1987

someone i went to kindergarten with tagged me in this picture on facebook a few days ago
i didn't remember him, but silly little fragments about some of the others came floating back
the memory of a child is a strange thing
stranger still how different people record different memories about the same thing
didn't milan kundera write a book about this?
it sounds like something he'd write a book about.

look, look

look, look, look at my blog
the template so airy!
the pictures so big!
we're officially a cell phone and dslr pictures blog, people!
expect some not-so-dinkies soon
and pssst, i've also started sneakily going back in time and editing past photo stories
 wheee...

nazar na lage

she'll still get her heart broken someday
sorry to say

evolving energies

when i first started this blog, it didn't mean that much to me. i gave it a silly name and randomly started uploading to it whatever pictures i had on my cell phone. but i've started thinking of it a little differently now.

pictures have become important to me because they contain all these unwritten stories and poems and things said and unsaid and about to be said and never to be said. sometimes, it's about what the picture does not show or is trying to show or intended to show but got lost somewhere. what i've been writing around my pictures has been like that too--lost somewhere between the brain and the typing hand.

so the thing is, i want to start being more careful with the stories of these pictures, not just whip 'em out and hit publish like i've been doing. also, over time, i want to treat the pictures differently: maybe as posters, as still-frame films, as comic book panels, as found objects, as picture books for the broken hearted...? i don't know how or when, just putting it out there so i don't forget.

and here is the dilemma of the editor in me: i want to go back to some posts whose pictures i've loved but didn't do justice to with the stories. is that ok? i think it's ok. isn't that the fun part of the digital product, that it gets to be a bit of a shapeshifter?

also, i just bought myself a dslr (which i'm still too scared to use) so maybe there'll be a whole new parallel track on this blog. who knows? i certainly don't. may the energies evolve...!

the lost art of writing-behind-pictures

if we could flip over digital pictures like we once could photo prints,
what would be written behind them?

"fuck poetry.
let's just stare
at the sky
we'll feel like kings
with wings
i promise.
the stars
they have a way
of making some people feel so big
and others so very small
and lost
which one are you?
i can't wait to find out."

commuting in frills

don't be fooled by the mellow
this one was a real presence
confident in frills
commanding the motion-blur world in loud baby gibberish
posing-shosing
then suddenly content with her own fingers
all dainty and aglow
while in the very same sunlight, the rest of us only sweated

p.s. polaroid-ize your pictures with poladroid. some bugs but nice-nice.

will

last night i dreamt that my friends and i had all moved into a big machine kind of like a submarine but it moved over land
we did not control this machine, it didn't have a mind of its own either, there was some will or force of the universe that steered it
we never knew where we were because there were no windows
every once in a while it would stop moving and then we'd know we could get out and see where we were
we had no work to do in this machine, we pretty much just lived, but the living part for some reason was very exhausting and we were almost always tired
so, very often, the machine would stop and we'd know we were in a new place and we had time to get out and explore before moving on but we were too tired to do it
one day when the machine stopped, me and another friend of mine decided we must go out
so we stepped out into a bright sunlit street of what looked like a pretty character-less, industrial town
we were tired but dragged ourselves around because it was sunny and we hadn't seen the sun in so long
there were tall grey buildings, everything was grey and it made us very, very sleepy
we could help it no more and lay down and fell asleep on the street
my last thoughts were of how i hated the machine but wished i was back inside it so i could sleep
it was a scary dream that probably has little to do with this picture except that i suddenly remembered it with startling clarity when i looked at it
isn't that funny how that happens sometimes
almost as if some will of the universe conspires to make you encounter something during your day that will remind you of a dream you had forgotten or suppressed

my blue box

cross-posted from digital drama

my cupboard was turning into a cubist nightmare... i needed more space!

one day, walking down the road, i saw this stack of boxes just as a ray of sun slanted down upon them

inside the shop were many little gems

so i paid 1400 rupees to buy mr. tarzan star

with a secret unicorn inside for extra luck

some turquoise paint, which for some strange reason looks blue in all these pictures. turquoise can be a shy color.

i got paint on the railway budget

and on rohit bal's heart attack (hope he's doing well)

and then i was done!

here's a random picture of the buddha on my (now entirely different shade of) blue box

don't touch me

coy rickshaw men folk

ladybird

i never learned how to drive a car (too scaredy-cat)
so my brand new second-hand bsa ladybird is the first vehicle i've ever controlled.
riding it today for the first time without someone holding it up, i got all, "here is a heavy metal machine. i control it. rawwr!"
then my neighbor's thirteen year old daughter offered to give me lessons.

the painter's footprints

this big wall in my living room had to be painted white
so they called a "worker" to paint it
or a "laborer" sometimes
no one calls him a painter
but this wall was one giant pain in the ass wall
it had been painted over, done and redone, touched and retouched, flaked and crumbled, had absorbed five years of monsoons
three days the laborer worked
and it's the most beautiful big plain white wall in the world
you'd never know how that wall has suffered
you could put that wall in a gallery and sell it as the best white wall in the world
if he were only allowed to sign his name on this wall
maybe someone would call him a painter

but light

and in the future-seems-bleak category, we have the sun looking like a flaming cosmic curse about to strike down on the ugly industrial township that has become much of this planet. so hot, its brightest core is invisible to the human or camera eye. every factory chimney and electricity tower will burn white hot. witnessing it will be impossible, pictures will have large gaping dark holes. at the end, it will be not darkness but light that will defeat us.