A favourite

You are Dreamreal

Angst

Everyone sees it.
Some have it.
I knew once how to deal with it.
But yesterday, for the sake of
finding a way out,
the barber first made me look like Amitabh Bachhan
and then
I asked him to take it all off.

Is this what bliss is?
How come it seems so shallow?

Umm

Something heavy
like a cloud over my head.
This purple-brown cloud.
Most undesirable cloud.

It floated away
later in the day.
A game of frisbee
made it go away.

I'm tired tonight.
There's a glint of joy in my eyes,
I think.

Magic

I'm going to find magic
not because I'm going to look so hard for it.


But because I believe it's out there,
waiting,
just waiting
for me to lay my eyes on it.

Hymn

And I can't explain.
There's just something going so terribly wrong somewhere.
I'm completely involvled.
I'm standing far out,
Nowhere to be seen.

How close am I?
Can you hear this song
playing next to my mind?

It's the most beautiful hum
of calm.

I have been walking around
with beautiful people by my side.
But something's wrong, so terribly wrong,
it isn't enough,
anymore.

Nothing much

I'm flying
I'm running
I'm climbing,
really really fast

things seem nearer,
they're far away
I'm getting closer
but there's something in the way.

Walk with me, then?

Completely

lost


I am.

Nostalgia?

I hate being in a stituation where I'm forced to say only nice things.
I hate being in a situation that forces me to relive the past.
The past is past,
let it be.
Someone's been looking for me for 14 years.
We were together in junior school.
So long ago.

I know,
I know.
I don't want to know anymore.

Rolling

It's so good to have wheels for feet.
I'm loving each moment of this nomadic life.

Portrait: Girl

She scratched a corner
of the sky,
then a book,
then her mind's eye.
In dismay,
found nothing.

She touched a blade of grass.
It turned into a dove, flew away.
She remained.



Siok Tian Heng

Crumble

I no longer know the language
the ink in my pen has dried.
And when I rub my fingers together,
crumb of bytes fall off.

I have no complaints whatsoever.
There's nothing to hide.
Even joy is bare.
Sadness will always be veiled..
Poetry's returned to my life.

This city lets me walk around by myself.
I like to walk around.


I walk.

Hello and welcome!

We are back!
Been having a good life.
Travelling around, meeting people.
Visiting, revisiting.

Things have changed
ahaa.

with you without you

We are moving

Thanks for watching.

The trick then lies in learning to balance things.
To be able to not let things affect you too much.
At the same time, to not become stoic to everything around you.
It's tough.

I'm still learning.

mornin

it's nearly 6 am now. I've been up for more than an hour.
I hope this jetlag stays, seriously. I d love to see the sun rise every morn.
It's so nice to be home.
:)

Toys

New to the neighborhood.

Some whacky finger monsters



















some regular guys




















a swimmer (I love this one)



















a bugbox with a magnified top for me to peer down through




















and then, the whole new lot!

packing up

is such a task.
phew

Black ink

I'm an athiest
I go to all places of worship.

And sometimes I get tired of these calculations
wherever I go they're around.

I read the temperature in fahrenheit
but feel it in celsius.

I weigh myself in pounds
but feel my weight in kilos.

I buy in dollars
but spend in rupees.

Wonder when this automatic calculator will lie down.


But can we ever meet without prejudices?
Like we did when we were small.

Is a coffee equal to two hours of silken silence?
It's so quiet here all of a sudden
This clickety-clack is amplified.

I know I'm not the centre of the universe
but wait, there's no need to feel smug.
Neither are you.

Ryan

I was channel surfing.
Something on Link Tv looked and sounded familiar.
It was Chris Landreth's film on Ryan Larkin, the animation genius.
In the late 60's Ryan Larkin was nominated for the Academy Awards for his film called 'Walking'.
Sheer genius.

I'm feeling tired after watching the film and the documentary about the film.
Drained out.
Ryan Larkin now lives off the streets.
He became a dipsomaniac somewhere along the way and now lives off the streets.
They said, this is the worst thing to happen to an artist.
Landreth's film has these half fleshed characteres. The face is only half. That's it. Only flesh on half the face and the other half, it doesn't exist.
Extremely poignant.
It doesn't feel like a film.
I guess it really isn't.

It's the truth staring right back at you.
Like looking in a dirty mirror. All your horrors looking at their reflection, that's what you are.

How often does a documentary about one single person leave you in tears?

His face quivers as though he's talking but the words really come out only 7 seconds later.
Sot.

He begs on the streets. And he says nonchalantly, the most often asked question is, 'why don't you get a job?' and he tells them to either leave their spare change or just move down the street.

In the end Landreth goes to show him the film. Goes to show Ryan a film about him, based on actual interviews and characters generated from the interview. Life and art intermingling and who knows who's imitating whom?
Ryan was left speechless after watching it.
His last words in the documentary?

'Well, I guess I want out'.


I feel caterpillars under my skin

This morning in yoga class I made a friend.
We're meeting up on Wednesday for dinner. I offered to help cook and bring dessert and some wine. Looking forward to it, should be lots of fun. I was feeling really enthusiastic about everything till earlier this evening. Just watching this film has managed to completely drain me out. How does one accomplish that, as a film maker? Does the film have to be as close to reality as possible?

Like you were watching the person's life itself?


I'm listening to my favourite Dylan song sent to me by a kind fellow blogger. If you're reading this, thanks again!

Alright then, my last week here has begun. Next week this time I will be nowhere. It's really something like that. The total time I'll spend travelling is I don't know what, but it translates to 30 hours. I'm reading Bolivian Diaries, part of the bigger Motorcycle diaries of Che Guevara that were not included in the film. It's intriguing.

( 10 minutes later)
I think I know how I feel after watching the film Ryan.
I feel as though I were driving down a beautiful highway and it began to rain. It was a harbinger, I drove on and the rain became almost fierce. I couldn't see clearly and the wipers were having a tought time fighting the force of the pouring rain. And I saw something red on the other side of the road. 7 seconds later I realised it was a body, rolled up backwards, from an accident.
Yeah, that's how I feel.

Ta!

So I've decided to quit my blog.
I'll be back in india soon.
Once I get there it'll be bye bye time.
I've had fun here.
Babushkas has been motivating me to draw every single day.
I now have a bigger pile of sketchbooks filled up completely.
You guys have pepped me up when I was low and egged me on when I was unsure.
So, thanks everyone!
I'll vist your blogs from time to time and keep in touch.

Perhaps I'll pop up in another avatar sometime, who knows?
:)
Ta!

I hope the tea's ready

Our man here can't boast of endless sunrises he's seen, but he sure loves his colours.

This is what inspired me to make this.

The farmers' Market.

(the three little pigs are not in the photos. they went off to eat some fresh blueberry pie)

more

Talk to her

with a not-too-hot mug of coffee

this sketch is for the poem D1 that i'd posted some time back. It's written by a friend. The painting's nearly finished.It's been drying and then it's been raining heree for the past two days.

What better way to end a cloudy grey day, than with warm water?

And a nice creamy mug of coffee, ofcourse.

( Just taking a coffee break while watching' Talk to her')

I finally watched the film Rang de basanti, today.

The crime of Padre Amaro

Nice film.
Gael Garcia is just super hot, as usual.

He said he wanted to take care of her in that all-pervasive, sick kind of way.
She told him that made her stomach turn.

He turned away
went to the other girl
and said the same darn thing.

She told him to wait
and took off her platonic glasses.

Summertime Suzie

Cinema Paradiso

Have you watched this film?

It's a film that makes you cry and in a way reassures you that's it's okay to cry while wathing a film.
And when Salvatore is watching the montage of kisses from all the spliced films, that Alfredo has left for him,
I shed a tear too.

This afternoon

The girl with a pearl earring

Sensuous and sensual.


















The film
romanticises
the routine
so much that
after watching it

I felt like
painting
scrubbing my face clean
wearing pearls
and even
doing the dishes.

A Scanner Darkly

this is what i want to watch

aha

you like to write without grammatical editing.
i like to write without emotional editing.

suits you
suits me

and for a refreshing break,
there's always something to look at.

Something in the green tee

je ne sais pas

I didn't know the right greeting

I met some people in Vegas.

I met them in flesh and bone
and muscle
tendon,
heart-to-heart,
spinal cord
ribs
diaphragm
stomach
small intestines
pancreas
large intestines
an eye for an eye
an eyebrow left untouched
lungs
liver
kidney,
hands full of phalanges
and metacarpals
deltoids shining bare
in the soft yellow light

and a small pituitary gland
sitting cosy in glass case.

I saw a face.
I saw a distinct face.
So clear was it
that i could count
the facial muscles on it .
The face wore no smile
as it looked back at me,
a slice of a cross-section,
in another glass case.

Further down the dark corridor
I shuddered at the cold hearts.
This one has valves
and the left ventricle swings open
that one has been carved out
so i can look within.

A soft delicate mesh
of blood vessels in red and blue
a spleen here
a hand there
a whole person, too.

In yet another dark room
I see babies who were never born
4 weeks
6 weeks
11 weeks
18 weeks
and so on.
The largest one is 32 weeks old.
(Don't think about it
jut look closely and walk away for now).

Co-joined twins with eyes shut tight
born with a single heart,
it beats no more.
Another embryo with ventral hernia,
organs grew outside.

Little blue babies
in glass jars
they show me your bone structures now.
let me not stand too long here
lest I begin to think about who you could've been
had you been born.


Then,
a lady lets me peer right into her heart
a window in her ribcage is open for visitors.
I stare
we stare
at her muscles
bones
knee caps
high cheek bones
bulging eyes
untouched unskinned brows
long bony hands
narrow waist
vagina
thighs
calves
calf-muscles
and long long toes with unclipped, unpainted nails.



As I walk out
a collection of 83 cross-section slides
bid adieu to me.
They say this collection is a whole human body.
I don't want to know your name.
I fear I'm not brave enough to digest it all.

I met 21 people
they were very different people.
If I think back now
they were more whole than me
even though they had no skin
and a couple of odd organs were
removed and plced in separate
glass chambers for closer obseration.


That night as i lay down
I realised I'd been peering into the deep insides
of 21 cadavers.
I couldn't sleep.
I wonder if they do.

Pale green pigs and more

Let

Alright
it's enough
already

sometimes it's dark in the sunniest afternoon

let go

Must

Hot afternoons

Sequoias

General Sherman tree...the largest living thing on earth!
Stands 27 floors high, is around 2,300 years old.
I wanted to hug it.


















































Another sequoia on the trail to General Sherman

























How large are the trees?
How small are we?


























Crane your neck right back and you could perhaps see all of it!

It's a night for sleep

I just got back from the Sequoia national park!

How was it?
Can't describe it. No amount of words can do it justice.
Let's just say, I feel a whole lot calmer after paying obeisance to the largest and very very old (how old is two thousand and three hundred years old?), trees. General Sherman tree made me feel like a tiny tiny speck. But all in a good way.

The Sequoias are like warm, grandfatherly figures, the sort who'll gently pull you closer and lull you to sleep with fairytales. The sort who'll embrace you so you feel safe anywhere. Just wonderful.

And what can I say about warm water and how much it soothes me.
I miss my parents now.


On another note, I recieved my camera in the mail today!
So wheeeeeee!
Lots more photos of weird and even weirder things shall be put up now!


Oh and this drawing, I made it some days back.
Generally.

I wish I were back at the park.

In a ziplock full of other instructions

Blackbirds singing...

bum- shaky musical notes

layers

Goin where the sea is blue...

Birds are funny
they strut around
when they aren't flying
and really, Id rather have them strutting around
so I can capture them
with a 10x optical zoom

I wonder what makes them happy

I wonder if they like to keep warm by bon-fires
probably not
they don't want to end up raosted.

I wonder if they pose
or if they're naturally so bum-shaky.

And it must be difficult for them
to bend and paint their toes.