bheja fried!

...been two weeks since i got back to work on my film about my dad...but structure, edit, script toh is doooor ki baat...my head's been swimming over pc vs mac, premiere vs fcp, laptop vs desktop, 250gb vs 500gb, lcd vs crt, pirated vs legal software, to log or not to log...but it is begining to settle down...after chewing lots of friends ka brains...we're going the fcp macbook route...will tell more as i progress!

in the midst of all this, one night at mukul's party, again i got smashed n left without saying bye to anyone...hopeless!!

untitled 1

I'm talking to the shadows
from 1 o'clock til 4
And lord, how slow the moments go
When all I do is pour
Black coffee
Since the blues caught my eye
I'm hanging out on Monday
My Sunday dreams to dry

sahyog photo workshop

around this time last year, an ol' college friend - neha who works with cehat had asked me to do a photo workshop with a group of teenaged girls from the jari mari area near the airport...a whole year later, it finally happened! tho' closer home...

over two half days, we looked wrote drew talked n yes, took pics...




this group of largely muslim girls were doing stuff like this for the first time...their responses to looking and being looked at...about conforming to an image of themselves...so deep seated it would take me months to draw them out...n my hindi not helping things! but hey, (again) how do you explain perpective, depth, 2D to 3D in hindi? i mean, they understood what i was talking about...but ain't there some words?
but i enjoyed myself thoroughly tho' felt annoyed with the ngo that organised this. not willing to put any thought into it, quite content ki workshop kiya bacchon ke liye holidays mein. needles to say i haven't heard from them since!

for rohan!

this morning at sppl on the fringes of civilisation somewhere in goregaon east...here to take a photography workshop for kids who've had their homes demolished around the airport at jari mari...as i huffed n puffed up-slope to this dense towering maze, i remembered rohan's post... "and as non-rectilinear shapes try unsuccessfully to distort the concrete boxes".

trikone was "the" shape of the morning...

kashmir

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face
Stars to fill my dream
I am a traveler of both time and space
To be where I have been
To sit with elders of the gentle race
This world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait
All will be revealed ...

south north

needles to say... all good things should get better. so off we went to kuntal's for pao-bhaji n beer...such a gorgeous house!

and then!...to chandu payal's to suprise payal on the eve of her birthday...fairly crossed-eyed n very red-eyed by now!!

got up! stood up!

...set out early last evening to jehangir (sana in tow) for the demo in support of chandramohan.that was after dumping almost 6hours of footage non-stop!! more about that later.

lots of people landed up...a lot more than the usual suspects! much to cheer about esp chandramohan getting bail.

but as i looked around, i kept thinking about how demonstrations have changed...hurriedly painted posters n banners are passe...digitally printed vinyl!! we've certainly come a long way ;) but the most exciting was this mini fm transmitter someone set up, so we had people holding up these lil transistors or tuning their cellphone radios to 96fm to listen to the speeches etc!!

yes, we were reminded that this is not just about chandramohan, n so we must keep the fight on...but really, i wished more people landed up, i wished it din't have to be just jehangir...wished they didn't sing "hum hongey kaamayaab" to ruin a perfectly good evening of protest.

get up, stand up

The Free Chandramohan Committee will hold a peaceful demonstration on Monday, 14 May 2007 at 6 pm near the steps of the Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai to mark the arts community's anguish at repeated violations o cultural freedoms, including the violent assault on the young Baroda artist Chandramohan and the continuing persecution of M F Husain, among other instances.
Since this gathering will be in the nature of a spontaneous demonstration, we will be gathering in groups of three or four people, and position ourselves outside the Jehangir. Please dress in black and white: a measure of symbolism may not be out of place on this occasion.

up n down

...been readying myself to re-start work on my film about my dad...the easier part was getting malay to do a premiere pro upgrade. but my desktop is hopelessly outdated! pentium3 500MHz just ain't good enough to run windows xp which will run premiere pro...
...looks like i am chicken-ing out of going in for a fully loaded mac desktop with fcp. can't seem to allow myself the extravagance for a personal non-funded film, besides there'll always be better ways to utilise that money...
...got all excited re-reading barthes 'camera lucida'..."ultimately - or at the limit- in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes. "the necessary condition for an image is sight", janouch told kafka; and kafka smiled n replied: "we photograph things in order to drive the out of our minds. my stories are a way of shutting my eyes"...
...dunno how this my story will shape up. i keep postponing the confrontation. but tomorrow comes diksha, happy to help me with the edit while she waits nervously for a call from ftii. now i'll just have to work!!

6/6

no no, not my perfect vision...
just back from kerala...had gone there with mum, sis n kids for my sister's husband's mother's brother's son's wife's brother's wedding! ha! now i know!! n more!! but about that later...
...but this was some trip!...we travelled each of the 6days we were there.
day1: bombay-calicut
day2: calicut-kannur
day3: kannur-calicut (attended the wedding reception!)
day4: calicut-kochi
day5: kochi-calicut
day6: calicut-bombay
phew!...didn't know if we were going or coming!! but still, it was bliss, yes, hot n sultry like those masst mallu nymphettes...my first trip to malabar...and loving it. within a couple of hours after landing, we set out to kappad beach. 'twas in may back in 1498, that vasco-da-gama landed n the rest is all,er history!...sadly, a nondescript marker to hoot but a beeauuutiful beach... no pics this time, digitalpics i mean.
been taking black n white pics of anil m's extended family while tracing his family tree...how excited they were to make the connections for me as they delved deep into their fading memory. anil's mum was the first woman driver in kannur! n she drove around in a hindustan! she came from a revered "gurukal" household, whose forefathers were sanskrit scholars!! whoa...
and what food! aaahh!...beef fry pepper fried mussels roast chicken karimeen curry n fry putta kadala tapoica n kaccha kela bhaaji barrota appams fish n chicken biryani...o man, so delightfully sinful...ate slept travelled ate slept travelled...
o da damn phone broke it my thought processssss...

o these goenchos!

...excitedly i rode to margao to get digital prints of all they had shot the previous day n this morning only to run into the good ol goan siesta! aaargh!...1-3pm sorry no printing, our shop is open but...what if i need it urgent? 100rupees per print! whattt?? left the shop aghast...found photopaper n figured it'd be easier to print it on tino's psc.
i was tired n thought i'd show them chaplin's 'gold rush' post lunch...

the initial chaplin antics had them in splits, but midway they lost interest or got distracted by hubert's tattoo art...black n white is boring no, said one. i pulled it out n we talked about cartoons n animation n i told them that my friend geetanjali had made a short film (printed rainbow)that i wanted them to see...rapt attention!...i think she's dreaming, said one...again black n white, complained another...is she dead, asked one sadly towards the end...yaaay she's alive! o so soon it got over, can we see it again...i beamed broadly!

the second day

...the kids landed up at 8:30am itself! and brought along 2 more kids...n later another 3 naval school kids landed up...phew! how was i going to manage 18-19 kids??!! luckily, there was tino's friend - hubert who came down from pune.

he did some drawing with one group as i took the other lot with mic n headphones up to a hillside full of birds...

they were amazed how clearly the mic picked up the sounds...on our way back, we went over to some of the kids houses since they wanted to take pics of their parents or whoever was at home. sure, i said...my finger in one of their hands, my face being stuffed with ripe black sweet karvandas...we went house to house...



so thats, schubert n sybol with their older brother; ancy with her parents and nelisha, savio n myron with their granny n kid sister. such a nice way to get to know my future neighbours...ancy's dad makes the best urraak around; schubert's mum sells fruits all day from 7am n comes home only around 10pm!! nelisha was my inexhaustible translator...

meanwhile!

elections are round the corner n this ward has been reserved for women...

saturn struck!

ever since i got this telescope, i've been dying to see saturn. my first night in goa, at a friend's (mike) newly constructed house, we set it up n soaked in the glorious half moon. Mike's niece wasn't impressed n kept perstering me to find saturn once i told her that saturn is also somewhere up there. tried several times to locate but failed, gave up n went down to dinner...

...post-dinner, i decided to give it one last try n within minutes sighted this most beautiful ringed object...my heart leapt with joy as i screamed out, 'i found it'! up ran everyone - aunts, cousins, uncle...simran danced around i saw saturn i saw saturn she cell-phoned immediately her less fortunate cousins in bombay n her dad.

i stayed up n kept looking...couldn't get over the sight...i am finally seeing saturn. this pic looks close to what we saw that night. just that the rings weren't along the horizontal, but vertical! what a trip!!...o i want that camera mount so i can take pics too...soon!

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