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 :)