propaganda

propaganda

disgusting,
propaganda.

i'm so sick of it all.

Something warm

And to what do I owe this honour?

4

4 bushels full of work.
And nothing else to do.

perform

Big fruit shares its aura

And when an autorickshaw full of little schoolgirls, decides to shout a jingle across the crossroads while you're walking in the morning, what can you do but smile.
:)

Heritage walk in Ahmedabad

An exploration for a book

The strange things

This ennui leads us to strange things. Ennui and a bit of fear of the unknown.

Unknown

My friend made this

That's my friend and I..

Ducky

Here's what I made for a dear friend who's going to have a baby next month.

I had so much fun making it!

colour

The fledglings are ready to fly.

Gosh, it makes me so sad, you know.

That's the way it is, then.

A little busybody :)

Back from Diu!

It was superb, as always.

Had a fall, but I'm almost fine now.

Here's some photos!

Untitled

A quiet has descended.
Clouds have risen.
Empty empty empty
empty empty
empt
empty empty.

No, not a soul in sight.
Each activity in the day is complete in itself.
Chai comes and goes like a faithful lover doting on me.

This joy?
This sorrow?
This anxiety?
This calm?
This hallucination?
How do I name it?

And where?
I spent some hours in the bookstore today but it wasn't there either.

So then?

The day starts off a peach.
Somewhere
around noon
it becomes about four shades darker.
How do you explain this?

I have noticed one thing lately, pondered over it, and come to this conclusion.
People who do not read literature or almost any other kind of books are 'different' from those who do, in moral character.
I would elucidate and give fresh examples from my chai break only minutes ago but that is another matter.
No literature = Strange moral character.

Sunday

Out on the road today
I met
an afternoon so easy and personal,
it made me want to
walk barefeet.

joy and a birdy

A thought

Does the fact that such few women draw masculine muscles and such few men draw girly pigtails, have anything at all to do with the fact that most little girls play with dolls and most little boys play with guns?

I, for one, detest drawing the typically girly, cliched drawings. But when it comes to childrens' illustrations, one's got to give what one's got to give ; big chunky doses of cutsie drawings!

Still life with woodpecker

Read another brilliant book by Tom Robbins.
He's the best!

Morality comes from culture.
Culture comes from climate.
Climate comes from geography.

Tada!

Before this book I was reading 'In evil hour' By Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

And now I'm back to my favourite late night companion. Calvin and Hobbes!

A little secret

A little secret I share with you.
A fortnight back I went to the ATM to withdraw some cash and left my old paint brushes there.
Purposely.
I didn't want to throw them and I had no use for them. So I left them there thinking someone would pick them up and use them.
Then yesterday I went to my bank. While I was filling out some papers, the guard from the ATM came up to me and said, he'd kept my paint brushes safely.
I have never spoken with the guard before.
It felt beautiful to be recognised.
And remembered as the girl who left her paint brushes!
So I smiled at hime.
My secret was out.
I told him why I'd left my brushes there on purpose.
He was a bit confused.
So I asked him to give the brushes to his children.
Lovely day, yesterday.
Lovely city, Ahmedabad, thank you for being so good to me.

Chandni Chowk

Ouch

I decided last night, to be cheerful today.
Then the nasty bird-brained pigeons decided to spoil things.
One sat in my bathroom all night long. I tried to make it fly out but it refused. Tucked it's little foot under its belly and was snug.

This morning I opened all the windows so it would fly out. About fifteen minutes later I heard some cacophony. Saw there were not one but three pigeons in my bathroom!
Then my friend came by for some work. I put him to work at once! Gave him a broom tied to a long stick. He crouched on top of the WC and saw not just three pigeons but also some eggs!
He was brave and shooed the pigeons away. Normally they fly around from one room to the other but this time they flew right out of the windows.

I had to clean the whole place up, it was stinking of pigeon shit.

But you see, I'm happy now that the pigeons have gone and I'm trying to be cheerful again.

Wooden Nickels

I've been back from home for a week today. And I've never felt so uninspired. There's a lot of work to be done but just so little inspiration.
So today i woke up late, made myself a pot of chai and sat down to work. First on P's film script and then I began to paint and draw the storyboard from the animation project I'm working on now. Then it came back, this silly thing called inspiration.
I think I found it in the flourescent paints I picked up from the shop. They cost me 20 rupees.
My math is bad but I can calculate this little piece of information well.

Bought a big white topped, old wooden table and an old wooden chair from the Sunday market. It's lovely. I'm going to paint the chair red and the table legs some other colour soon. Fun!

and then

It's nice to be loved...
...so dearly
by someone you love too.

Somewhere in the old city

and some

Govinda

He paid no attention to me the first day.

Ran away shyly the second day.

Was fascinated by the oval bird I drew for

him the third day.

Painted lots of things on the wall on the fourth day.

Photos from the mural

Office

Off late I've been working in an office.
A first, for me.
It's been fun. I dial a certain number and ask for a coffee, every two hours or so.
But the project is almost over now and I'm back to what I enjoy doing.
So this week I'm going to visit the children at Manav Sadhna everyday, again. And we're getting more and more people interested in getting their walls painted by us. Planning to name our team, the mural making team.
I'm looking forward to going home, soon.

Life isn't bad at all. It's fun and full of things to do everyday, these days.
But I'm going to miss someone who left today.

Lovely days
Sunshine,
joy,
love
and so many little children around.

We're doing more and more murals, as a team, for clients.

Orange Lemons and

Yellow oranges

Birds mural

The mural with the children at Manav Sadhna begins today.
I'm nervous!
And very very excited.

Wish me luck.

Listen

Life can be so beautiful.
One minute you're feeling lost and directionless. But you get into the auto nevertheless to go to the lovely ngo you've been going to everyday.
You reach a red light where you'd given out some toffees to some beggar children who'd come asking for money.
You remember them for a moment.
The next moment, you notice a little head popping in, looking at you in the auto rickshaw. It's the same girl.
She smiles at you, greets you in a familiar manner. You feel happy, smile back. She asks for money, out of habit.
You talk to her, ask her her name instead, out of habit.
She looks at your earrings, says her name is Pinky.
She touches your ears.
Another boy comes along.
Then another.
And another.
And another one still.
They touch your nose ring, your hair, pat your cheeks.
You feel like a doll, enjoy it, let them do it.
You're happy.
They're happy.
You tell them the light's going to turn green soon and that they should go back lest they get hurt.
They keep smiling, touching you with their soft, hardened fingers.
They smile, say bye bye bye bye bye
bye bye bye bye
bye bye
bye bye bye bye bye bye bye
bye bye bye bye bye
bye
bye bye bye
bye
bye bye

bye bye

bye
till you can no longer see them.
The light turns green, you go away smiling.

Had a great two days, these past two days.
I'm springing back again.
Moving to a new place today or tomorrow.

I'm so angry with the world

a poster at the ngo I work with, says this

Everything is clearer
when we're in love.

Time to go