Urban poetry

 The metro station is familiar territory but it is cold and impersonal. It’s all shining steel, hard stone and bright lights. It is also arms, legs, heads, hair, skin, breath and sweat. But it is here that some fleeting moments of sheer beauty are created by chance. Right here, in the spaces between bodies, stone and metal.

Walking into this cavernous underground labyrinth stuffed full of flesh and things, I am drawn to this couple. Their hands are moving, but their mouths only just. It’s as if someone filtered out all the noise and what is left is pure communication – stretched mesmerizingly thin around them like the rainbow-surface of a soap bubble. And in this bubble around them the space seems to expand with each gesture-for-word. Theirs, I realize, is a silence, which in the absence of words is more than just a lack of sound. It’s an abundance of calm. They talk without speaking. And all around them are words being spoken, yet nothing is being said.

And then there is me.

Smiling like a fool, overjoyed at this urban poetry being written a few hundred feet under the earth, set to music by trundling trains of gleaming silver.

So what is it about a mundane metro commute and two people talking to each other in sign language, that is so unspeakably poetic? It’s like a missed heartbeat in the racing pulse of life in the city. Exhilarating, this precious pause.

If less is more...

If less is more, more or less, do you want more or less?


There are certain questions that come up inexplicably, without invitation and make their home in the recesses of one's mind. While some of these questions border on the absurd some others are inevitable and universal. And anyone who says they do not know of them is lying.

What do you want?
How much do you want?
What do you need?
How much do you need?

It was an economics class and then a history class in school that I was first introduced to the terrible twins - wants and needs. That it was to be an eternal quest for some sort of amicable reconciliation between the two,  I could not have known back then. Karl Marx knew it but I didn't.

"I need you. I want you. Oh baby. Oh baby." 

Human greed is a peculiar thing. And by greed I mean real, unbridled avarice of the most material kind. It is peculiar because while human beings take to it willingly and with gusto, its prospects are from the start bleak and pessimistic. For while greed is an endless cycle of acquisition far beyond what need dictates, it is still desperately incapable of providing fulfillment. The cup of greed is never full.

"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse"


So why hasn't the 'less is more' philosophy become a life-choice instead of just an oft-quoted aesthetic principle? Is it narcissism - a firm belief that we are the centre of our own universe and everything must indeed gravitate towards us? Is it the curse of the information age to stare every day at an image of ourselves reflected on multiple screens  - only  prettier, fairer, richer, happier, thinner, sharper, cooler, more fun, more adventurous and more unlike our real selves?

"You talkin' to me? There's nobody else here."


Everyday we accumulate things. Surround ourselves with objects and noise - the noise of other people accumulating and acquiring more than us. The noise grows with every tweet, every post, every update and becomes a cacophony until the original voice in our head is barely audible. A mere whisper.

What do you want?

How much do you want?

What do you need?

How much do you need?

Work and an Explanation of sorts

Everyone who has a blog knows what a blogging slump is. That's what seems to have plagued me. There seems to be a lot to say just no right combination of words to say them with. Of course I know that sounds like the cliche of all excuses. My mother would credit my insatiable appetite for sleep, my father likes to blame general laziness and incurable procrastination. But I say "It is infinitely better to shut up, than to sound like a stuttering fool." We live in shrill times, full of information-noise. I don't wish to add to that chaos.

So bear with my silence for a wee bit longer.

There is some new work to show. An educational teaching aid to explain the concept of the seasons / months in the context of the Indian 'Hindu' Calendar. The seasons in this case are not Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter but more nuanced divisions that respond to slight changes in weather that subsequently influence the rhythm of life in some parts of the country. Although one realises that these so called seasons are no longer as easily recognised in the course of the year thanks to a changing climate the world over, it is interesting to note the keen connect between life and nature that these 12 months or "Baarah Maas" indicate.

Here are some of the illustrations I came up with. Ignore the typos in the text pls.

cover page

Worked with Room To Read, India once again. And got to polish my Photoshop skills, which before this project came along were rudimentary at best. 

:) 

Taste of Salt

A short story written a while back after a visit to a fisherman's village in Nagapattinam which even 3 years after the tsunami, resembled a ghost-town where time had stopped the day the wave hit shore.

“More fish?” asked Nagamma, ladle full of fiery curry poised mid-air.

“No, I’m full”.

Murugan pushed away the half-eaten plate of food and rose to wash his hands.

Walking outside he savoured briefly the sound of his sleeping daughter. Her tiny frame lay curled on the mat, sleeping the deep sleep only children know. A smile played at the corners of his mouth.

  Nagamma watching from behind her pot of rice knew it well. That smile tinged with sadness. It had come to rest on her husband’s face ever since the waves had come to their village.

 *******

Murugan balanced himself in his boat. He gathered the net and planted his feet. It had to be just right. Otherwise the net would land in the water with an ungainly plop instead of the graceful splash. The water was the deepest blue edged with gold from the rising sun.

But something was different that morning. A strange current kept rocking the boat, throwing Murugan off balance.

“Amma, let me cast my net so I can feed my children?” he addressed the sea as he often did.

 But that day she was in no mood for his entreaties.

 *******

 A year had passed since the Big Wave roared and claimed the fisherman’s village.

The boy had been sleeping outside. He would fall asleep on the sand after Murugan set out with the others, and awaken on their return. It was a ritual adored by both father and son.

That morning the waves reached shore much before the boats.

“High as palm trees. Loud as a ship” The survivors would tell camera crews and journalists again and again.

“My child”

“My mother”

“My family”

 “Gone”

 “Murugan, the waves came and took everything!”

 Distraught, Nagamma clung to her husband who had become stiff as a tree. The only life left, streamed from his eyes.

 *******

Loss echoed through the village, down the highway, over the borders, through the television and into the ears of philanthropists. They came in droves to the little-village-that-was.

“We will rebuild it. No more huts on the beach” the Minister declared before his chopper sped away.

His audience returned the triumphant enumeration with mute stares. The new rehabilitation housing colony was to be set up 3 km away from the sea.

 *******

Murugan lay on his mat beside Nagamma staring at a hole in the thatch roof of his home by the beach.

“Why don’t you try to sleep Muruga?”

“I won’t be able to hear the waves Nagamma. Smell the salt. Or feel the sand in my house.”

Waving off a fly she closed her eyes.

“You weren’t there” she said. “When it happened, you weren’t there.”

Murugan was silent. He was listening to the distant rumble of the waves. In a few hours he would get up and push his boat into the water.

Turning on his side, Murugan stroked Nagamma’s forehead. She twitched slightly.

“I have lived as a fisherman as long as I can remember. And it is the only life I know how to live” said Murugan sensing his wife’s anguish.

“Do you know what I see each time we bring our boats ashore? I see land as I have never seen it before. Each day the waves have wiped the sand clean of yesterday’s battles. You will see. Tomorrow the sand will be free of yesterday” He said gently.

 “Get some sleep Muruga. The day will break soon.”

A solitary tear rolled down a fisherman’s sun-worn cheek and left the taste of salt in his mouth.

 

 

Greens are Good For You

I got to work on two fun projects last year. An informative book about plants and trees called 'Hari-Bhari' by Nirantar was one of them. Nirantar has a great track record as far as illustrations go so I was more than happy to work for them :)  These are just some of the illustrations that I made. I have always had a soft corner for all kinds of flora so this was right up my alley. 

Second fun project....coming up soon.