Faith and Fear

Most my thoughts get converted to graphics. Sometimes though writing them feels like a necessity. Here is one such thought that's been troubling me for a while now, put into words. Still, writing does not mean I won't do artwork. I used calligraphy for the title using a crow quill nib and a cursive freestyle hand. In case you find it difficult to read in this image, scroll down for a typed version.

Faith and Fear

I started questioning faith

It had begun to interrupt humanity

It looked like a stranger.

I am unable to decide the state of my mind.

Am I lost or am I mistaken?

Deceived by a thought?

The struggle goes on,

the answer has to be sought.

Faith has transformed into fear

Fear of the undesired,
results not wont.

Rituals have become rules
Rules born of mistrust and unsettled minds.

Sense has turned selfish

Sensitivity has grown unkind

How a demon it has bred?

Faith divine.

Such faith is not inborn but implanted
Implanted in the mind,
implanted out of fear,
that a child may trust where parent not desire.
A faith that is lodged in the mind and it rots.

Let faith be discovered
and embraced by a receiving heart.
Force nothing of this delicate being,
with fear only fear will be got.

Pragya Goenka

back with video

I know I've been away from here for a very long time. The technology is why, even though I am not much of a tech savvy. I am not the person to jump at anything new that comes along. So I started with instagram pretty late, partly also because they took some time to come to android and I don't have an iphone. But since I decided to finally start using instagram, I got addicted. It is such an easy way to keep a daily dose of inspiration handy. It also motivated me to practice my lettering and calligraphy more regularly as the response I was getting on my posts was exciting. So not only have I been spending a lot of time trying out new writing styles and practicing my good old hand, I have also learnt how to shoot and edit videos of the process. I have been enjoying doing this thoroughly. Here are a few samples of what I have been doing these past several months. You can also go over to instagram and check out more such activity @pragyagoenka I'll be posting more videos in the coming few weeks.

type it up

Drawing alphabet may begin when you are still crawling but it definitely goes a long and complex way if you decide to keep drawing them for a living. So I made this seemingly ridiculous (for those who aren't in this field already) decision a while back when advertising started to bore me and graphic design just wasn't enough. Typography, type design, lettering and calligraphy (yes, they are all very different from each other) wasn't new for me, I just never gave it the attention it needed. So now I have been correcting my mistakes and indulging my passion with professional seriousness. The best part, doodling and scribbling for creating main pieces gives opportunity to so many small fun pieces. I have shared my word doodles here before, but this time I went a step ahead and explored application of these designs. Here are some of my letter sketches making objects of daily use a little bit more interesting. If you like this and want to see more of my type scribbles, doodles and finished works, follow me on instagram @pragyagoenka

I sprinkled this empty shampoo bottle with sparkle and painted the words with acrylic paint.  

Here's a fun tote. A little freehand sketching and very little acrylic paint. 

Well these are just mock ups, but don't they look cute.

August 23, 2015 Coorg - nature and soul

Have you been to paradise lately? It has smooth winding roads surrounded by green slopes of unripe coffee bean plants, with garlands of big pink bell like wild flowers over fencing bushes, paddy fields at a little distance down the slopes and far away a view of hills, blue and dreamy, wearing dark rain clouds like a scarf. Tour operators and websites may tell you to visit Coorg in the winters to smell the coffee bloom, but if you want to experience nature at its most beautiful visit during monsoons like we (my husband and I) did last month.

Whether you are a tourist or a traveller, skip the hotels this time. Homestays are aplenty in Coorg and I believe the one we chose must be the best. At a comfortable distance from the two main towns of Kodagu (local for Coorg), nestled in the middle of a coffee estate, a vegetable garden and rows of hydrangeas and anthuriums this family home built in the old english style is Souland Estates Homestay. I could say that this home is exactly what you need to enjoy a real, serene and unspoilt place like Coorg to its fullest. While we couldn't get enough of driving around the roads lined by greenery, or walking through the village roads, when we did come back, we came to a warm home filled with so much personality and love, a hotel just cannot match that. The house is filled with personal collections, art, trinkets and books. Walking through the hallway to the dining room, we had many interesting little things to see on the window sill and the shelves. Everyday I could spot something new. The owners of this beautiful home, Jayprakash and Prabhavati are the kind of people one needs to know. They take you in their home with warm hearts and open arms. We couldn't but call them uncle and aunty with affection after only a couple of hours of being with them. Uncle gave us thoughtful suggestions on places to visit, and it must have taken some thought given our preference of non-popular destinations, recommended hikes and trails, shared interesting stories about his childhood and adulthood and heard to all of our jabber patiently. Aunty took care of our tummies. She cooked the most delicious food and a rasam that I am still attempting to get right. Sipping coffee on the verandah looking at big blue butterflies fluttering around the various blooms, and there were so many for a rainy season, brought us as close to the nature as dodging spider webs and spotting camouflaged frogs while walking in the family's coffee plantation. 

I have so much to share about Coorg I might make a couple of more posts, I will say this however; you could go to Coorg for coffee or for elephants, even for its pleasant weather. But I will suggest you go to Coorg to learn about nature, to see beauty in simplicity, to be a better person. Sit in an open verandah and look at the birds and the insects, the trees and the flowers, the rain and the fog and you will be surprised how easily you will feel better about everything in the world. 

a beautiful wooden cottage on stilts in the middle of the coffee plantation at souland estates homestay

plants in the verandah of souland estates homestay

a vase made of coconut shell and wrought iron chair

i won :)

I decided to send an entry in the poster design competition at typoday2015 this year and guess what, I won :) My poster was selected along with others to be displayed in the exhibition through three days of the event. Being a winner in an international competition is truly an amazing feeling.

A bit about my design now - The subject of the contest was nature to be represented typographically. I created an ambigram of the words Nature is God. It means when you rotate the artwork by 180 degrees, it is still readable and reads God is Nature is this case. If you want to see the detailed process of how I created this typographic design click here. 

growing up

GROWING UP 

As a child I wouldn’t bother 

I would run to those urchins. 

I’d not know their names or families they come from 

Only smiles on their faces I would recognise 

And water dripping from hair 

flowing from forehead to the cheeks, 

Forming little droplets under the chin 

Lingering for a second and then falling, 

Their laughter was all I’d hear 

And know their eyes are calling. 

Calling to make splashes in the pot-holes and see 

little paper bits melt away 

To watch our faces dissolve in ripples 

and form again with settling waves 

To be drenched in the pools collected below 

And the rain falling from clouds hanging low 

To be drenched with water - 

Be wet and cold, 

And have my heart drenched with and behold - 

Happiness. 

Not denied but only by me who put too much faith 

in propriety that comes with age. 

The walls I made all around 

To keep away the storm and thunder 

What a pity, I let it succeed 

In taking away the rain from me 

the splashes, the ripples, the laughter, the wonder. 

One rainy evening when I was doing this experimental shoot 

by the window of my room, I saw some kids playing outside 

in the rain. Although I don't mind getting wet in the rains 

sometimes, the unihibited and free frolic of those kids made 

me think.

word doodles

A few pages from my diary. 

Word doodles are my favourite type of doodles.

October 14, 2014 Mirzapur

The tallest trees I see from my window are very tall and very strong. The harshest winds have only been able to make their leaves rustle. I have seen the leaves dance through the winter breeze and the monsoon gusts. Never once I saw any animation in those tall soldiers who stand quietly behind my house protecting us from I don’t know whom, probably from all forces of man and nature.

I woke up this morning to find a weak fern outside my house disappeared. It was lying on the ground scattered, giving in to the powerful storm, bent and broke. My eyes darted straight towards my tallest trees. Today they are agitated. The hurricane Hudhud has hit us. It is weak in this region, only an effect one can say, still our strong, tall soldiers are fighting it, I like to think, to protect us. These trees are moving and bending with the flow of the strong winds. They are shaking the rain off themselves; they are resisting the force of the storm. They are fighting hard, still going strong. As long as every one of those is standing, I have nothing to worry about. But I fear for their safety. I wonder at my own feelings as I see their tussle. Is nature fighting against nature to protect me or is it just them and I am insignificant?

make it pretty - part 2

Here is my second arrangement. While there was a good variety in sizes of the pieces in the previous arrangement, this one had either very big or very small pieces. So I added tables of varying heitghts to make it interesting. I hope these arrangements will inspire you to decorate your house during the festivities without much fuss. I am off to dig my cupboards for stuff to decorate with this year :)

I used the green and pink chinese dolls and a china vase as key pieces here, both regular show pieces
my house. I chose two leafy plants from my pots and some candles from my collection.

The bright yellow wall provided a beautiful backdrop and made the arrangment pop. I had saved the
carcass of an ols bouquet to which I added white roses and pink ribbons. (The roses and white daisies
are only newly bought items in here). The little man under a plastic tree was made my me for some
time ago and I hadn't discarded it. 

The green and blue sparkling lights around the door formed a wonderful connection between this
arrangment and the plant on the other side of the door. Here too I added water to the bowls to create
reflection from the candles.

make it pretty - part 1

Festival season is arriving. Ganesh Chaturthi, Rakhi, Navratra, Dussera, Diwali and New Year, all packed into the next six months, and more smaller festivities squeezed between the main events. While decorations are undertaken mostly during diwali, it starts much earlier in the state of Maharashtra with the Ganpati festival which is hugely important and popular. 

Making your homes look pretty doesn't have to be expensive or very time-consuming. Here are two styles I followed last festival season, using mostly things available in the house. My process is simple.

1. Go through all your stuff, art and craft material, show pieces, pictures, frames, vases, mats, little knick-knacks in your grandmothers' cupboards from yesteryear...

2. Group items that fit into one theme, eg. colour wise, design wise, era wise, or create your own theme, eg, eco-friendly, handmade, floral, etc.

3. Pick one or two key pieces in the group you find most satisfactory and start building around it.

4. Buy only what's really necessary like fresh flowers (unless you have a garden to forage wild flowers and leaves)

5. Once you are done, take a step back. Now start removing whatever you feel is cluttering your arrangement. Simplicity always works.

My theme for this arrangement was red and warm.  I used a lot of reddish hues and candles.

The red chatai and the big orange plate were my key pieces, both of which I had in the home. 

I bought some dry flowers in red and brown and some fresh daisies in a reddish hue. 

That is all I bought for this arrangement. I was lucky to find a potted plant in my house with 

beautiful reddish spiky leaves.

These round vases were kept in the house and the bottles are my old empty shampoo bottles. I used
previous year's rangoli colours and some old decorative stones in warm hues to add colour. I used
water in all the bowls to add lots of reflection from the candles I used.

The diffuser sticks formed a base for this little floral candle and the diffuser vase was used to hold
dry flower sticks as it was wooden and fit perfectly in my arrangement.

June 3, 2014 mirzapur

Life often changes suddenly, when you're least expecting. When you have either given in to your circumstances or have decided to choose a course different from what you have been fighting for. Just when you have accepted fate, something comes along. Something you have been wanting deep inside for a long time but had taught yourself to forget about it or learned to give more importance to something else.
Of course you are elated to have found what you had been really looking for. You forget instantly about all the other things that you had convinced yourself were more important and let yourself flow freely with a smile on your face and joy in your heart. The heart. But who could understand the workings of a heart.
Soon enough you get used to your changed life. What you had desired for so long and gotten after such wait, becomes natural to you. Now you start to remember those other things which weren't really important then. What happened, why do you think of them now. All that time that you spent trying to forget your deepest desire and trying to put other things in its place, worked its way. These other things became a way of your life and you didn't realise. Only now, when the charm of your realised dream starts fading, it occurs to you that those other things had long become your new desire. Now, you want more than ever, to return to those paths you then thought were only a compromise and had quit so easily.
That's the working of a heart, if only I could fathom, I'd be more content. Or would I be?

May 25, 2014 Allahabad

I am in Allahabad today. Without doubt Triveni Sangam (popular as Sangam among locals) was the first place I wanted to visit in the city. Having lived in the holy city of Ujjain for 18 years of my life and after visiting several others in Rajasthan, Gujrat, UP and the Southern states, I should have expected what I saw. I didn't probably because in Mirzapur, my current city of residence, the Ganga is considerably clean and still flowing. 
At the Sangam however, the mingling of three rivers was nowhere to be seen. Triveni Sangam is the confluence of three great rivers of India, the Ganga, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. It is said that you can actually see the waters of three different rivers meet here, even though the origin and route of Saraswati (believed to flow underground) as a river does not geographically exist. All I saw though was a small patch of Ganga which dried up even before reaching the point of Sangam. It was a vast stretch of dried sandy river bed under my feet. We took the car quite far into what was supposed to be fresh flowing waters of the most sacred rivers in India. Well, that wasn't all. Some 500 boats thronged the couple of square kilometres of the visible water and over 1500 little canopies of pandits and vendors covered the dried river bed. Every few metres there were heaps of hair sacrificed at the river. Heavily dotting the rest of the space were cups, wrappers and rags. 
The irony, all through the approach road, there were huge signs saying how it is important to keep the river clean. Yet I am not hopeless. Our new prime minister is swearing in tomorrow. One of his main agendas is to give back this mighty river the life it has given to so many. I totally intend to visit Sangam again to see it in its health and beauty, for even an almost dried Ganga has risen in me what it has given countless people - hope.

my letter P - process

Here is my process of creating the P, as promised.

my letter P

So I took inspiration from old illustration of mine, this one, and adapted it to form my initial. What a fun way to use my new Sakura Micron Pens. I am too eager to share this right now. I will post the process in a couple of days. In love with lettering :)

what's new - abstract

With art, you have never done enough. So water colours, digital art, mix media, lettering, calligraphy, writing, photography, sketching, weren't enough for me :D I tried my hand at abstract, and this is what came out of it. I used only highlighters and a black gel pen. What do you figure of this abstract? Of course I had a concept in mind, but it is fascinating to hear what different people draw from the same piece of art. Tell me your thoughts and I'll tell you mine then. (You're allowed to say you didn't like it :) )

April 8, 2014 Indore - summer morning

The summer sun is being relentless. It laughs at me all day long, like a villain of the 80s bollywood film, and then mocks me when it goes down leaving the temperatures so high that a whole sunless night fails to relieve me. Yes I take refuge in air conditioning, but that hardly helps me to forget the boiling atmosphere outside. I miss the cool November breeze. The AC feels more like the chilly December winter, equally uncomfortable. Early this morning I get up and go out in my balcony in an attempt of beating the sun to catch some fresh gentle puffs of air. I see the usual summer blooms moving merrily in the morning air; not all about summer in this part of the country is hot and ugly. But there is an addition to the party today. I take some time to notice that the little branches laden with tiny flowers are moving in a different manner than they do with the wind. Trying to focus with my groggy eyes I finally see a little creature hopping around the bushes. It is so tiny, so beautiful and so cheerful. It keeps hopping from branch to branch sucking nectar out of the brightly coloured flowers. I am lost in its play and start to forget all about the heat when the glowing monster comes up and forces the little one and everybody else into hiding. 

February 18, 2014 Mirzapur

The constantly re-ooccuring rain has made February dull and unpleasant when it should have been bright and beautiful to welcome spring. It had made me shut all the doors and windows of my house as tight as I could and myself within them in an attempt to escape from the unwanted, off-season pitter-patter on the roof and thuds and sloshes on the window panes and the road. It had made me paranoid. Any unexpected sound would bring up an uncomfortable fear of another spell from the thick grey sky. It hadn't rained yesterday though. I gathered up hope for better weather with a rain free morning too. I sat up in my bed, still under my blanket to fight off the chill. As I tried to finish a book I was reading, failing to concentrate over the last few days, I heard a soft rustling through the closed shutters of the window above me.
The sound immediately disheartened me; reluctantly I opened the window, sure of seeing strings of water pouring outside. What I saw amazed me and confused me. I had been in this house for only a week but that was not too little time to not have noticed that gigantic form earlier. What I feared to be the howling of the clouds was actually the rustling of a million leaves on the largest tree I had ever seen. It was so huge, it filled the complete frame of the view through my window.
It wasn't particulary windy, but it seemed that the numerous leaves were playing catch with the breeze, tossing it among themselves, moving, dancing cheering with laughter. I was convinced that the rustling was being echoed within the bounds of that mammoth tree. It was not the usual pulsating sound of wind blowing in and out of a tree. It was a continuous buzz, like in a radio struggling with bad reception. Looking at that tree gave me hope. Hope of a sunny day. It said to me that it could fight off the clouds. It gave me a promise of the spring. It brought the slightest smile to me, a smile inside me, my face I am sure, still held an expression of awe. It gave me the urge to finally leave my bed and get up and about. The great tree and its millions of chattering, cheering children were here to keep me company.

February 5, 2014 Gomor river, Sunderbans

We're on our way to Sajnekhali on a boat. The day started early at 6.30 am. The fog is dense and worse on the water. As our boat slowly makes its way through the river, the fog makes its way through the boat. I can not only see the fog floating but can feel the dampness it is leaving behind. It has left dew drops on our hair, eyelashes, my camera lens and everything else. Just sitting cuddled up in a blanket in this cold melting weather is difficult enough. The lives of locals however goes on without interruption. The morning chores go on as everyday. We sit on our boat looking on as nature fails to shake the will of these men and women on the shores. Survival is hard here but has been made possible by these simple and hard-working village folk.