Welcome to the Machine

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.


What did you dream?

It's alright we told you what to dream.
srishti 2007
Welcome to the pleasure dome ,now take a seat the crowd is watching you
Just rats in this experiment
Now learn the maze but don't tear yourself in two
Don't let it pull you down

Eye

I am swallowed by the storm
in your eye.
I looked into them searching for steady seamanship.
you were lost at sea too.
She'd warned me:
"A blind man won't run after you without losing his way"

Wind. Wings

"The pictures go wild in a rush of wind
That dark angel he is shuffling in
Watching over them with his black feather wings unfurled"

"I'm a gypsy in spirit only," she confessed. "I travel in gardens and bedrooms, basements and attics, around corners, through doorways and windows, along sidewalks, up stairs, over carpets, down drainpipes, in the sky, with friends, lovers, children, and heroes; perceived, remembered, imagined, distorted and clarified."

Everything I touch turns to stone

This weekend was Hampi.

College (I got into srishti for those of you who don't know) starts on wednesday.
I needed to escape one last time before these holidays came to an end.
and so I did.
Swimming in the river, Riding on a motorcycle watching all the ground beneath me drop,
Sprawling myself over rocks. Like a crocodile.
I needed it. the stones. the dust. the wind.
"The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. It saves on introductions and goodbyes."
- Waking Life

Raw Umber

Brown fingers and little toes
in Anegundi
near Hampi.
straight out of school.

everybody wants a picture taken. or a sweet.
I give them both.
a camera becomes their only mirror.
they look at their reflections
and laugh
at how everything is brown.

the floodgates open. the dam is unleashed.
the river overflows.
and mantapas swallowed by the rising current.

I have known these ruins, and traced with my eye
the scratchy paths
that were erased by the dust

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"

Chai

Tea is liquid wisdom

"And time has told me

Not to ask for more
Someday our ocean
Will find its shore."

Band of Gypsies

Family Portraits. Ten years too late. But early enough.
my father is a magician.
my mother painted dreams.
Neil Diamond wrote a song for me.
they decided to name me after that song. and many years later. each word comes true.

"Young child with dreams
Dream every dream on your own
When children play,
Seems like you end up alone
Papa says he'd love to be with you
If he had the time
So you turn to the only friend you can find
There in your mind

Shilo when I was young,
I used to call your name
When no one else would come,
Shilo you always came and we'd play

Young girl with fire,Something said she understood
I wanted to fly
She made me feel like I could

Held my hand out, I let her take me
Blind as a child
All I saw was the way
That she made me smile
She made me smile"

obscured by clouds- meghalaya part 1

from calcutta we find our way to guwahati,
Guwahati is paan-chewing men
with red mouths
that lick their lips when a woman walks by
Escape from this city. this weary-washed-out wasting city.this broken jaw of our kingdom.
To a greener place, a softer world.
Everything is green.
Greener than apple.
Greener than sea.
Greener than envy, than eden. than sky.
The hills start to appear and I'm tongue tied and twisted.
Its starts to get colder. My toes are cold again. I've missed this feeling.
The air is sweet. I buy strawberries, a mango, 4 bananas and litchies for lunch.
Four hours later we're in shillong. Shillong itself is over-rated. Like Shimla or ooty main towns.The next morning we shake dreams from our hair and explore shillong a little. walk around whatever part of the city is walkable and then go to a butterfly museum. This made me happy but we wanted more from the north east.
Let down and hanging around.
Ten minutes later our bags are packed and we're in a taxi to Cherrapunji where we'll stay with the taxi drivers aunt who has an extra room she'll rent out.
So we leave this city with its blue windows and small eyes.

The Ride to Cherrapunji is surreal. Like Sigur Ros or dali painted these landscapes with their soundwaves or a brush and ink.There are clouds here that try to swallow me. Swallow this little village that has never been mapped out. This topographic tale that was never written down. This hill that was ignored when the kings or fools came down from their thrones to own the land. It rains. and then it stops. It rains again. and ceases. again. There are trees. She is sleeping next to me and we are still driving to our destination but I tell them to stop and go for a walk in this forest.tall trees with their branches sticking out in right angles like arms and I look up. The sky is an unbelievable blue, like the requisite technicolor surreal dance number in some musical.
It starts to rain. Big blue drops of water this time. And each drop licking the leaves before falling on my head. I sat down and wrote sentences down with a purple ink pen and liked how my carefully thought out words dissolved as drops of rain fell on the page.
Drenched to the soul/bone. The trees shuddered. I shiver. And find my way through the trees back to the car parked by the side of the road
We start moving again through the rain, through the clouds and I fall asleep.
In my dreams I'm in a forest surrounded by trees. I can see some words etched into a tree..i see a light. the light illuminates the words from the back. The light reflects off whisps of brown straw, green blades and gray reed. Like a negative on a light table. The color is intense. It's twilight.The ground is dull, but the words glow. I wake up before I can read what it says.
There is land. Stretched out everywhere like sky.There are clouds. and more clouds. We drive through them carefully afraid that somewhere in that mist is a truck waiting to crash into us.
There are graves. Crosses sticking out of the hills like hands and fingers thrust up from the earth. Reaching out to the sky. There are little temples with pink dried up flowers at the entrance. And there is cold.
There is always cold.

"People have stars, but they aren't the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they're nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they're problems. For my businessman, they were gold. But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you'll have stars like nobody else."

Alice in Wonderland

"Still she haunts me, phantomwise
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes."

and if you go chasing rabbits, then you know you're going to fall.
I've decided not to trust words anymore. Just colours.
In between dreams
I see colours in my head.

no hues were added to the image. Just the contrast has been increased.

A boy named crow

"Another child is born
Another race is won
Another dream is shattered
Another day has begun

This world is still afloat
No not in Noah's boat
We've only lost the vision
Of the stars we're meant to be"

A pound of flesh

"And your very flesh shall be a great poem"
Walt Whitman

Deep Sea Diving

Cherrapunji

I spy with my little eye
a fish in the sky
:) :) :)

There's a Hole in my Bucket

" And the rain fell down
On the cold grey town
And the phone kept ringing
And we made sweet love

Everybody's dreaming
Everybody's scheming
Until the rain fall down"
The Rolling Stones

Wearing the Inside Out

Rock Paper Scissors

"I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
he told me that I'd done alright
and kissed me till the morning light"

"look in the eyes
of the face of love
look in her eyes
oh, there is peace
no, nothing dies
within pure light"

"jeena kaisa pyar bina
is duniya mein aaye ho to
ek duje se pyar karo"
-nusrat fateh ali khan

These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion - I seek the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient -
Upon us all a little rain must fall.

Upon us all a little rain must fall

Hunger

"Somewhere on the other side of this wide night

and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would
have to cross
to reach you.

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words."

The lines she gives me fit like warm socks.
In all our years all we have given each other are beautifully twisted words.
Of longing.Of lust.Of rust.

Thirst

"Blue, songs are like tattoos
You know Ive been to sea betore
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey blue, here is a song for you
Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty space to fill in"

Down by the River

there are people that turn their heads away
there is wind
and deep water
there are stones
and other stones

there are men who stare
those who care

there is rust

This city is ochre. is grey. is spilling out. You can see how it bulges at the edges with little windows like eyes carved into every wall. This city is sombre, is bright. Is sun surrounded by the aroma of a coffee drizzle. Is old. Is warm. Is poor. Is art. Is the city of joy, is mishti dahi, is durga temples and streets lined with second hand books that are covered in dust and each word melts in your mouth.

Have a seat.
In this tram, this rickshaw pulled by a man on a cycle, in my horse driven carriage before it turns back into a pumpkin. Its almost twelve.
This city is old windows and balconys that collapse when romeo is right round the corner.
Its rabindra sangeet, art films, pseudo intellectuals, thick black spectacle frames and pani puris.
Look around. The sun is sinking its teeth into your flesh. The sky here is not so bright but the people are. Words are heavy on their tongues. A's become O's. They speak fast and I struggle to catch up. cotch upopadhyayayayaa.Calcutta

When it Falls.

down came the rain and washed the spider out

And so I'm back
from outer space
rocks don't do well when it comes to balancing a camera on self timer.
We were in the clouds.where does this story begin?
(it was the day the sky was falling in)
need to sort through alll the pictures
more will come.