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.

I'm quite a pathetic singer...

This was from the days I still sported a little braid :D Good times, those!

Excuses

Being dumped by the love of your life is a terrible experience to go through. Unfortunately, I've been through it twice. But the difference between the first one and second one was the way I dealt with it.

The first unceremonious dumping made me wander around the city aimlessly with my notebook and camera by bus and on two feet. During the second (equally unceremonious, if not less)- I had my bike and would go riding away on a drizzly afternoons on the outer roads of Pune alone, listening to music which I stopped listening to soon after that phase. One fine drizzly afternoon, after having partially recovered from flu, I decided to push my luck and try to somehow be at Senapati Bapat road near Chaturshrungi at 6.15 PM. I left home quite early, thus giving me about an hour to kill. So my plan was this:

To call up my unsuspecting friend staying at Baner asking if I could visit him for some time. This way I could go around the longer route from (Pune's) Chandni Chowk to Baner, visit my friend, kill time and then be at Chaturshrungi at the above mentioned time.

As I left, it started raining. I took shelter under a tree and it stopped raining. Then it started raining again as I started and I took shelter under a tree twenty meters from the first one. The i wore my rain jacket and rode off regardless of the rain. Climbing up chandni chowk was taxing considering i was still weak from three days of flu. As I rode down the hill towards baner, I felt calm. Like I had a plan in my mind and I knew what I was doing whereas in reality, I had no plan. I was just taking a chance and timing myself.

I met my friend at his house but not before crossing gigantic slush patches before his society entrance. I had to walk the cycle here. Oh the horror!

My friend made coffee for me. We spoke and I transferred some of my flu virus to him and he fell sick after that, but that is another story.

And then soon enough, my mind told me it was time to go. After all, I had to reach Chaturshrungi by 6.15 PM. I rode out towards senapati bapat road with a sudden rush and a sense of something just about to happen... 6:15 PM and I had just reached the University signal. I was late. What if I missed it? What if something happened which I didn't take into consideration?

But I persisted.

I rode up to Chaturshrungi.

I rode beyond Chaturshrungi

And sure enough, I saw him.

Mission accomplished? Well, not really. I said hi, we walked home, ate burgers on the way and went home. But things just went downhill from there. In a fit of sweet hysteria, I admitted that I had feelings for him, but you see- he saw through me better than i saw through myself. I was a fool. Things were better later as the situation between us grew into an initially awkward, but later comfortable friendship.

But keeping stuff at the back of your mind is not the best thing to do. And the human mind is made up of all kinds of memories. And it went further downhill as memories kept creeping up at the wrong time and wrong place.

I don't know whom to blame for this, and I don't want to. But my only hope is that years from now, if we ever remember this, we can laugh at it.

How will he ever die?

At the age of 14, I got the opportunity to meet this great old man. Someone who i'd just read of in the papers and seen on the news. Someone who i knew was the most famous painter and liked to paint women from the movies.

I saw him walk barefoot on the grass of the little hillock at Surajkund. Apparently, I heard - he was always barefoot. He was to paint on a wall. A small crowd had gathered to watch him at work. What I saw was a bony old man with a white beard, white hair and a beret covering it walking slowly with a smile on his face. As if he was about to play a prank on his unsuspecting audience.

With one look at the wall, he picked up a huge brush which was kept near the bottles of paint neatly arranged on a table, ready for him to use. With one stroke he drew a semi circle on the wall and a stick figure within it which resembled a veiled woman. Or so I thought.

The man with him enthusiastically started clapping signifying the end of the process of painting that wall. He egged us on to applaud for him and we happily obliged.

Another youngish man came forward to clean the paint off the old man's trousers who then sat with a few other important looking people sipping tea.

He seemed unfazed by them and was quite happy to oblige the crowd with autographs and handshakes. I still have his autograph. And somewhere stashed away, a photograph with him. His smile never lessened. He didn't talk much, but was happy to be there, I think.

He had played his prank.

One of the most visionary artists from our land, whose work needs no introduction, played the prank that his genius mind conjured up. We might take years to understand and decipher his complex thoughts and visuals.

But that fine February day MF Hussain influence me to try to understand visual arts. I am just one amongst many whose lives he touched. So how will he ever die?