On monday we (chitra, pottu, me and ninad) make 2nd year class draft insects for the graphics class. Quiet excited about seeing what specimens we have. Below is an interesting specimen of 'portfolio moth' that has been bugging me since 3 days now.

3rd soofeer cool image i say !

My favourite image of all the images done till now, this image has been drawn by aditya with details of wooden balustrades, metal pipes, doors, locks, bulbs to the smallest detail and painted by ranjit with renderings of shadows and lights on pink, blue and green walls. Long ruminating discussion have happened on this image....holding it in different angles...and ranjit explaining his seven layer painting technique...and pottu going on detailing even the filament of the bulb...and me wanting a pink sky and rflected pink light to lit up the housegalli....and ranjit being very proud of the rust of the pipe on the blue wall....and we fighting over 'we' all should take equal interest in this endeavour...and ranjit wanting to show the clothes hanging down straight and not according to the perspective....all this is rightly proved by the painting being still incomplete...but we shall overcome...someday.

2nd image

this is the second image, zooming down into one of the streets with the tower from the first painting and small new inserts that have mushroomed within the old fabric due to the opportunities offered by the city that surrounds it...al this against a pink 'Munch-ian' sky.

















the image has been mostly worked on by ranjit with me taking certain creative liberties, like my pink sky...but the image still is in process of development...let see...

The power of “WE”

My understanding of this complex word, its implications and what it allows has changed a lot lately. Simple but beautiful images from DD metro animations like ‘simi machhli’ or ‘ek a gilahari, anek gilahariyan’ first embedded within my young mind the values of unity, and the power of a collective…with my bed time stories strengthening this naïve concept. From those DD metro animation days to today with George Bush talking about ‘we need to protect our homes from terrorists’ speeches, the word “we” has come a long way in its innovative usages in the English language almost to the extent of replacing most multi lettered words for convenience, blame, appropriation etc…

The word first originated when Neanderthal man created fire and burned down an entire village and exclaimed, “we shouldn’t play with fire” to the survivors (coolly pointing at the charred bodies of the victims).

Also my own personal experiences have taught me to be careful around people who refer to you as “we” for example “we will really have to finish all this by tomorrow”…Reminding me of Sridevi from Mr. India singing “we we we we” as she fools the stupid naïve villains into believing that she is one of them…just as Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha collect a handful of good performers representing a billion of us and call it “we the people”. I don’t know whether I will ever be able to truly use this beautiful word to its fullest till then the question remains “to we, or not to we”.

Null Bazaar painting

The first painting of Null Bazaar : inner city area, a small side project which me, pottu and ranjit have been working on. It hopefully is going to grow into a series of images representing different things which did not find a place in the 33 \ 7 report done in the Design Cell KRVIA. We are not sure of the form yet... but lets see...

Diagrams diagrams

Virtual Freedom

Happened to see the Airtel advt, with extremely powerful black and white images and sub titles being flashed on your screen… one dream can change a nation (with Martin Luther King), One finger can break a million hearts (with umpire Shepherd declaring Sachin out) and one voice to move a nation two fingers to win a world war and million candles to end it, the add continues, with Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and many more doing their bit of modeling for Airtel. The advertisement predictably ends with ‘the power of expression, express yourself’.

Ranjit happened to show me Orkut site and rest of the world on Orkut, right from long lost friends from school days to new potential ones. Everyone can now post pictures, comments, meet friends and have a very delicately crafted profile (with the right light, sepia tone, Photoshop touch ups) all that as we blog, scrap, orkut (don’t know if I can use it as a verb) and form complex communities. So as we continue traveling in packed trains, abusing the government, rushing to our workspaces, negotiating for space and many other everyday torments, we can finally express and declare and say things about the government, rains, poverty, cute puppies, movies and be each others fans and change the world through this new found freedom of expression. We are finally free…

I can’t deprive myself of so much freedom that I never had…

I am on my way to buy an Airtel card, order Adidas shoes, run \ swim to the nearest Reliance centre and open my very own Orkut account.

p.s. There was no other space I could put this on, but my blog.