2016 – A Poetic Year

As promised to myself two years ago - to buy one book every month every year, this year has been fantastic with a total of 35 books and indeed very poetic with 50% of the books being those of poetry - from classic to contemporary, from love and longing to erotica and despair. 
In 2006, one for my faculty at NID had given me a feed back saying - "...learn to be poetic". Now, after 10 years I know what it actually meant and that life is beautiful and we have to make it more beautiful.  

The year started by reading Crafts of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh by Jaya Jaitley and ended by adding a biggest book to my library- Michelangelo: Complete works. This book is so huge that it fits neither in the book shelf at studio nor in the one at home – precisely explains why this book is about Michelangelo!

Now when I have listed out the books, I see that each book has a story associated, a story about me - my state of mind and work at that time of the year. 

It’s so beautiful to review ones year this way!

It has been a wonderful year –

from travelling across the country to making a home by the hills

creating huge art to developing minute skills
meeting old friends to not making new

reading books to learning music

falling in love to writing poetry

So here is the list of books added to my library this year: 

Poetry

1.      Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing (April)

2.      The Book of Questions – Pablo Neruda (April)

3.      I swallowed the Moon: The poetry of Gulzar (May)

4.      Essential Haiku (May)

5.      Kabir: Ecstatic Poems (June)

6.      Lullabies – Lang Leav (July)

7.      Love and Misadventure – Lang Leav (July)

8.      Memories – Lang Leav (July)

9.      Bitter Sweet Love – Micheal Faudet (August)

10.   Erotic Poems – Goethe (September)

11.   The Inability of Words – Harnidh Kaur (September)

12.   Milk and Honey – Rupi Kaur (September)

13.   Mouthful of Forevers – Clementine Von Radics (September)

14.   Chasers of the Light – Tyler Knott Gregson (October)

15.   Sylvia Plath - The Collected Poems (October)

16.   The Universe of Us – Lang Leav (November)

17.   Bitter Sweet Love – Michael Faudet (November) 

Art and Design

1.      Crafts of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh – Jaya Jaitley (January)

2.      World Textiles: A Sourcebook (January)

3.      I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail – Urveti, Ram Singh (February)

4.      10 books of illustrated short stories – K.G. Subramanian (March)

5.      The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images (June)

6.      Mudras of India: A Comprehensive Guide to the Hand Gestures of Yoga and Indian Dance (June)

7.      Basketry: A world Guide to Traditional Techniques (July)

8.      Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art (September)

9.      Michelangelo: Complete Works (December)

Reading (assorted)

1.      Concerning the Spiritual in Art – Wassily Kandinsky (January)

2.      Creative Confessions – Paul Klee (February)

3.      Blank Canvas – Prabhakar Barve (February)

4.      My Gita – Devdutt Pattanaik (February)

5.      Love Letters of Great Men (March)

6.      Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka (June)

7.      Business Sutra – Devdutt Pattanaik (September)

8.      Vishwakarma’s Children – Jaya Jaitley (September)

9.      A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf (October)

u n f o l d

This is a poem composed of a series of my tweets with rhetoric questions and corresponding hopeful answers.

Periodic excerpts from this also compose small poems-

i am the moon         

i am the star           

i am the earth         

i am the sea            

i am a zephyr         

i am air  
         
~

slide open the curtains

look at the sparkle in your eyes

walk barefoot

stand by the shore

untie your hair

and

b r e a t h e    

(now read first line of the first short poem and first line of second short poem. continue this way..)

winter mornings

your feet

I love your feet

only because they walked 

upon the earth and upon

the wind and upon the waters, 

until they found me. 

(Excerpt from the poem Your Feet by Pablo Neruda)

Paper Planes

I am not a perfectionist

I am not a perfectionist

When I fold towels, I always match the corners

When I do my bed in the morning I make sure the sheets are flat without any bump

When I cut vegetables, I cut them all in same size

Sometimes I cut paneer in triangles

I don't cut fruits.

I eat them just like that.

I am not a perfectionist

I fail…

I fail with love

I fail…

to understand

to bridge the gap

to take the first step

to rekindle the spark

to love again.

And the worst of all is

when I fail

terribly

to be

myself.

Sometimes it is alright to fail. Not everything works every time, isn't it?
It is alright to break free at times

to go on a blind date and kiss in the middle of the road.

to raise your hand and say – Yes, I am in love again!

It is okay to hold back 

It is okay to keep thoughts confined

Listen, stop!

Stop aligning the stars.

How much more should I break myself trying to piece together what is broken?

It is alright to give up.

Yes, it is absolutely alright

not to be a perfectionist

and fail.

Art

CRAFT DESIGN, Lecture at NIFT, Navi Mumbai

I think of my teachers more when I am teaching. I consider myself a tad too lucky to have studied under the guidance of design thinkers like MP Ranjan and Aditi Ranjan at NID, particularly when it comes to crafts.

Craft being my favourite area of work, this was my first lecture on CRAFT DESIGN at NIFT, Navi Mumbai. (16^th September 2016)

The aim of arranging expert lectures in design institutes is to give students a point of view of how things actually work on field. To show how design as a tool is applied to bring out necessary results, to show a larger picture of how design can create change and sustainability. The process of working with constraints, connecting several dots and extending your own boundaries with every project you work on.

A live design intervention project was given to students as part of their curriculum. The aim was to design commercially viable and market oriented products for crafts namely – Banjara Embroidery of Latur and Wall hangings of Solapur.

Designing for crafts, in my opinion is more about understanding and appreciating what exists. It is easy to pick faults but appreciating the existing is what it takes to keep things together. It is about being profound in one’s approach.  

I supported my lecture with two of my current craft projects.

One – Product design and development for the screwpine mat making craft of Kerala

Two – Embroidery designs for an NGO based in Madhya Pradesh

37 slides to present, 60 students with questions and 180 minutes to discuss – a small step to sensitize students towards designing for crafts.   

Sharing few of the slides from the presentation here…

I like to keep my presentation crisp with keywords, and lot of visuals (not shown here)

Books referred and recommended:

1. Viswakarma's Children by Jaya Jaitley

2. Thinking Design by S. Balaram

-

For design students and for students of life, here is an intriguing excerpt from one of Kabir’s poems -

Student, do the simple purification.

You know that the seed is inside the horse-chestnut tree;

and inside the seed there are the blossoms of the tree,

and the chestnuts and the shade.

So inside the human body there is the seed, and

inside the seed there is the human body again.

Fire, air, earth, water and space – if you don’t want the secret one,

you can’t have these either.

Ask me about it

Ask me how is it to love someone who is scared of love?

Ask me how is it to choose black or white but always end up in grey!

Ask me how is it to hopelessly hope?

Ask me how is it to write pages full of conversations you wish you had.

Ask me how is it to be true to your feelings in silence?

Ask me how it feels trying to make things work which were destined to fail.

Ask me how it feels to be touched by someone without touching?

Ask me how it feels to un-love?

Ask me how it feels to love yourself less?

Ask me how it feels to miss the girl I was before he happened?

Ask me all about it and I shall write poetry.
-

Let's talk

Let's talk

Not of how much time it took to get home and that the traffic is so bad,

Not of what you and I ate for lunch.

Let’s talk something else..

Like the uncommon things between us, which is everything!

Let’s talk of music, I know that is what you like,

Music of the zephyrs and songs of the birds,

Let’s talk of paintings that make cities beautiful,

Paintings of thoughts and memories.

Let’s talk of the sheer you wear and scent of your hair,

Rays thru the light and whispers thru the dark.

Let’s talk of that one eye lash which falls to rest on your cheek,

That which aspires you to make a wish.

Let’s talk of the fingers and spaces in between.

Let’s talk of you.

Let’s talk of me. 

_

Moments

Lifetime is a myth

Let’s live in moments, however fragile they may be.

Moments…

when you and me pulled some strings and unknowingly composed a tune,

when you and me thought we were on the same page of a book.

Moments that felt like a dagger piercing into my heart,

Moments that made you feel like love that never was.

Those moments

that have left a little of you inside me

and

a little of me inside you.

Forever.

_ 

A Different You

A Different You

In the words unspoken
I could hear a different you

In what was kept hidden

I could see a different you

In the thoughts confined

I could feel a different you

In the promises ungiven

I could believe a different you

In you

I could love a different you

-

Complementary Impressions

Complementary Impressions

The cacophony of your thoughts have shaped a rhythm in my deeds

The lightening of your feelings has caused rain in my heart

Your dark obsession inspires my creative presence

Dearth of your faith has made a deluge in my fields

-

Stranger

What happens when you find something you were not looking for?

Like I found poetry.

Poetry was always there, a stranger to me.

What happens when you find someone you were not looking for?

Like I found you.

You were always there, a stranger to me.

Poetry now is love.

You still a stranger. 

-