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.
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.
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.
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.
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 oldgadget 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!
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...
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'
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...
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.
