of afternoon conversations and Puneri conversationalists...

We have some really great lunchtime conversations in my workplace. And that’s purely because of some great Puneri conversationalists. It’s really interesting to discover their traits and strange behaviour patterns. Traditional Punekars are to Maharashtra what the English are to Europe. Apart from the obvious disparity in the scale of these former mentioned areas, of course. Not only are they prim and proper all the time, Punekars are very sarcastic and haughty as well. They are a nice lot, albeit their strange traits and ways of talking. You have to know them and be like them to accept them.

Old school Punekars are gracious hosts, as long as you speak what they want to listen to and talk only when spoken to, and do not consume any of their precious resources. But you have to be a cheeky old school Puneri guest to be able to keep excellent relations with them, which might vary from mild insolence to sheer disregard.

Walk into a shop and you’ll be attended to immediately, as soon as you finish looking around and spot what you want to buy and manage to captivate the attention of the respective salesman / woman. Their motto: “shopkeepers are kings… consumers can wait...” Your presence is a mere hurdle to their business. They can do much better without you. The goods are top quality, and if you cannot be patient, you are free to go to any of the other non-maharashtrian traders. They may pamper you, treat you like Gods, and behave like you mean the world to them, but I’ll eat my words if you find anything that’s even remotely better than what you find in traditional Puneri shops.

Any true Punekar, irrespective of his/her age, maturity and general intelligence will always say that Pune isn’t what it used to be earlier even if at certain times, its spoken with a certain amount of remorse and nostalgia.

Once you become a Punekar, no other place suits you. The water, the weather, food, the greenery, et all… outside Pune becomes just unbearable. Punekars may be like the British, but they can beat any Spanish and Italian when it comes to siesta times. Everything shuts down between one to 4 in the afternoons, due to the most gorgeous weather save a few days in mid May… although, the Punekars will swear to the fact that it’s as cold here in winter as it is in Kashmir, even if the temperature falls a degree below normal. To understand this, ask a Mumbaikar… He will agree with the Punekar for once…

Traffic… now that’s one issue that I can dedicate a whole essay to. I’ll refrain from doing so, but there are some particularly unique issues cropping up here too. For instance, pedestrians are the most unwanted accessories on Pune roads. And foot-paths are for small time vendors and weekly/daily vegetable markets, which are to be accessed using bikes, which are to be parked right in front of the concerned vendor… interesting.

What do I say about cyclists…? The mechanised traffic shares a love hate relationship with the poor geezers on bicycles. They love to hate them… About the cyclists great sense of traffic rules, righteousness and comic timing (they do make one laugh sometimes) - the less said, the better…

There is a wonderful public transport system running in the city of Pune. So wonderfully engrossed it is in public duty, that making profit is none of its business. Punekars will only attempt stepping onto any one of its buses, only if they are just the way they are in their half baked ideas of European public transport systems and the TV visions of the Delhi Metro. I don’t blame them… Punekars are the ones who acquire a two wheeler as soon as they pass out of 10^th standard, and start attending college because that’s just the way it is. There’s no the Punekars can dream of pressurising the PMC to improve public transport. They would rather pressurise the PMC to revoke its silly rule that makes helmets compulsory because it’s difficult to see around and hear traffic even though it’s ok to listen talk on the phone or to music while riding.

Punekars score in interesting debates and presentation of hypothetical ideas, as you might have realised.

A very typical trait of Punekars is criticising the very city and people that they are a part of. The holier than though attitude allows them ignorance enough to overlook their personal shortcomings. You have to like them… they are only human…

I am showing many signs of turning into one myself, (as you might have noticed by now) having being in the company of Punekars for the last six years…

I can go on and on about Punekars, it’s really never ending. But what I started off with was that two of my Puneri colleagues were talking about a certain type of khakra that was available in a certain shop.

Ketaki asked Sneha (typically Puneri names) when the current packet of khakra in her house might finish off…? And Sneha replied saying that Ketaki will be duly informed whenever that might happen.

In simpler words, Ketaki, in her tactful Puneri cheek, wanted Sneha to get a packet of Khakra for her, and Sneha, equally Puneri and cheeky, duly replied…

We all speak Marathi, but it’s obvious that we don’t speak the same language.

the last few days ...

08.08.18

I have nothing to write these days. There’s just nothing happening. Sometimes even an advice sounds so valuable before I sleep over it. Then it sounds worthless. Something I could never so or be. Things are always so two faced. When I’m bored, all that sounds so important and fine, and suddenly, it starts sounding all fake and silly. I should always give myself some more time before I do or say certain things. Being impulsive will ruin me, as I have discovered in the past. I don’t mind being useless. In fact, there have to be useless people in the world for the world to appreciate useful people. Imagine if each and every one was a winner… winning would be mediocre. And we losers would be winners. Sure, we losers make sense sometimes.

I met Atul after a long time yesterday at Harshad’s place. I laugh imagining how we all were six years back when we first met. I was a kid just out of school! His new little guitar is damn amazing. That’s his travelling guitar. He made it in the US. And since he was there for just a few weeks, I thought maybe the guitar is the reason he went there. That’s what he did at Aroville. He spent his time playing his guitar and making one. That’s the best thing one can do there actually. Now, I want a little guitar myself! Maybe I can make one. But I don’t have the resources to do so. Good quality wood, some metal, and etc… And while I’m dreaming, I want a bass too. But anyway… some day I will. Here’s another one of my ideas left incomplete.

But that little guitar is very cute to play. And it has a very non-reverberating bass sound. And it’s little. And so cute. I want one!!!

Now I’m as green as his guitar… I always want more than I need. But that’s human nature. Not me. I don’t have a nice guitar strap. I need one so I can stand and play my guitar. I can make one. Sounds like a great idea, I jest need to check how I can make one at home.

My guitar string tensile structure idea is still somewhere in my mind’s closed closets, the key to which I have lost somewhere. I need to read more about tensile structures and all. I still remember my brilliant bridge, the one that I designed during the bamboo workshop in second year. It really was well made. If only the clutch wire had arrived before and if only I had had the necessary spare parts, it would have been lighter, nicer and much more effective. But I learnt a lot. Maybe some day if I get a chance to, I could design such a bridge for some little span. That would be nice.

Making a guitar is a very nice idea. Let me at least start researching on it. See if I can get some nice raw materials and some tools. I need to start spending some of my money on better things. So I spend more money on commuting

08.08.19

When I desperately wish for something and I get it, I usually end up making the most phenomenal blunder I can ever make, and give away whatever I have earned. On a silver platter. Even if I get something I deserve, it’s always lost so easily by my own divine deeds. I feel amazed. I work hard on self pitying, blackmailing the supreme force and get my hearts wish … and I blow up all the earned hard work in 5 minutes . How stupid can I possibly get!

08.08.20.

Sourabh said that the phase that I’m going through is good to galvanise me into the person that I aspire to be. According to him, the guilty feeling is good.

But how can something that makes me feel terrible make me do things later? How can I possibly believe this is going to help mould me? What do I want to be moulded into?

I’ve been losing sleep over all this. I’m wondering what to do to make this feeling go away. There’s a momentary relief when I’m doing things, but it comes back, and I feel like this again. My brain is overheating. Whatever little is remaining.

I set about making myself completely useless today. I did nothing constructive. Diem perdidi… what can be more disgraceful than that?

I just want to make my life a holiday. Everyday should be one. But alas… it’s not to be… I’m not making it into one.

08.08.21

Gangu arranged for a little presentation that I’ll be giving at college on photography. It is a small session open for all as a part of first year basic design and 3^rd an 4^th year elective on photography. It’s going to be really interesting. Let’s hope I make sense to them of what I’m doing. I wonder what I should show them in terms of composition, and content. I have to start sorting photographs from today itself. I don’t want it to become an exercise in just displaying my pictures, but for them to understand about various ways of compositions and moments. About colours, spaces, textures and tones, shadows, movements, planes and masses … perspectives and focus, point and views and depths of field.

08.08.25

Sometimes, ideas just come from somewhere. Just like yesterday. Another afternoon power-cut forced me to switch off the computer in order to lessen the load on the UPS. And I sat down to see all that my mother discovered today. She loves to empty out drawers and take out all the unwanted stuff from there, and make way for more unwanted stuff that I love to accumulate. Yesterday, she found some old biconvex magnifying lenses. And a small lens from my former fish eye door viewer. The one which I was used for my initial lens baby experiments, and which was later relegated to that little box in one of the messy drawers once I found that it was the wrong lens. As a kid I always troubled my mother when I had nothing to do. So she would give me the junk in on of the messy drawers to buy her some peaceful time. We have, over time kept our respective habits intact.

So even before I could start yesterday afternoon, she handed the lenses over to me, and I was wondering what could be made out of them. Sunday afternoons are lazy, and I soon slept it off and woke up quite forgetting the lenses. Then post the grand spectacle of the Olympic ceremony and dinner, I was back with those lenses… I realised soon enough, that that one of the lens would make a wonderful fixed zoom lens which can focus on objectives in different visual planes. Now all I need is something to hold it. The lens would function if I moved it closer and further away from the sensor for focus, and so I needed to make it flexible. Don't think i can complete it soon though...

the brick wants to be...

the brick wants to be...
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

I passed by a hideous building today. It was one of those isolated new luxury apartments that was supposed to promote contemporary and healthy hillside living... the less said the better. And Devina told me that a year back while that building was being done up you could see bricks on the walls. Given the shoddy workmanship and shoddier quality of brick in Pune, it would come as no surprise if the above happened...

of weird dreams and pink socks and rains enough to flood my imagination crazy!

I have been having weird dreams. Yesterday night I dreamed that in the movie Dark night, Bruce Wayne has problems modulating his voice and suddenly starts speaking in his 'Batman' baritone in between the conversation. And he has to excuse himself and leave the room. Funny,... isn't it? I can remember his expression as he realises that he cannot control his voice, and turns around to clear his throat and turn back to find that he still has problems.
If only they made me make a batman movie...
I also dreamt that it rained so much that the streets and all are flooded, and so is my stilt parking, and I have to swim to get out. Well... I'm not complaining...
I had once teased Sneha to death the day I saw she wore pink socks. That until I walked into office wearing light pink socks yesterday. Sneha noticed this as soon and I entered and that was the moment I realised I was wearing pink socks... Yea... thats what happens when I leave my shopping to mom. I end up with light pink socks. But hey I'm a busy girl... (!)
Finally its been raining somewhat like what I want it to rain. I've been day dreaming more than usual. And my usual is a lot... But I can't help it. its just the most beautiful weather!

I was reading Calvin and Hobbes today, when i came across these 3 strips... Bill Watterson is a smart geezer... and he draws damn well. In fact, I don't think there can be a cartoonist that brilliant again!

013:365

013:365
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

hmmm... what do i write... except i'm going to miss Shruti. Now i'll see her next year. I'm happy we all met her today before she left for the US. One years time is a lot. and things change. And she has made us all promise we won't get married while she's in the US. She wants to be there for all our weddings. All i can say to her is - Don't worry Shruti... it's not going to happen soon ;)

012:365

012:365
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

the day starts not so nicely, but i get my film developed. The first one through the yashica GSN Electro 35. Its pretty amazing. and I liked the results. Now going to shoot more. Then office was lazy. Still no hard rain. I'm almost dying for it now. 3-6 hours of power cuts at the area where i work, inverter batteries not charging well. too much work. The mood not as i wish it should be ... monsoons should be much more fun. not halfhearted like they are now... well... hoping (yet again) for better times ahead...

011:365

011:365
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

all i can do is think of the days and the people...

010:365

010:365
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

and the realisation hits... hits hard. tell me what I did? and I'd never do it again. But tell me.
the bad phase continues... and it doesn't rain enough. Heard of Miroslav Tichý for the first time... wonder how i didn't know anything about him till now!

008 & 009:365

009:365
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

I sensed the end. Another chapter closing, and I’ve decided to leave the book for now. No last glances, no farewells, no tears. It just faded out. Not for me, though. For me, it was just starting. But as usual, its not me who decides such stuff. Its never me who wants to fall into it. It’s never me who gets out of it. I am made to do these things. Somebody else decides. And most of the times, its over before it even starts. Not new, it isn’t. But I’m not getting immune. And I’ll let time heal it again. Until the next time… I wish there would be some chapter that doesn’t ever finish, but I think I’m being too optimistic when I wish.
It was a nice Saturday and Sunday I had. Saturday was a site visit with Anjali and Samantha. Those two are nice to hang around with. Lunch was at home, and dinner out with friends.
Sunday morning woke up late. It is a lazy day today. It’s in the air… Nandu uncle invited Revati and me for lunch. Medini Aunty cooked fish for us. It was a wonderful afternoon, and I was glad to be with Revati on Friendships day.
All this mellowness in the air... need some hard rain to cool off.

007:365

080801

007:365
Originally uploaded by DraconianRain

After five hopeless days…
Pretty cool eh?
Well, even if it isn’t to you… it is to me…
I ACTUALLY did it. Revived Shekhar Sir’s old GSN camera! That’s what he gave it to me for… All that it needed was a 6 v battery of the 4LR44 kinds. And those are hard to find here. I had an idea of actually fabricating one with four 1.5 v batteries of the LR44 kinds. But I felt it was stupid. So when another friend suggested I try it out, I said, what the heck…after 5 days of failure, what’s the big deal with facing another one…
So a few minutes later, I had 4 1.5 v LR44 batteries with me. Hunted the old drawers for a spring. That’s where I keep all the old junk that I feel I will use some day or the other but end up storing for ages altogether.
So I had the batteries, the spring, some thick handmade paper and tape, and a nut (no… not me). I just taped all the four LR44 batteries together, and wrapped the thick handmade paper around it so that it would fit in the camera. The nut held the spring in place and that came next on top of the 4 batteries. This whole unit functioned as the 6 v battery. Hows that!?! I’ve been breaking my head over this battery for the last 5 days, and now finally! I have brought it back to life. Now to load the rangefinder with some film! And tell Sir about his camera!
So if you have any gadgetry that works with a 6 v battery, and you can't find the 4LR44 type battery, just make it with four LR44 batteries the way I did.
The cam & LR 44 batteries - cost me 60 bucks (just the batteries, not the cam)

The nut, spring and the four batteries with paper.

the positive terminal of the battery.

The battery homogenised and now more or less the same saize as the 5.4 volt (not manufactured anymore) that it replaces.

The mess...