Across the Universe

2008-07-31T00:04:00.000-07:00

a selfportrait of sorts. :O)

the earth laughs in flowers.

Also me and the mother's Suleman Chai has been Masala Chai-ed
http://masalachaionline.blogspot.com/.

Full joy. :)

Sugar crystals

2008-07-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

Oh look its a calender.
Only it doesn't really function. (yet)
Time has told me not to ask for more.
Also-
After months, I think its time to finally make it official:

so yes.
That.
:O)
doo bee dooo de doop doop de doooo.
May you be showered with a dozen balloons.

Fireworks

2008-07-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today there were fireworks in my city.
Not in the sky. But 8 explosions.
Yes, It didn't hurt. It could have been worse.
But it represents a drive that worries me.

I understand destruction.
With each drop of ink the space that was my canvas is broken.
with every syllable silence is dead.
But out of this death is born creation. the cycle continues.
(and on and on and on)
and there's so much love to give. there's so much love to give.
Here we are. Poets.painters.philosophers.politicians. desperately trying to grasp what we're born into. All the immensity. trying to imitate. trying to emulate.
'but art can never imitate. It can only inspire.'
We cannot play god. through bombs. through paint.
The approach should then not be to imitate. To have 'creation' at your fingertips.
but to thank.

I could spend years painting a mountain. It will never be the mountain itself.
trapped on paper. not so vivid.
in technicolour.
(It will never be the mountain.)
It only expresses love for that mountain.
It is not to make it mine. But to make it me.
Love is:
Anterior to life.
Posterior to death
Initial to creation
the exponent of breath.

शान्ति

2008-07-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

After 56.5 long hours of intensive travel by air,train,bus and shared cabs we found ourselves in gangtok. The roads were long. Calcutta was beauty broken down.blackouts.reservation counters.Yellowtaxis.Kohl lined eyes. kali at every corner. The city of joy.
Calcutta was red.wasbrown. was smoke curling. was bodies burning. Summer sinks its teeth into our flesh. Lost. Alive.

16 long hours in a bus. I long for peace and it finds me. green as apple. green as the sea. Fields spread themselves like cordouroy. Blue skies. Leaving the dust of siliguri behind us. A shared cab. secretly smoked cigarettes. Through bengal into Sikkim. I've been looking for divinity and find it in flowers. The border approaches. A rainbow coloured checkpost. Prayer flags.peace. lotuses. Love. Coconut water. The river.. The River Teesta is white like bone and becomes the long spinal column of the land.
Free.
A cat once told me that pebbles near the river are souls in search of peace.
I now understand this silence.

2008-06-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

"Seeing Radha stand alone, Krishna came from behind and blindfolded her with his hands. But his hands could not fully cover her large and elongated eyes. They shone out from within his fingers as a serpent's gem which it had disgorged and hid between its fangs;" or as Rahu finding the sun and Mars together, had pounced and held them fast. Krishna does not have any self-interest, for there is nothing for him to desire or achieve. But he removes the grief of separation of those whom he loves. His eyes came close to Radha's, and his lips were on hers. It was as though the lotuses forgetting their opposition to the moon had opened their petals to be kissed by the moon rays. Says Suradasa, Krishna's loving embrace removed from Radha. the sorrow of her parting. "

2008-06-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

we anticipate Desire
and dismiss it.
We cling to dreams
but give in and taste Desperation.
We decide that desire is desolate.
Dreaming is not.

And go back to waiting.
And fall asleep.

We awaken.
And see that it's not even a dream we wait for.

It's destiny.
(all turns to dust)

(Oh and there's so much love to give. there's so much love to give. there's so much love to give)

First photograph a part of a project where I used my body as a canvas.
second illustration for ING vysya foundation.

2008-06-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

From a set of 22 Illustrations
for a Children's book of poetry in Hindi.

About a little girl. Starry eyes.
Braids in her hair.
Falls into dreams,
Sails to the Moon, Speaks too soon.
She climbs trees, makes wings and wonderlands.
Falls through rabbit holes into bluebacked skies.

The Hollow Land

2008-05-30T02:42:00.000-07:00

"The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
'This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms"
The Hollow lands
filled with such stark immensity.
flooding with light.
Plains 17800 feet in the sky
Sikkim 2008

2008-05-30T01:19:00.000-07:00

Yes,
I listen to the Amelie Soundtrack on Loop.
I chew very loudly.
A red umbrella banishes storms.
Yes I question, I neglect.
I prefer purple grapes over green ones.
and jamoons over that.
I stalk silver. compare rivers to bone.
Don't wear socks unless they are rainbow coloured.
know the taste of rain on my tongue.

Shanti Shloka

2008-05-29T12:42:00.000-07:00

15 days spent in Sikkim.
I went there in search of peace.
and I found it. In every drop of rain.
Mist that erased mountains.
In Silence.
In sunlight.

To yellow walls.
to our bodies that we underestimate.
To remembering divinity.
and the absolute.
and love found not in fingertips
but every thing that shimmers.

much much more later.
Sacred lakes, Monks, Peace, Art, Hollowlands.
Simplicity.

Hard Rain Gonna Fall

2008-05-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

You face the city. burning lights.
silver in the night like coins never collected.
falling.stars.were.once.alive.
Sleeping.

your eyes try to cripple me.
I fall fall fall.

you were young.old.broken.cold.
you were lost. found. sold.

I only see you in black and white.
Everything I touch turns to stone.

Bombay 2008
On the road to Haji Ali

' Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number.'

Jigsaw Falling into Place

2008-05-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

Here love exists.
In our house with yellow walls and white curtains that flutter like ghosts.
we collect sea shells, Hope, brooms, gods and those lost and wandering.

Here love exists.
We create. Images wrap themselves around our fingertips.

Little parts of our soul washes out in ink on paper.

Here single Brushstrokes can erase storms.
Technicolour dreams hang on every ceiling like clothes from a line or perhaps stars in the sky.
Purplesky.watermelonred. the soft gold that lines clouds.
the green that exists only in the heart of a grape.

2008-04-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

small.
crawl.
fall.

sleeping.
pinned to the ground.
preserved. protected. fossilized.

when awake.
They crawled on your skin.
like rain.
Now they sleep.

Jewels in box.
packed up.
skeletons. empty shells.
I want you.

हम्पी~Everything I touch turns to stone

2008-04-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hampi Portraits part one.
Gypsy feet
and my favourite Sadhu on the hill. :)

A space full of sounds

2008-04-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

the ears have walls.
a space full of sounds.
electrons zipping through space.
blue light. colour-colour projections.
and candlelight.

Also go check out some of Neurotesque's own mindbending soundscapes here.

posterdesign by meh

Heart Chakra

2008-04-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

Something I did for a course in college.

Made up a band called Rubber Soul with their 4th album Heart Chakra.

This was the CD cover.

There is also an inlay, a back and all that. Which will be uploaded sooner or later.

Half Shiva Half Shakti

2008-03-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Half Shiva-Half Shakti.

Blue skin. Rivers flow from your hair.

Lotus. Love. Creation. Destruction

The end. A beginning.

Masculine. Feminine.

With the moon near your crown.
and a lotus on your skin.

Thank you.

2008-03-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

Faces.

Familiar Places.

Your eyes.

become Black skies.

Yercaud March 2008

2008-03-11T08:39:00.000-07:00

spring has returned.
pink flowers fall from the sky
like rain.
when the wind blows
they dance around my feet.
love exists only in them
and pieces of paper.
:)

Lend me your Wings

2008-02-23T00:36:00.000-08:00

Stills from an animation I'm working on in my free time
to the song "let down" by radiohead.
all images photographed-drawn by me.
Here you will see insects, hot air balloons, cities made of glass bottles.
and much much more.

Sail to the Moon

2008-02-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Done one Sunday night when the sky is falling and the moon is not so full.When I was a child I believed the moon followed me home at night.I still do. Though these days I seem to be following the moon.Done by hand and photoshop. 181 frames. put together on movie maker because I don't know flash.:O)

Music by Radiohead. Animation/illustration by me. :O)

if the video here doesnt work for some reason go http://youtube.com/watch?v=wKMl7p8RWTA

A book of blackbirds

2008-02-09T04:51:00.000-08:00

so boretdome on the way back home in public buses
leads to crow spotting
leads to speculation.
here is teh beginning of an epic.
read:

to be continued.
(oo)

Piano Man

2008-02-08T09:19:00.001-08:00

old old old drawing from a long long time ago
me thinks, if you play a piano long enough
it becomes the language you speak.
kerrect no?

Tales from Topographic Oceans

2008-02-08T08:26:00.002-08:00

and if you're going to pondicherry be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
5 of us.
wake up to rain. rain in the sky. rain in the sea. rain in the sand. rain born of your fingers.
rain in your mouth. everything is water. the sea is falling from the sky.

we stayed in a mango yellow house with pink flowers.
and a tamilian cook who only spoke french.
he made us soup. everything flooded.
I explode.

everybody wants to sleep. sing their dreams to sleep.
I'm tired of dreaming.
rent a cycle. and swim in the streets
a blue fish on a bicycle.
(even this seems like a dream)
why does it always rain on me?
my clouds follow me around.
grey and bursting like fruit.
I float paperboats in gutters.
lonely. hungry. thirsty.
I was waiting for the sun. and it came out
like a pink lotus
or an orange unpeeled.
map of pondicherry. scribbled on.
left white where i walked alone.

Scans from my notebook.
Pondicherry
December 2007

softly open our mouths in the cold

2008-02-08T08:22:00.000-08:00

I'm back.
my mouth was stitched up
my fingers were bony brittle.
here comes the sun.