शान्ति

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.

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.

Cold Feet

you stood
upon toes
upon earth
upon stars.
we were not afraid then.

We were supposed to run. We were ready with a suitcase and some skeletons in our closet.
the sky was green. it made me happy.


'Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened'

I cannot dance upon my toes

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
So Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"