case.
don't have the patience to use upper case or caps.
dammit!
people.
one at a time
they enter
your life
one
by one
they enter your
mind
slowly
they
fill
up your thoughts
one call a day
from far away
is enough
to make you blush
and two?
that would be beetroot
red
on your cheeks
and three?
you'd be flying
yippity yee!!
oh gee!
if only
if only
if
only
it'd last.
never does!
bang
a loud loud LOUD
bang
in just a few days
it'll all be gone
far away
you won't know what it was
that hit you.
it hurts.
just when you're thinking
this
and that
one finger at a time
you begin to give
yourself away
one thing
at a time
one smile
one teardrop
one smudge of mascara
one letter from the alphabet
one page in the green hand sewn book
one call
after the other
one thought
one person
one life
one dream
one language
one another
till the BANG!
and then
it's all gone.

seems like it's gone now.
i'm cheesed off. i want to shout, pull out large wads of grass from the lawn
make it bald in a patch
i want to starve myself
because i don't feel hungry
when i'm
blue.

damn you!

So

So, are you looking for inspiration too?
I've often wondered
if I
should've got myself a job where my main work would involve talking.
But then, I get very silent for days.
So, they'd kick me out in a week's time.

I like to surf the net, look for interesting blogs and websites. Sometimes I come across trash and at others, I find true inspiration. I'd like to come across something that's got some text and images but is still so empty, reflecting the person's life.
I see most of the blogs are either too full or too empty. There is never that ethereal silence.
And that's what I need right now, to be able to relate with someone who's life is like a cave right now.
So then I can look at myself from outside.

There were tmes when I spent days in the library back at college, looking at paintings by various painters, from Rodin, Renoir to Frida, Jackson Pollock. I educated myself about art. These books were my mentors for years. I miss them all so much now. To be able to sit under the shade of a million books resting on rows of shelves. Ataraxia.
Peace
calm
solitude
to be left alone for hours with my books.
And more than that, to Have these books around me..
When will it ever happen again?
Will it ever happen again?
What does life has in store for me next?
Being in transit for so long is making me doubt the gravity of the journey.
Whatever happened to all those plans I'd made for my life?
They're vanishing into the air
one
by
one.
I crave for my life to be filled with things and events.
I'd like to get back to my little house really tired every evening and then say to myself, 'Oh, I've no energy to go out for that dinner / party'.
That would be wonderful.
To see faces,
colours,
feet,
hands,
hair styles,
drapes,
and smell
new things each day.

Wednesday, November 9

stuck in the lows

Sounds
morph into
noises
into
din
cacophony
my ears pop
drums
burst.

This music
is a riot
in the other room.

Tuesday, November 8

So, birthday's over and this refreshing energy is all pervading.
Still...
I might be some sort of a manic depressive. What else would explain my lack of exuberance right now, inspite of all the good cheer surrounding me? I do belive, art comes out from great depths only when there is some sort of pain in the pit. And this, I am not saying because I think I produce great art...
Just a thought.

Saturday, November 5

The horizon beckons...

Such a long way to go, still.
Walking off towards the horizon is such a wonderfully overused cliche. It works each time.When the protagonist walks away towards the horizon at the end of the film, it signifies so many thing. New beginnings, quicksandish loops, drudgery, positivity, facing reality, perhaps with some new perspective and a tad bit of gusto too...It fills up my mind with all the possibilities it might denote...

Waiting to be triggered


Birthdays are such terribly hyped days. Everyone makes you feel like a pseudo king for one day and by the evening, it frays away.
Ofcourse, they mean well but all the hoopla makes me cringe. I feel like running away.
When I turned 25, I wanted to throw up. There was this heavy brick of introspection and realisation that I'd done near to Nothing in quarter of a century. As the day grew, my inertia began to subside.
Tomorrow marks two years since that day and I must say, being on the other side of 25 feels close to nothing. It's much smoother, this transition from 26 to 27. I know there is and always will be lots to do and what matters is what I do each day.

Friday, November 4

Pigeons on my window sill


This one is here getting fatter each day. The other one, the girl pigeon sat on her egg for two whole days, guarding it ferociously. The third morning they were both gone, the egg and the girl pigeon. The crow ate the egg and I don't know what happened to the mom.

But I didn't get here to write about pigeons today.

What I had in mind was this revelation of sorts. No one falls in love in libraries or bookshops anymore. Those are things of yore that happened in films of 60's and 70's. There are few lost souls buried deep in their books, seeking a bit of quiet and solitude with the exceptions of that page on which their fingers rest. And a fleeting glance around the room and they notice that person there. A bit restless, a bit fidgety, mostly engrossed in the Volcano Lover, Sontag's novel.

These things don't happen much any more.

I'm listening to Charles Mingus belting out 'Take the train'. Wonderful wonderful jazz, you make a great accompaniment on the silentest day. You mesmerise my night. You make me want to get up and dance, oh you wonderful crooner! I step on it, in my tap dance shoes and fading tutu. I am a dancer again! I swish and baloosh and swing in the air, I jump high and what's more...I begin to fly...