Here is where I want to be

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When all else seems worthless...

I come back to my blog for these reasons:

1. I don't have to continuously read about the current trending topic. Like the demise of Bal Thackeray. 

2. I don't see the links to the obituaries, the well researched articles, the neutral comments and the ones from news channels publishing updates of the situation by the second, the ridiculous jokes and comments about an 86 year old politician who even influenced the Mumbai half of my Maharashtrian family.

3. No body reads my blog anyway. And even if some people do, they seldom reply, so there's no chance of a conversation happening. Just my one sided thoughts.

Today, I drove back from Konkan after an annual diwali vacation with my Grandparents and my Mother. Also, I drove extremely well.

Since people were worried about 'Swedish house mafia' - the electronica group- being stuck in their hotel after the famous death. Obviously they cannot play. So since this is of utmost importance, and so many people tweeted about them, I decided to listen to their music.

Now as I type out my thoughts randomly, I am so glad I am not in Mumbai. So glad I never wanted to be in Mumbai. So so glad that I will never live in Mumbai for longer than a couple of days at a stretch. I cannot support anyone who raised the 'Marathi manoos's' self worth by lowering the others. It's just not done.

The moment they created an 'us and them' situation, we were doomed.

The boy with the broken arm and the lost camera

There was a boy I met once- with a broken arm who lost his camera on a bus. 

His arm isn't broken anymore and he has a new camera; but to me, he will always be the boy with the broken arm who lost his camera on a bus. 

I wonder how it would be if I met him now- without the broken arm, without the regret of the lost camera? Will the image ever change?

But that's my side of the story. I wonder what's his...

Why I like 'Lakshya'

This particular movie is one of my most favourite movies ever. And the reasons are as follows: 

* The protagonist Karan Shergill - And the transformation in his character is quite inspiring! 

*The subtle humour sprinkled about - One of my most favourite scenes from the movie is 'Detail Dhava Position' from GC Karan Shergill's unruly early IMA days. Watch it because description doesn't do it justice. Besides, I was the only person in the movie hall to laugh out loud at this scene.

*The music: Each and every song in this movie is so damn inspiring. Especially 'Payega jo lakshya hai tera'. It just fills my mind with unlimited vigour.

*Boman Irani as Karan Shergill's father: You just expect him to do something funny anytime, but he holds his fort as a credible character without it becoming a caricature, doesn't he?

*The secondary characters: They are brilliantly detailed and played. Each one has a significance and Karan Shergill rarely has the best lines in the movie! It's these characters that give the film so much depth. Think Amitabh Bachchan who doesn't dominate. Think Sushant Singh with his 'Malihabad ke aam' and Ranveer Shorey with his extremely good luck. They stay with you.

*The beautifully shot battle scenes: ('Shot' isn't quite the right word) I've seen other war movies made by Indian filmmakers and I think this movie has some of the best of the lot. After seeing LOC my father said that the scenes in that movie were probably more detailed and accurate, but Lakshya had more heart without it being melodramatic and loud (literally... Imagine Sunny Deol in border... or Ajey devgan's swear words beeped out in LOC)

Lakshya's battle scenes were balanced well by other events like the hospital scene etc. Even though Preity Zinta had the most ridiculous wigs on, and botched up her accent in a scene or two, she adds a feminist flavour to the film which doesn't have noteworthy women characters (Lillet Dubey has an excruciatingly tiny part in the film)

*The fact that I got a running commentary from my father throughout this movie. He was transported back to his IMA days, and I heard stories from him about his time there which convinced me that my father was a wild child! I've seen his photos from his college days and the transition from that long haired-cigarette smoking-bellbottom wearing boy from Bombay to the uniformed Second Lieutenant was quite similar to Karan Shergill's in the movie. 

After the movie, he told me that they made him repeat a semester for disciplinary reasons. That day, my jaw dropped to the floor and my father officially became my No. 1 hero! 

This movie has added so much value to my life as well as to Indian films!

If I ever lose my memory...

...play this song for me! 

(I might not get my memory back, but this will remain my most favourite song ever!)

goodbye old friend... 1999-2012

As I say goodbye to an old friend, companion and extremely good villain to my silly imaginary stories (most of which came to me after I turned 18) nostalgic songs play in my head. 

It was 1999 when this oddly menacing paper mache being came to my life. With a dark brown surface and a perpetual open mouth with pointy plastic teeth and red eyes, it was an intimidating figure for it's height.               

It was a happy chappy. Always smiling whether swallowing fuel guzzlers or posing for toothless fisheye photos. Or taking the flak for my damaged hard drive during a really fucked up semester at college.

It got varnished recently by the guy who was polishing the woodwork at my house recently. I decided to give it away to a kid who I knew would love it the way I did.

Goodbye old friend. Farewell.

There will never be a Godzilla like you in my life again. 

I love arches

Photos of some arches from my ongoing projects

I really do love arches!

Buzzing

Ever since I started architecture college, I have been surrounded by the smell of fevicol. There are two different types of fevicol glue: SH and MR. SH: what carpenters use and MR: what they sell commercially in stationery shops. We made scale models of our designs in class, and fevicol SH was recommended for the fact that it was stronger and cheaper. There were alternatives like bulbond which were even cheaper, but I preferred fevicol.

If you have ever used fevicol extensively, you'll know how much fun it is to play with it. Spread it on your hand and peel off the layer once dried and etc... But sometimes, I've also enjoyed sniffing it. The smell was addictive. and I got a temporary buzz every time I did. I still do.

So today, I used my fevicol MR bottle to squeeze out some glue, and instinctively began sniffing while listening to some good music. Gave me a momentary buzz...

PS: I'd read somewhere that that 'feeling' is from the brain cells getting fried inside... I don't know if thats true.

Deaf and Dumb

I listen to music while I work. It's not like I cannot listen to music while working, but given a choice, I put on my headphones and listen to my favourite music. To the other people in my house, I am temporarily deaf. Sometimes when my mother wants to speak to me while I'm listening to music, she says it out loud and when she's finished and I finally realise she's trying to say something, I remove my headphones and turn back to listen to her, she communicates with me using hand symbols.

I think she does it on purpose.

looking for squash partners...

Ever since my old squash partner shifted to Bangalore, I haven't played that game. As a parting gift, he loaned me his racquet so that I could find someone else to play squash with. Unfortunately, I am still looking for partners, and I feel sad for keeping his racquet and not using it.

We always played squash at odd times, because it was cheaper to hire the court between 11 AM to 5 PM. Health club happy hours! The only other pople who would come to that fitness centre and that time were housewives who got their kids for skating or tennis class after school. And they would keep watching us play. We suspected that it was because they somehow fell into the charms of my partner's gloomy yet dimpled innocence.

It's not like I'm any good at squash, but I would certainly like to start playing again!

(in the above article, squash is not a euphemism for sex)

Tales from the construction site III

I was walking along a storeroom made of corrugated sheets yesterday afternoon when I heard something banging against the metal. This particular site is in a fairly remote tribal area and weird noises made by animals and insects are quite common. I looked towards the base of the shed from where the sound was coming from and saw a little snake trying to get it.

There's nothing interesting for you in there, snakey... unless your girlfriend has sneaked in there already!

Tales from the construction site... and beyond... II

I went to site a few months back to realise they had screwed up an arch. So I made them break it down and redo all the formwork. I went to see something else till they did it, and I realised they made a different mistake this time. So I supervised the next attempt.

The mason who was fixing the formwork wanted a measuring tape and the manager tossed it towards him.

He wasn't able to catch it.

The site manager was already pissed at the masons and he screamed 'Cricket nahi khelta kya?'

I'm someone else.

I read my own tweets from the past few days recently. And I come off as extremely shallow and self-centred. I don't seem to be serious, and amongst a sea of aware, opinionated and extremely intelligent people, I appear to be an asinine idiot.

Asinine behavior for an inane concept.

I prefer to care in real life instead.

Lemongrass dip

I made a delicious lemongrass dip today, and I shall avoid writing stories about it :)

I chopped 2 chillies, some coriander, 2 long freshly cut lemongrass blades, 6 cloves of garlic, a little bit of ginger and a few teaspoons of water and grind it all up. 

Mix that paste thoroughly with 500 gms of hung curd, a teaspoon of lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of cream and some salt.

Voila! Here's your dip or bread spread :D

Add some finely chopped cabbage and capsicum to make it crunchy. 

Cinnamon comfort: My version of a desi cinnamon cappuccino

Have you ever had a creamy foamy Indian version of the Italian Cappuccino?

If you haven't, I suggest you do! It's easy to make. In the local Indian English dialect, it's called 'Beaten coffee' and according to me, it's quite popular in the Northern half of the Indian subcontinent. Or maybe just India.

For four cups of creamy coffee, take four teaspoons of instant coffee, sugar as per your liking and a narrow cup. Add the coffee and sugar in the cup with a few drops of water/milk and start beating it vigorously with a spoon (like beating an egg) in the cup till the concoction turns a few shades lighter and gets a smooth texture and with  a honey like consistency (cake batter like, if you want to be a bit more specific.) The more you beat it, the better it will taste. (I think it's mostly psychological)

Mix 2 cups of milk and 2 cups of water and heat it till just before it starts boiling. Add equal parts of the coffee concoction into four cups and pour the milk into them and stir a bit for the wonderful creamy rich foam collecting on top.

Serve hot!

Add a pinch of cinnamon to the coffee concoction as you beat it for a lovely feeling of a warm comforting cinnamon embrace from within.

Not everyone's going to like it, but if you are a cinnamon lover, you might just fall in love with your cuppa all over again! 

Too little... too late

An old friend of mine shared her brother's photos from last year The tone of the post was too nostalgic to ignore as just another. I hadn't read any update from him so I checked his profile and to my shock, I read that he had passed away in November last year. He was so young -just twenty four.

Deepak was not just my friend Divya's brother, but my friend too. And he was a smart young man who didn't deserve to die so young. I read in news reports that he died of severe head injuries sustained in a bike crash (while speeding over a speed breaker - according to times of India.) It's not the first time I've lost a friend to a bike accident. A classmate of mine - Girish, died after riding home drunk on his motorbike without a helmet on his head. His parents, his steady girlfriend and his devoted friends were all shocked and devastated. And all that just a few months before we graduated. He might have been pure at heart and a good person, but when it mattered, he acted irresponsibly. Whats the use of all that goodwill in the end? I used to feel angry, but I don't feel much anymore. Most of his friends were in denial about drunk driving. I blame them as much as I blame him. 

I don't know much about the circumstances in which Deepak died, but I would prefer to be ignorent. I prefer to be in denial about what happened, and blame it all on the lack of common knowledge of CPR which might have saved his life in such a circumstance. It's all a game of ifs and buts. I have been trained to administer CPR in case of emergencies. I pray often that I shouldn't have to be in a situation where I have to give or receive CPR. Yet, every day I read about accidents happening on streets, highways and lakes and streams. So many of them are avoidable. Yet we lose precious life everyday.

I wanted to write to Divya, but it feels too little, and a bit too late for that. I wish I would have known before. I have a lot of excuses, but I wonder if I could have been more proactive and kept in touch with the two of them more than just through facebook? Would I have come to know of this accident earlier otherwise? Is it ok to justify not keeping in touch saying the others don't either? Now only those faint memories of Deepak remain from ten years ago.

A cruel coincidence - As I unravelled the story of Deepak's death, the song playing in the background was 'Car crash'

Is the universe trying to give me hints as usual?

back to the 90s

I heard this song yesterday. Reminded me of pop music from the late 90s (Loud bass and all...)

I even fell asleep listening to it on loop last night.

it's called 'All of me' - by a band called Tanlines. This song is from 2012!

I must be going crazy :)

I must be going mad to think of this... 

Call me Batman (maybe?)

I woke up late having watched half of the live telecast of the olympic games closing ceremony till early morning. The day wasn't going good. I was pissed off about a lot of little things. Then I opened facebook. 

Someone had posted a link to this youtube video: 

The moment i started watching it, I was laughing, and things didn't seem so bad anymore. 

Through this video, I found the link to a spoof of the first video which is already a spoof of the batman movie!: 

I fell out of my chair laughing my ass off! ... and I had a good day!

Sometimes I am plagued by the most esoteric questions...

... Like will my clothes dissolve if soaked in water for too long?

Van Doesburg and Mondrian are going to turn in their graves

How do you transform these...

Into something like these...?

  

It probably started long time ago, when I was exposed to the world De Stijl - the Dutch Pre WW2 art movement.

Unfortunately, I've never expressed it on canvas or in architectural design. But A few days back, when I read this nice blog I felt like i could easily buy a pair of inexpensive bata canvas shoes and transform them into a De stijl (masterpiece).

Step 1: Buy simple white Bata canvas shoes.

Step 2: Buy acrylic fabric paints and paint brushes

Step 3: Remove laces and pencil out the rough template of the your masterpiece.

Step 4: Dip a thin brush in the black paint and start drawing it out. This dries quite fast.

Step 5: Add some colour if needed.

Step 6: Lace them up! And click pictures

The little blue bird said...

Whatever am I doing on twitter? Other than ranting, or just giving out useless information to the general junta? But I must say that sometimes I come across links to interesting reading matter, most of which, though it is said that any information/knowledge doesn't go waste, is of absolutely no use for me at all. 

Whatever is interesting and different need not be good every time. 

Being on twitter is just like watching a terrible soap on TV. But you just have to see whats happening... 

'It's not insane, it's inane' - Anon (No not really, I know the guy who said it)

When I read this post a few days/month/years later, I might laugh. 

If by any chance, someone finds my blog on Mars's internet, I request you to please take me back to your planet.

Grey. Ambiguous. Blurry

I always wondered why Pune wasn't a popular subject of any work of fiction. Be it a movie, a book or a short story. So imagine my surprise when I came across the trailer of a marathi movie called 'Pune 52' - A Noir thriller like never seen before from any Indian Movie. 

Another happy co-incidence being that I live in Pune - area code 52. 

Watching the video on youtube and reading a bit about the movie on their facebook page, made me realise how regional cinema, is slowly and slyly outclassing the commercial hindi film industry. This film also addresses that phase in our country's recent past which is a blur. The success story, the boom and the liberalisation is seen, but the repercussions of that very change on the society is largely undocumented. It's an ambiguous, grey phase between the dark ages of post emergency - pre liberalisation and the technologically fueled and mobile era of the first decade of the new century . The 1990s. 

Every now and again, I wish I was born seven or ten years before I actually was. I wish to be an active part of the change rather than be the receptor of the radical change. I could have changed. I could have brought about change. I could have been the change. 

Since our school text books have failed to acknowledge the post independence era as a part of our contemporary history, it becomes ambiguous. The only traces found are in Pop culture, literature and art. But stifled. Scholarly. Elitist.

I wish they made more movies about the times I was growing up. At the times I was absorbing the change from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s and actively participating in it in the 2000... 

The exponential rate of change has resulted in a collective memory loss of that important phase. The heightened sense of liberalism and self awareness of intellectuals who were hungry for knowledge, for the truth, made our society more open. Free. Tolerant. More interesting to live in.

That very sense of intellectual and creative freedom caved in to a fear of losing control. And today, we are controlled more that we were in that very grey, ambiguous and blurry phase.

Let us remember that time and document it, lest we forget the golden era of that turn we as a nation took, and a where it could have taken us. 

But we took that turn a bit too seriously. A bit to literally. And we have lost our way. 

Reality checks...

The internet- more specifically my blog, gave me a reality check yesterday. 

After which, this particular comment by someone on my facebook time line, and facebook's reaction to it:

So... are we supposed to take some kind of hint? When the hell did the internet get so sarcastic?

Pretty workers for the picturesque stairway!

Stairway in the bungalow for Sayali and Deepak Kulkarni at Girivan, Mulshi.

These two labourers posed for me during a short break on site. I love how their colourful sarees are a lovely contrast to the dark grey basalt stone wall and the cantilevered precast concrete steps.

What started in 1988...

Resulted in a little prize in 2012.

When I was all of four years old - I was given my first ever tintin comic - The land of black gold. That was 1988 at a book fair in Vishakhapatnam.

And this is today.

A few nights back, my friend sent me a link to a Tintin quiz on Facebook. Since I am a tintin fan, I managed to become the seventh person to answer all the questions correctly. The first five won Tintin movie DVDs while the next five - which included me- won gift vouchers from crossword.

I went to my nearest crossword bookshop today and redeemed my gift voucher worth a hundred Rupees.

It's the first time I've won anything online!

So it seems

A guy I like finally seems to have become single again. But it's not my move to make. What a pity

The Cleaning of the ancient pair of binoculars.

Last week, I visited Jim Corbett National park. I remembered we had an old pair of binoculars somewhere around the house. My uncle must have bought it sometime in the 80s. Now, I'm no avid birder but Corbett houses six hundred species of birds, so I decided to carry the binoculars and try to learn more about them. The birds and the pair of binoculars...

While in the safari, I used someone else's newer binocs one time and realised that mine weren't as great to look through with. A little examination made me see the insane amount of fungus collected on the glass inside that wasn't accessible enough to be cleaned unless dismantled. I was told that the glass is actually a sets of prisms inside and it would be better to invest in a new pair of binocs rather than get those cleaned. 

But I had other plans... to open and clean the whole thing myself.

I'm rather glad I didn't have access to a set of little screw drivers during the holiday.

I came back to Pune and a few days later, found the lens cleaning fluid I used to clean my camera lenses with. Out came my little red screw driver set and I carefully started opening the beautiful old gadget which was made in Hong Kong.

I removed all the parts one by one and reached the sets of prisms. Cleaning them and placing them back without getting my fingerprints all over them was tricky, but I managed. 

An hour later, I reassembled the whole contraption and looked through it to see the super clear super moon. I had successfully cleaned, from within - my macho, Russian looking retro pair of Prinz binoculars. They are now- as good as new!

Meghana is happy.

Lyrids

It's not the first time I have accidentally witnessed a meteor in the sky. And I'm sure it's not the last... Last night, just before I slept on the terrace, I saw a bright streak in the sky lasting just about a second rushing from the north eastern sky to the south western. Perfect axis.

I knew what I had seen.

I was told that that night of the 22nd of april was the peak period for the Lyrid showers, and I was lucky to have witnessed it.

And I remembered that December morning back in 2007 when I saw the most beautiful astral sigh ever - the Geminid meteor showers. About 50 meteors and 4 fireballs.

Again- accidentally.

I had stayed awake the previous night waiting for the showers, but I was destined to witness it the next morning with a new friend. It was magical.

I think I am very lucky to have witnessed such wonders of nature. Not once, not twice, but every now and then... Just when I feel low, a sight like this cheers me up, and I think... I am still rich... 

A pen is mightier than a sword... but does it have to be an expensive pen?

It's weird calling myself a comic artist because:

1. I'm no good at drawing

2. I don't read most of the cult comics stuff. 

3. I don't have much of a comic style

4. I don't have many great script ideas

And most importantly,

5. I don't have an expensive pen.

But what does having an expensive pen got to do with comic art? I would never know, since I never owned or used an expensive pen to draw, right? 

Except when I studied architecture and we had to draw using Isograph pens and ink. But those were architectural design drawings. And most of my isograph pens were hand me downs. 

I could never really afford high end and expensive equipment, although I wanted to buy all that once I started earning. But I didn't when I did. 

And I was never even gifted an expensive pen.

I think it's the commie in me that prevents me from buying an expensive pen. (thats being a hypocrite of the highest order... )

But I've been drawing and I have been writing. Mostly for myself... and I like it like that. 

I don't need an expensive pen.

Or do i?

PS: a 'pen' encompasses more than just the 'pen' in the above article, you can read it as 'a complete set of tools and equipments required for a so called graphic artist'

Tales from the construction site... and beyond... I

Client during the pooja

Before evert new construction starts, the owners and contractors usually perform a little Bhoomi Pooja. So on one such construction site of a project I am designing for, I clicked some photos of the client performing it. One of the rituals is cracking open a coconut on a stone or pavement. The Roofing contractor had two coconuts to crack: one for the machinery and another for the construction material. The client cracked the coconut for the machinery, and I was asked to do the same for the material stock. 

I clicked some photos of the client cracking open the coconut in one go... And the contractor clicked some of mine, while I was having a go at the other coconut.

As I showed these photos to my folks individually, all of them had the same question to ask me:

"Did you manage to break open the coconut?"

All three of them... it was crazy!

I managed to crack the coconut open with the second blow... 

Up and Coming!

Recent photos from an ongoing residential project at Sonala village in Wada, Thane District.

The site is located within the Warli heartlands. It's a load bearing structure with a foundation and retaining wall in black trap stone and superstructure using local brick. The structure will be kept exposed from outside with recessed pointing for the brick and stone masonry.

The ridge level of the sloping steel roof is at 18' from the floor. As warm air rises up from the ground level, it flows out from the brick ventilators above the windows, thus ensuring constant air circulation from the windows at lower level.

These beams are cantilevered on the other side for a wooden deck facing a splendid view of fields and the Sonala village beyond.

The roof is being made using structural steel tubes and traditional Mangalore clay tiles. 

The wonderful feeling...

When on a cool winter afternoon you wear sun warmed socks...

That, ladies and gentlemen - Is bliss

Mansion of who's Gods?

??? Really?

India- they say, needs 500 new cities: "villes nouvelles"

I found the similarity between Caesar's ridiculous (albeit fictitious) Mansion of the gods and the equally ridiculous disaster that is Lavasa.

PS: I love the Asterix comic: Mansions of the gods. It's the best of the Asterix volumes.