written on the body

Since a few days, i had imposed a self-censor. I wouldn't use the adjectives 'beautiful' and 'kickass' (to be forever on a quest for beauty is not normal. i must taste some normality too once in a while); and i would try not to be introspective all the time. (trying not to be so 'full of myself' all the time, there's the whole world out there that needn't be reflected onto me..)
but how else could I describe Jeanette Winterson's 'written on the body' but delectably 'beautiful' and what else can one do but reflect when confronted with such poetic mirror to our hearts. its one of those literary pieces which you want to hold unto yourself like your lover, for its beauty and for its truthfulness.
I read half the book the day I bought it. and then tried to resume it the next day on local train. Now local trains are a many things, but definitely not a temple to beauty and truth. And this book deserves nothing less. It deserves to be read on a sunlit day, sitting on green grass, unperturbed by anything other than the steady bustle of the river nearby. well if not that, the cot must do, but it will be utterly disrespectful to be distracted from it again and again.
so it had to wait quite a while until a weekend when i had some leisure time by myself to read it.

The book is a portrait of love. a love who's sighs and gasps you wish to cling just a little longer every time. what makes the work even more noteworthy however is the fact that Jeanette gets us under the skin of the protagonist turning us into accomplice while throughout keeping us in doubt about the protagonist's gender! what genius! imagine portraying love without letting ever know who you are actually empathizing with. you know his/her desires, fears, loves, vices, friends but you don't know if its a he or a she.

while being a brilliant innovation of narration, its such a strong political (humanist/philosophical/gender based... whatever label you want to put.. i am not good at that) statement. love, in its completeness, defined sans gender. get this copy in the hands of all homophobes, all cynics.. and generally everyone. why should anyone be robbed of experiencing such beautiful work?

In search of uniform

india is a free country. we are free to conform.

1. Khar Road Railway station - 10-15 women are squatting on the platform. curiously all are carrying exactly similar bags. grey squarish bags with black straps. quite fashionable actually in that abstract expensive way. i thought bulk deals only happened in MICA.

2. Santacruz Railway Station - strangely many men are wearing the dirty bronze colored full sleeves shirt. the shirt uniformly not tucked in. the cuffs linked. Surreal.

3. popeye - i don't get this at all... all of a sudden the market is flooded with shirts with popeye pictures.. t-shirts, collared shirts.. they are un-escapable. go to colaba's narrow galli fashion streets, all stalls will have a popeye T. which company is dumping all these popeyes on mumbai's youth? why popeye?

4. grown men in half pajamas and full sleeved untucked plain shirts. so many people adhering to this code. the color of shirt is usually light.. cream or version thereabout. these are mostly labourers. what confounds me, if they wear half pants for comfort, why are they wearing full sleeved shirts without even rolling them up?

creators

mark rothko, Sharmila irom, baudelaire, mclluhan, beethoven, milan kudhera, rob dougan, Fransisco Danconio, Muse, Bjork, Raza, Duchemp, Banksy, Doris Lessing...
creators.
some forgotten. some lost in the fog of memory. some fictional.
all alive.
their breath, their thoughts, their actions, their stories
shape our lives.
Like falling from clouds, leaving indistinct erasable marks on them. we are.
its people like these who piece us together, breath in us the life that strides confident on grounds concrete made of the fertile compost of once dead forefathers.
thank you for letting me walk. i owe my life to you.

blackout

listen to this track..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tpE33fNMaw&feature=related
turn down lights. switch off everything around you. sit in a corner. preferably with friends at the tail end of a party. drinks would be good, but are wholly unnecessary. close your eyes. and just listen.
muse has this enigmatic energy about every single track of theirs. but blackout stands out for its ethereal calmness that masks the contained energy within. the lingering vocals hold you and take you with it to a world different from here and now.I love muse's music. it in a way questions and then celebrates our existence. the music has fatality to it. the music struggles and fights the inner commotions and eventually rises supreme over every other thought.
Another musician whose music is shaped with forces of fatality and virility in celebration of our existence is Rob Dougan. listen to his 'one and the same' track from album 'furious angels'. or the more famous and one of the best tracks ever 'Clubbed to death'. (even the vid is one of the most inspirational vids in a long time.) the music as if fights and lifts from the mundane and shines.. shines with the brilliance that needs no testimonies, shines with brilliance thats rare and pure and most importantly honest. its tattered at edges, its real and at the same time its as if from another world.
This music singularly flows from a conviction, from a faith so strong that the world flows around it into a salute of eventual acceptance.

please muse and Rob Dougan.. never stop creating music. please. we need you.

Colors

I usually seek creativity in form, innovation at structural/conceptual level. So, though i appreciate content, its usually the medium that attracts me more. Thats perhaps the reason these days I am heavily into digging for good installations. I have mentioned my love for work of Olafur eliasson earlier. But then we come across works which are simple and yet so profoundly creative.
Yesterday, I saw Anuradha Thakur's exhibit at Jehangir Art Gallery. The first bias set in due to her choice of theme. She has depicted adivasis and their cultures through her work, something which I am keenly interested in appreciating. What really attracts you to her work is her choice of colours. The colors are so natural to indian sensibilities and yet its as if its a new discovery. I haven't seen use of these colors and combination thereof in recent art works. to get an idea of these colors, take out crayons from your sons/daughters/nephew's color boxes and start mixing.
Apart from division of spaces, the choice of colors and combinations thereof, it seems to me, is a good indication of the maturity of the artist. S. H. Raza symbolizes that clarity, the focus that makes art sublime. hmm... if only i could afford his work! :P
The other thing that is noteworthy of her paintings is her choice of black or dark colors to describe human features. its as if, humans are the blank alien travellers in the world of colors. its amazing on several levels.. the painting while being about the people, is also in a way, putting them in transience with apparent shift of focus to surroundings. the surrouding nature, social complexes thus standing out while forming a backdrop. certainly a wonderful balance is sought here.
___
also, exhibited were the works of Prafull Sawant. his series of work with depiction of pensive women were brilliant. excellent artmanship. the emotions come alive with his mastery with light and shadows. in one of his paintings he depicted reflection and light wonderfully. its a pleasure to see such work.
but, more importantly, his work reminded me of the great tradition of water color paintings of maharashtra. I have had the good fortune of seeing many excellent works depicting the beautiful landscapes of maharasthra in water colors over the years. Sawant's work adds to this body of work.