The dust has finally settled – quite literally. Here are the sights (no sounds, since we’ve gone cracker-free) from this year’s Diwali.
Deepavali (Diwali) is a time when people celebrate. Reasons and ways of celebrating vary.
Lighting the stairs
But the lights are the main features of the festival. In the place where I live, the festivities begin only in the evening, whereas in the place where our ancestors lived, the festivities are over even before the day begins. Its complicated, and I’ll save that for another post.
Decorative Earthen Lamp
So while the whole society around us celebrates, we have nothing to do. A feeling of loneliness, and isolation, inevitably begins to creep in. Something I term festive blues (okay, there may be others who’ll claim to have termed it thus).
This year, to fight the festive blues, I decided watch our neighbours making a rangoli outside their house.
A Traditional Brass Peacock Lamp
Again, in the place I live in, rangolis are made only on very special occasions, and are a form of recreation. In the culture we belong to, new rangolis are made daily. So when we see people making a big deal about rangolis, I really can’t understand it.
Small Decorative Clay Lamp
Since our rangoli had been made early morning, there wasn’t much to do. So yet again, I picked up the very intimidating camera and captured some sights of this diwali.
* * * * * *
Fighting against darkness
If you intend visiting India during Diwali, it could either be the best, or the worst experience of your life. All the bazaars are flooded with the most beautiful lamps and idols and what not. All houses are decorated with lights – both electric as well as oil lamps/candles. And since The Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi, enters only clean houses, all houses are squeaky clean and colourful rangolis are drawn. Of course, all the shops are crowded and everything is expensive. So you have to have great bargaining skills. And if you don’t like crackers or loud noises, well, then nothing can protect you against them!
Pots of Flame
Cheers!
PS. The photos here are free for anyone wanting to use them for non-commercial purposes. A link would be appreciated 🙂
‘The Lamp Is Lit’ is a book authored by Ruskin Bond.
Another Deepavali (Diwali), another card! Also, a poster I made exactly a year ago… but forgot about!
Happy Deepavali!
I got the background wooden texture from here.
The lamp in the card is actually a sketch I made recently (after a break of 10 months, I finally picked up the pencil). I hope to post the sketch soon.
Celebrate a cracker-free Diwali
This is a poster I made last year. The background image (which I really liked so much, I just threw in a bunch of words to make it a poster) is by Anshu. I’d forgotten about it when I was uploading to the gallery (and it wasn’t very original either). This time around, I decided to upload it.
Wishing everyone a very Happy and Cracker-free Diwali 🙂
Cheers!
I love my gypsy-like, bead bracelet. I love it so much, I’m dedicating an entire blog page and several photographs to it!
A few days back I was fiddling around with a bead necklace… err… bracelet… Its just a really long piece of thread with lots of tiny beads.
We belong together!
All the beads are unique in their own way… Some are broken, some have cracks, some which have holes in weird places, and some which have strange shapes. In short, its made up of rejected stuff a.k.a junk!
A few of us in college had gone to a local market and we found a hawker selling these, dirt cheap…
Up close and personal
One look at those beads, and it was hard to resist… I immediately wrapped it around my wrist.
I loved it!
And then it broke – what else could you expect from a piece of junk.
In search of the next bead
But then, I loved it so much! So I repaired it, adding a few other beads from another broken bracelet.
Since then, the bracelet has been my constant companion. Wherever I have gone, its been with me. I’ve lost count of the number of times its broken. And the number of times
She strings sea shells...
its been repaired. But every time it’s been repaired, a little bit has been added to it – a few forgotten beads lying in the corner of the cupboard, beads that had fallen out of old dresses, and beads that had even been ripped out of fancy wedding invitations!
Standing out of the crowd
Not all of them were old, some were new, like sea shells, bright seeds collected during one of our holidays…
Panchayat
There is nothing orderly, symmetrical, or perfect about the bracelet, yet, to me, it looks beautiful…
As it was being repaired for the umpteenth time, I decided to photograph the imperfect, pretty little beads. I’d borrowed my brother’scamera. I don’t know much, except that it had a special lens, which had a fixed focal length. I clicked a few times, and the result was horrible! That was enough to scare me.
Odd one out
If the camera wasn’t intimidating enough, I realised I had no clue how to go about taking the pictures. So I just switched to the auto mode and let the camera decide everything else!
Galaxy
All the photographs here were taken by the camera! Hope you enjoy the photographs.
Cheers!
Imperfectly perfect!
Since I rely on material distributed over the internet, it is only appropriate that I do the same… The photographs here may be used for non-commercial purposes. A simple credit would be appreciated 🙂
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a post… Thanks to some work… Hope to write about the experience soon, for now, here’s a greeting for the upcoming Festival Season
Its been a long time since I’ve paid a visit to the blog. In fact its been a long time since I’ve paid a visit to anybody over the past few months.
It’s the annual competition season and the Creative Minds Competition is around the corner. As usual everything had to be done at the very last moment and as the deadline for sending entries drew nearer, everything took a back seat.
When I say, everything, I mean everything including food and sleep! For the last week we slept a little more than a few hours and food refused to go down out throats as tension and pressure reached its peak. Looking back, I’m struggling to recall all that happened – everything seems blurry.
This project involved two people – myself and my friend Atul. In a way it was a shared dream. We took up the project more as a challenge to ourselves, to stretch ourselves, and to find out how much we could do. At first, we felt it was a small project, and the two of us would be enough. But as things started shaping up, the magnitude of our work multiplied. After initial reluctance, even we realised we needed at least one more person for the job.
Both of us knew who we wanted on the team, but as luck would have it, she was busy. We asked our mentor if there would be anyone who could do the job. Even we tried to look for that elusive third person, but in vain. Finally we decided that the two of us were enough. Everyone around us had doubts about our capability to pull off the project, perhaps even we had our fair share of doubts.
But we had to finish the project. After all, it was our idea, and now that it was out of the bag, we couldn’t let some one else pick it up. And above everything else, it was our reputation on the line. Last year, I had the misfortune of being a part of 2 projects of a similar scale. One that got completed, and one that didn’t. The one that was completed fell short of expectations (and I fervently thank my stars I didn’t play much of a part in it). The one in which I was involved more actively, couldn’t be completed. To be honest, no one could be blamed for the fiasco. The time period allotted for both the projects was simply too short.
We couldn’t afford to repeat last year’s mistakes.
Our deadline was the 30th of September, and somehow, we scraped out something. Its all over (at least officially), and it has been a very adventurous journey, filled with ups and downs, and last minute patches. I do not know when we started it (not the precise date anyway) but we had a rough storyline in the third week of June (my email puts it to 19 June).
Over the past 3 months we have learnt a lot. In many ways it was a crash course in project management, as well as time management. We realised how much effort professionals have to put in to produce quality results. As a lay person, it is easy to criticise what we see, but it is only when we try to achieve the same, we begin to appreciate what it takes to be there, and do it. At a student level, theoretically things seem simple and logical. But when it comes to doing things, especially with a deadline at hand, it is an entirely different ball game.
As I mentioned before, we managed to complete the project. But honestly, it was way below what we had expected. Perhaps we bit off more than we could chew, perhaps it was because it was our first attempt, perhaps we were one person short, maybe it was the lack of time, or perhaps a salad of everything, with a pinch of technical glitches (not according to taste)!
So after all that’s said and done, we’ve mutually decided not to share our adventure till we can safely make it public without embarrassment. Now that there is no deadline hanging over us, it is hard to tell when that time will come, but I sure hope its sooner rather than later.
For now, we’re enjoying a little break (spent the past 2 days sleeping :P)
Since the festival season has already begun, I decided to share something I made last year. It is a Diwali card I made for display. I had presented it to our mentor but Atul managed to pull out a photograph he took of it. So here it is…
As has been the case for a very long time, my brother offered me another set of assignments.
The first assignment was to design a visiting card, and the second, a web page for himself.
The Visiting Card
As usual, I didn’t have much clue as to what to do. The visiting card had to be in single colour (due to budget constraints). I decided to use th Fibonacci Golden Spiral as well as the photographer’s rule of third’s as a backdrop, with a golden yellow colour scheme.
The Printed Version Looked Something Like This
But the printer had other ideas and refused to print the cards (on technical grounds) :P. So my brother decided to print them at home on cream coloured card paper in black ink. So it finally ended up looking something like this (colours look a little different in print).
Screenshot of web page in the browser.
For the webpage, I put in a slideshow of some of his best photographs (the ones that appealed to me the most) over a grungy background. I used a background provided by a very generous lady named Brenda Clarke.
Here’s a screen shot of how it appears in the web browser. It has been uploaded to the web server and can be viewed here.
A little something I created with a help of a few friends 🙂 (read people who are willing to give a way stuff for free over the internet)
About a month back, I got another assignment from my brother (as usual, he’s the one giving me work :D). He was working on his office magazine and there was a section called ‘newbies’. So he shot a few photographs of each of the newbies in funky poses and told me to give it a retro kind of look.
Retro Intro Page
I searched over the internet and downloaded a few brushes (short cut I hear?) and used them to create a 70’s type of background. Not sure if it really looks like the 70’s. Here’s a sample page with space for an introduction/short history of the person featured.
The brush-set I used is called Grunge Vectors by Circle of Fire. Deviant Art is a really great resource for all things artistic. The amazing quality of work that people give away for free is really really unbelievable.
The photograph I’ve used for this particular sample has been taken by someone who goes by the Flickr username of Alagos, and who was willing to put his photographs under the creative commons licence. So here’s credit to the photographer who took this very cute photograph (I couldn’t use original photographs of the newbies for lack of permission).
I’ve also used a lot of the spatter brushes (same as the ones I used for the Holi card) for the background.
Long long ago, when I didn’t have a blog page, I just recorded the random thoughts that came to my mind in separate files on the computer. I wrote this little journal entry on the 22nd day of the month of May in the year 2010. It is in relation to the video about the monuments around Kotla Mubarakpur.
I was working on a short film about the little known monuments around kotla mubarakpur. The narration had been finalised and all that was required was to go for the photo shoot.One of the monuments that was to be covered was that of the Tomb of Mubarak Shah.
I had done a little research about how to get there. And all that I could find were a few photographs, and the location on the satellite image of the area. I could not find any information about the occupant of the tomb, except his name.
A week ago, I had gone hunting for the monument with a friend of mine. I feared going there all alone, knowing that it was a medieval village, and there were very narrow gullies. We asked for directions from some locals, and after a long time, finally managed to locate it. An elderly gentlemen, who gave us the precise direction to the tomb, asked us rather suspiciously why we wanted to go there. We just replied that we wanted to see it. It was rather awkward.
When we reached the tomb, we found it fenced up and locked. We were expecting it. Entry to the tomb was sealed. The village buildings were barely a few feet from the monument. The monument cut a rather sorry picture. It belonged to one of the rulers of Delhi during the fifteenth century. And it was languishing in the middle of some obscure village, with even the locals not bothered about it.
Today, I had to go there again, with my brother, for the actual shoot. We left early in the morning, in order to avoid the scorching summer sun. I felt rather lazy and was beginning to regret the idea.
But we had set out, and the work had to be done. I traced back my steps and to my relief, we managed to reach the monument without asking any one for directions. A horrible stench and open drains greeted us. My brother pulled out his camera and began taking some shots at a very close range.
Anyone with a rather fancy camera is bound to attract attention. And some shop keepers were leaning out of their windows. After a while, a few men surrounded my brother and began questioning him. He answered them in his usual calm and friendly manner. We had come there to see the monument, and were clicking photographs for personal reasons.
His answers seemed to be sufficient for them to relax around him. For, a few seconds later, a middle aged gentleman passed by and told me that it was the tomb of Mubarak Shah and said that we could enter it through the gate on the other side. We reached the gate and I climbed up the ramp in front of the locked gate. I looked at my brother and told him we could enter it. He joined me, and then we realised that it was locked.
Gates Unlocked (Photo by R. Karthik)
By this time, a lot of eyes were fixed on us. And just as we were turning back, a youth walked up carrying a set of keys. He opened the lock on the outer fence and entered the tomb. An observer shouted light-heartedly, “yeh yahaan ka maalik hai!” (He is the owner of this building).
He asked us to take off our shoes and we entered the tomb’s premises. It was then we realised, that we were probably the only outsiders to have set foot in this tomb. A very special privilege indeed. The caretaker then allowed us to enter the main burial area.
When we entered, we were awestruck. There were six tombs inside the tomb – not just one. They were covered with half burnt incense sticks and sweets. There was a broken street lamp fitted on to one of the walls lighting up the interiors. The inscriptions on the walls were well preserved and it was rather peaceful being inside. We took as many photographs as we could and exited the gate, thanking the care taker for his generosity.
As we were leaving, a local called out to the caretaker. “Upar bhi le jaao inhe” (take them upstairs as well).
My brother asked the caretaker, if there was a way to go upstairs as well. We had been around the circumference of the tomb and not noticed any staircase.
Once again the care taker unlocked the gate and ushered us inside. He told us not to take off our shoes and we followed him to another gate. It led to a hidden staircase to the roof. The stone staircase was steep, dark, narrow, and smelling of rotting flesh. With difficulty, we climbed up and reached the terrace. The main gumbad was surrounded by many chattris. I stood there chatting with one of the locals, sharing whatever little knowledge I had about the monument as well as the surrounding tombs, while my brother went around the terrace.
Once we had exited the premises, we spoke to some more locals who were still very suspicious. They told us how officials from ASI would just come there, give some false promises, and leave. The locals had taken it upon themselves to protect the monument.
It was amazing how, just a week ago, I had formed a rather negative opinion about the tomb – how it was lying completely neglected. And today, I had a completely different perspective. Some hospitable locals had granted us access to the monument that few could get. They had taken care of the monument that no one had bothered about.
We left the village and the stench behind us, still unable to believe our luck.
Back home, I edited my script for the film. To the concluding lines, I added, “Though these monuments are over 500 years old, there are no wide-eyed tourists gazing in awe at their magnificence. They might have suffered the ignorance of officials, but they have stood the test of time and survived with a little help from the locals of this enigmatic city called Delhi”
The video that I had been working on, had a roller-coaster of a journey and after almost a whole year, I am relieved to say that I’ve finally managed to complete it! The video has been uploaded to youtube:
Last week my brother asked me to make an e-card, if it can be called one, for the festival of Holi. He told me he wanted a splash of colours and gave a small reference image to work with. I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it, so I took a short cut! I downloaded a few paint spatter brushes and applied them randomly, and viola! It was done!
Now since the bulk of the work was done using brushes, it’s only fair that I should give credit to the sources of the brushes. There’s one called Bombay_Wisps and one that’s called benblogged(splatter). So a big thank you to them for putting out stuff so that other’s can use them :).
On my brother’s suggestion, I decided to upload it here. I admit, its late. But anyway, here’s wishing everyone a great Holi 🙂
During one of our still life sessions, we were told to make a flower vase, with flowers in it of course! Nature, and anything to do with plants is a very exciting prospect for me. I’ve often joked that I have no interest in humans 😛
So I began, and had a good start. But then it all went horribly wrong. The backdrop was a sheet of tarpaulin, and I really messed it up. I was a little sad, because some of the flowers had come out pretty decent. But the leaves and the background really let it down.
So here’s where the software came to the rescue. Initially I thought I would paint it digitally, with the sketch as the base. It was a rather tedious process. It took me a hell of a long time to do it, and with other work piling up, I sort of abandoned it. Then, when the time came to get my portfolio up and running and post stuff on the blog, I got back to the file. It was then that it dawned on me that I needn’t waste so much time! While a clean painting would look nice, I simply did not have the time, or the motivation to complete it.
Edited Sketch
This sketch was completed on 1st November 2009. So it was already stale. So I used some short-cuts and just adjusted the colours using standard colour-correction tools and presto! The ugly background had disappeared! 🙂
So while this sketch is not part of my gallery, I think it is pretty decent enough to have its own post 🙂
A couple of years back, I joined sketching classes. The classes included study of still life, perspective as well as the study of human anatomy. But I kind of got stuck at still life!
There is something about putting pencil to paper, and just looking at an inanimate object. Its just sitting there, patiently waiting for you to make its portrait. It doesn’t feel conscious of your presence, it doesn’t move about, and it definitely does not need breaks.
Like I mentioned earlier, every sketch has a story behind it. Here’s one of them:
Our sketching batch was wound up within a couple of months and our faculty member had told us to continue sketching and show him our work. But, as it turned out, I had stopped doing anything. As the months rolled, I began getting negative thoughts. I was sad most of the time and maybe I was on the verge of depression. I felt like I had nothing to do, a feeling of utter uselessness. I remember crying miserably on my mother’s shoulder and telling her how I felt.
She somehow consoled me, and although my tears had dried up, I was still sad. So, out of sheer desperation, I picked up my sketchbook, emptied a little ‘kullad’ (a small earthen pot) and began drawing. It was late at night and everyone had gone off to sleep. I stayed up till midnight and completed the sketch.
The Kullad that saved me
The very next day, I attempted to sketch a rare, odd-looking seashell right next to the mud pot. Soon I felt my self belief returning.
My mother remarked that the sketch looked sad. But I will always respect it. It’s not the best, but it is the sketch that saved my confidence.
Musings of an eccentric mind 