Uttarayana

Happy Uttarayana/ Sankranti/ Pongal/ Lohri !!

It's Shrawan

Shrawanmasi harsh manasi hirval date chohikade,

Kshanat yete sarsar shirve kshanat firuni un pade...!
(Lines from a famous marathi poem by famous poet Baalkavi)

Happy Shrawan everyone!! :)

Very soon... Monsoon

Its been long I've painted a landscape...

Looking forward this monsoon to handle some green paint and canvas. Now-a-days the place of paints and canvas has taken by photoshop and the computer screen. I so wanna do some hands on painting stuff and get crazy over it! I really think that if I paint a landscape this season...its gonna have a lot of change in it!! Well... waiting for a chance to paint, to explore and experience...

Artwork

Some more on color for this week...

I found this artwork in my old portfolio. Blow art!! Or something like Jackson Pollock's action paintings.


Me likes :)

I miss landscape painting…

Siddheshwar lake @ night

It is simple and nice with a canvas, few paints and brushes. It’s your own world in there. Few hours and the story is over. Life is about making stories and making many more stories. Life is sometimes about filling in colors and sometimes about making things colorful. It is easy to fill colors but it is difficult to make things colorful.

Besides the Taj

A lot is said and read about the Taj, therefore this post is about few things besides the Taj.

Besides the Taj Mahal in Agra and beyond the river Yamuna, there is a small structure of Mughal Architecture which loses the significance of its existence by being sited besides the spectacular Taj Mahal. Everyone going to the Taj is mesmerized by experiencing its grandeur and beauty. Certainly it’s a superb example of artistry and craftsmanship with a great deal of personal life connections of India’s glorious history. Look what is happening… I started by writing that I will not mention anything about the Taj, just a mere hint and its magnificence takes over everything.

The Taj Mahal seen from the Agra Fort

As a part of a study tour, I visited Agra and thus the Taj. When we were in the Taj place, many of friends were very restless to paint their canvases with lots of white and I guess most of them missed the splendid experience. But yes, I do not deny that artists have their own share of experiences with their colours, brushes and canvas. I was rather lost in the art aroma it is known for. However, I did not miss to make a Taj Mahal on paper, but made it from the Agra fort.

As I was being drenched by the beauty of the Taj, I was also fascinated by this structure which reflects its red sandstone in the river Yamuna just besides the Taj. Very secluded and very calm an experience, compliments to that of the Taj.

Batik Art: Besides the Taj

I do not know the reason of its existence there, but I do believe that it must have had a great deal of significance in the past. In the landscape of the taj, this small structure is seen to its left. I unknowingly painted this and realized it much later!

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The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai

Besides the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower in Mumbai, there is a place, an office, a design studio where sincere Aarti works, and opposite to her office there is Bademiya!! Bademiya Seekh Kababs! A very famous street side food stall opens at 7pm and is on till 2am. Whenever Aarti works over late evenings and nights, she grabs one of the seekh kababs to keep up her energy; however it is a vegetarian kabab! Bademiya has a variety of veg kababs, unlike the Khan Chacha (from the Khan Market in Delhi) who serves just one variety of veg kabab, and nonetheless it’s the paneer tikka roll. As one of my (non-veg loving) friend comments that the vegetarians have over exaggerated (exagger-eated) the panner! But Bademiya is not this types; panner is a choice amongst many more. And also to be mentioned is his separate veg-cooking counter. It’s amazing.

The take-away menu. Pardon the Colaba spelling here.

preparation in progress...

Also, never go at 7pm, as he is busy in preparations and will not entertain you much. More late you go, more early you will get your kabab! The next I visit Bademiya, I will upload some more yummy pictures!

Solapur: No Identity Crisis

 
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Where do you come from? What is your native place? Which place do you belong to? These are a few questions I’m frequently encountered with. And my answer to this is ‘Solapur’. Quite a times a response to this answer is very annoying, sometimes satisfactory and just once was funny.

“Oh! Ya! Solapur, the place famous for chappals. Right?”

“No. That’s Kolhapur. And it is Kolhapuri chappals”, I answer back, “Jar Kolhapur Maharashtra-la chappal ghalta, tar Solapur akkhya Maharashtra-war panghrun ghalta.”

Mallikarjun Temple, Solapur

“Solapur and Kolhapur is very close by na?”

“No. It’s quite far away”, plainly I answer.

I accept that my geographical knowledge is not awesome, but I would never ask stupid questions like: “Is Ahmedabad close to Ahmednagar?” or “Are Jamshedpur and Jabalpur twin cities?” I’m almost sure that people who ask such questions do not know that Hyderabad and Secundrabad are twin cities.

Once I also got a witty reply saying, “Toh Satrapur kahan aata hai?”

I never had thought ‘Solapur’ (16 pur) in Hindi! :)

“I know, Solapur. It comes on the way to Chennai by rail! You get amazing pav-bhaji at the station.”

Wow! That’s something I didn’t know. I never had a chance to eat at the station. Yes, being an important junction, people traveling by train atleast know that there is this place called Solapur on the way and that one must try the yummy pav-bhaji there. Well, it is not so famous as the ‘Agre (Agra) ka petha’, ‘Lonavala chi chikki’ or ‘Shegaon chi kachori’.

“Solapur, it is famous for chaddars, right?”

“Yes”, I reply blissfully and thankfully.

Either people are not aware or either that ‘striking something’ is missing in Solapur. Yes, there is something and needs to be made striking enough. Here, I do not wish to write a boring document on Solapur, but to add a few things I cherish about my native place…

Solapur proudly houses one of the oldest temples in the Deccan, the beautiful Siddheshwar Temple. The temple is situated at the center of a lake with a fort lined at its backdrop. It is a pleasant ambiance especially in the evenings. I did not miss to capture a few scenes from in and around the temple as my treasured landscape paintings.

Siddheshwar Temple at its entrance.

Solapur is located in south Maharashtra and thus many of its attributes have influences from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Three states, three cultures and three languages all at one place i.e. Solapur. An anthropologist will surely love this place.

Last but not the least is the weaving industry in Solapur. “A great opportunity under estimated by the textile people themselves”, is all what I can as of now. I wish to change this statement of mine in to a very affirmative one soon and am striving towards it. As I have decided, I won’t go into passive things and wonder about how things happen. I just know that it is an opportunity which I cannot afford missing and I also believe in what Winston Churchill says: “Who dares wins.”

A Jacquard fabric woven in Solapur

Anu writs a short and beautiful paragraph about her experience of Solapur fabrics on her blog here. I'm glad I found this post based on a personal experience. It outstands the rest of stereotypic data found on the net (atleast for me).

When I choose textiles as my career, many people pointed at me saying, “Why textiles?”, “Mills have closed down. What are you going to do?”, “Textile is going to take you nowhere.” Foolish people have forgotten that fabric/cloth is one of the basic necessities of man. Yes, mills were closed down in Solapur and even in Mumbai. Those were composite mills and had its own set of difficulties. But fabric manufacturing did not stop. Solapur did not have any other means of survival and thus it fell back. Mumbai being a metro city had a lot other threads to live on. On the same mill land today, people in Mumbai spend bundles of cash and most of the time it is for clothes and fabrics, isn’t it? High Street Phoenix, familiar as Phoenix Mill. It is called the ‘Mill to Mall’ culture in Mumbai. But I am glad that I’m into textiles. It has taken me back to my roots.

Juni Mill, Solapur

The Advent of Monsoon

Monsoon was fun and is fun in different ways..

Flipping through some of my erstwhile photography, I found this image and the memories of the four years of Marine drive were revitalized especially moments during the monsoon. Friends and fellows having had this experience will rightly understand what exactly I am trying to say in the unsaid words.

The above photograph explains the play of light a few minutes before the sunset along the Mumbai skyline.

A few years ago, monsoon for me was about landscape paintings with lots of difficult greens, then designing fun T-shirt prints for the monsoon trip with another set of colours and strokes on the canvas. This inclination towards brushes and colours was the influence of having artist friends all around. Now, the artist friends remain but the context has changed, the influences are still the same but the consequence is different. Though I miss painting a landscape in the fields, I do enjoy making textures and patterns with a pencil, paper, scanner and a computer.

Images: Left: Landscape painted at Badlapur (2005), Right: T-shirt print design (2005)

Images: Print/Pattern designs inspired from water (2008).

The process is a playground with play of brush strokes in the Van Gogh style, oil pastel renderings, doodling like the kids, some market visits and some art galleries, sometimes joining the dots and sometimes making the lines straight but all in a particular context and the context makes the design significant.

Awaiting this monsoon for some fresh inspirations and innovations...

Nostalgia: The Marine Drive

Image: Night landscape of Marine Drive painted by me in March 2004

The still street lights and the speedy lights of the traffic, separated with red signals at intervals, the soft and bright lights from distant houses creating the background, light reflected in water, lit hoardings each adding a new story… the rushes of water towards the strong wall, with geometric patterns sturdy and strong, the touch of the fresh air with scent of the deep and whispers of a friend… makes up a lovely evening at the Marine Drive, a multi-sensory experience.