durbar

entering and exiting the durbar hall
the main venue at the jaipur literature festival
(big, yellow, flowery paintings, giant chandeliers)
was always an event
the organizer sunjoy would say on the mike, "please don't molest each other"
this is me exiting
to a sea of heads waiting to enter for the next session
the bright strands of silk tied to every roof top
and the coldcold air creeping into my skirt

dreamy

anja came to india from slovenia a few years ago with a giant haversack full of dreams and expectations and medicines to combat indian infections
together we stared right into the sun and got quite badly burnt
but it all really does work out at the end, i've realized

tattoo

these two women stared and stared at my tattoos
until i told them theirs were better
they don't really think of them as tattoos, i guess
but traditional indian tattoos are the best
greeinsh ink
thick needles
rough, traditional designs
dots, lines, and husbands' names
on foreheads, necks, and inner arms
long before david beckham and whatnot.
and no i don't know why the briefcase.

swirly

take cheap plastic color wonder random things, tie 'em up, hang from a handle, and swwwwiirrrrrrllllll
instant sales
where else but in a bombay local

achaar

winter = time for pickles
these brilliant things were drying at my window for a few days
and the kitchen is full of the incomplete, drippy smell of raw mangoes

today, me

pretty

sometimes ugly things look pretty
from the right angle
in the right way
at the right time
and from a 2 mp cam

a barren, ugly service road in new bombay at sunset

marshy, polluted vashi creek at twilight

lunch meeting

on the train after kurla when it gets a little empty and the train rolls faster
and everything outside looks like an oil painting going wrong

shiver

in the train, during the monsoons.
little boy, wet and cold but happyhappy.

let's take a walk

i started this blog, see. to put up dinky pictures i take with my 2.0 mp nokia phone cam [and sometimes with a canon dslr] of silly, sweet things i see while walking along my city. the kind of things i'd point out to you if we were walking together.

so chalo, let's go.

tpluv

one of the things i would hate to live without is toilet paper and i always carry a roll when i'm traveling, especially by train. but it's tough to carry in a bag... it unravels, the layer of paper on the outside doesn't stay quite clean and you end up wasting a lot, it gets all squashed and mis-shaped, and it's not the right size to be held in one hand or kept in the pocket while maneuvering indian train bathrooms. on the long train ride to bhopal i thought of this design for a traveling toilet paper dispenser that might fix all those problems. here, the toilet paper is inside the cardboard tube instead of around it, with a small perforation or flap for dispensing.



also a good way to recycle all those cardboard tubes that just get thrown away.

'2010'

seems an awkward girl
with a head like wrapped candy
stuck in the clouds