Sahyadri and the reclaimed lands.

he wakes up and looks at the ceiling. Ceiling Fan.

She is already in the kitchen. Boiling Milk.

he closes his eyes. the Sayhadris.

She looks out of the window. adds tealeaf.

He comes and stands behind her. kiss on the nape.

She covers the heated vessel with a lid. Brings down the boil.

He talks about erosion. How he feels at par with the western ghats. How he remembers the crayons and the monsoon and his childhood packed in a crayon box. The color of the transparent water in the lake nearby. He is vanishing and feeling eroded like the Sahyadris. He says.
The Western Ghats and it's magical days.

She tries to forget all this. All of this.
 The sound of bacon frying in its own fat.
The horrible lustful smell of it.
 Through the window she sees the white flowers falling.
 She throws these images outside the window.
Out of each and every possible window.
Color temperature of life SHIFTS

Pours herself a cup. Sits on the sofa. It's without milk this time.
Not like the last night. Not like the last morning.
Nothing is the same. A is not equal to a,
And B is not equal to b.









Looking at new flowers and rays.
Fitting feet in the painful leather again.
Without hanging onto the past again.
Stepping out, once again.
Mosaic is more romantic than marble she says.

She will soon go to the shore. Let the old memories sink into
the sea along with the golden drop of Sun.
The people standing against this background
in a silhouette will too forget her soon
The unfortunate maternal love
this land presented her with,
will happily disown her too 

 A drop of gold. She likes to call the Sun.

* Parts of Stanza 1 and 2 are inspired and partially taken respectively by the works of an upcoming Indian writer/ photojournalist and film maker Ishan Sadwelkar. The Sahyadri metaphor is a part of his extensive study and understanding on the region. 

* The pictures have been clicked by me at Sinhagadh fort(lies in Sahyadri range), my lovely Kitu Gupta's house in Mumbai and the 'arabian sea-the shore-the all and ever accepting endless horizon' seen from Juhu Chowpatty. 

bhaari post

There are some days in MITID, my college, that make me feel like I am actually in a college. All thanks to some really talented friends and faculty which know how to teach and inculcate the habit of expressing ourselves on a regular basis. It is just that it is not so often that one does so. The open elective course in our 6th sem brings out the best of us. I did mine last year which made me go through a carrier change and a reformation phase in life. Well it's not that hardcore too. I don't mean to give any wrong ideas here. It's a course in which us 'design' students are made to choose from a list of activities other than their own departments.

You will come across a Retail student working on a sewing machine figuring out the stitch for his vest, a product student dying endless ropes for an elective in weaving, a graphic design student understanding how zeebrush works. And same goes for everyone else. It's like acquiring a new skill-set all together and not being under the pressure of doing it to get marks, but to have a product by the end of it all.

This year's highlight for me was the comic illustration O.E. conducted by Aroop Sir from the animation department. Some of the panels were so good that made me laugh at and enjoy the very reason of our existence in this place. Humor often comes out from a tragedy. And the students came up with hilarious visuals of the day to day life we spend here at mitid. Some choose to sulk over the problems and some come up with light hearted comical visuals to eradicate the misery temporarily, which does no harm to anyone :-)

I don't really know who has done what, but just sharing the stuff students had done during the course. These were one/two/three panel artboards for comic design. Took all the snaps in a hurry as I had to catch my train to Mumbai. Was lazy to crop and compose (like always). Also, scanner was not the feasible option at that moment. The folks currently at Mitid would empathize with me :-P

Detachment Stage : love

Yesterday was spent at Matheran. You shall get to know soon why I was there and what for. But the point of this post being made is something which mattered to me in the current context of my life. 

I am an illiterate when it comes to dogs. I have realized I am one when it comes to human beings as well now. There is always a person who makes you feel that way at some point of your life then and now. 

But very few souls make you feel wanted and loved. Very few express their love and willingness to be with you. Some do it but are full of their own insecurities and call it just pure need. Some go one step further and term it as clingy behavior and an obsession when you ask for it. And then I met Charlie the white pup yesterday. 

I have always been good with dogs. And cats. And babies. Yes. Im sure a lot of people can relate to what I am saying here. Somehow we connect better with those who don't have the power to blabber too much or process very little. But mostly with those who just feel pure emotions. So when I was done spending some time at the sunset point, I was heading back to the open area where mules and tea shops and infinite number of monkeys had set up their base at. Where my newly made friends and team members were working on something. From a distance I saw this tiny little thing running towards us, chasing after a family who was very fancily doing their 'khachchar-rounds'. I don't know what came to my mind and the next instinct was to grab him. That moment onwards we were inseparable. People clicked his photos, took their photos with him, my group people made jokes about how he found his mother (me) and blah blah. It did this weird thing of stretching itself and sticking it's belly on the ground as if It was taking in all the warmth that the red laterite soiled earth had to offer. 

I got him to the hotel. Fed him hand-mashed biscuits. The pup slept on my arm with his face hidden under my elbow throughout a song performance and a magic show. We fed him some chicken and soggy roti. Some random uncle wanted to get his pictures clicked with him and was completely manhandling the baby. I obliged but after a point took the pup away as the baby was feeling uncomfortable. Annoying prick of an uncle that was. By this time he was named charlie by the people around ( I swear I wouldn't have let that happen had I been not busy with arranging for his dinner in the dining hall). So I made charlie sleep on a thick yet soft brown doormat and covered him with a thick turkish towel. He kept on waking up again and again. I kept on removing the army of tics on it again and again. It kept on shivering. I took it to the hall outside and made him sleep on a couch with his bedding intact. Finally not giving a fuck about whether he sleeps or not, whether the sounds disturb him or not, whether he gets scared or not. Clearly we both could not sleep. And the more I spent time with him the idea of not being able to adopt him became more and more painfully disturbing to me. By each and every passing moment I was being content with the presence of this creature in my life. So content that I din't feel the need to long for another person to be in it.  

I kept on wondering as to how really rescue this one. Whether I should leave it here or take it to my hostel and let it struggle along with the other dogs. Although the dogs in my campus are taken care of pretty well. But I don't want to take that step. For the first time I was in a situation to choose. Whether to take on someone's responsibility or leave just leave him behind, thinking life will take care of it. Mostly it's me whom people leave behind like that. But yes, coming back to my point, they are people. Flawed and over-processed people. Just like myself. 

A lot more had happened to me emotionally. Next morning when I was leaving for Pune I saw that Charlie wasn't there on his bed anymore. He must have been goofing around somewhere. I just kissed away his thoughts in my mind a goodbye. Since then I am avoiding all the possible interactions with dogs. Touching skinny ( our beloved young campus bitch) was relieving yet saddening. Now again my friend will be like "Why do you brood into negative spaces?" Well, maybe my mind loves doing that when I'm not feeling the love. And this I am saying when I have enough people in love who do love me, but I guess some of you reading this will realize what exactly I am talking about. 

Hoping to find him on my next visit to Matheran next month. Posting some pictures of the pup. And no I am not going to call him Charlie :-P   

Paw-ing around and earth-belly heat generation

friends from the group