Painting you… with love

And
As the robe slithers off you
The brush drops
Paper flits across

The chandelier resembles a hive
Yellow light autumns on you
You are electrifying, alive
Mesmerized, I miss my cue
Your naked beauty makes me naive

Thick xanthous rays melt into your being
A sculpture of liquid gold, unadulterated, clean
Just a black singed spot in the centre of your cleave
Your aura is overpowering, making love to me

Canvas, coal and crease await
The surging tides fail to abate
Satin and brush and your long hazel locks
Fall across your face like perfect strokes

My skin burns rather
As it meets yours in a slather
Every pore feels the kisses like soft paint daubs
Unbearable, it shows in your feet’s lobs

I love

painting

you…

Batti Bandh!

The Logo

switch off your lights for 1 hour

on 15th December

from 7:30 p.m. to 8: 30 p.m.

Batti Bandh

There has been a lot of talk going on about global warming and energy conservation. Thanks to the extensive campaigning by Al Gore and the media coverage, saving the environment by doing our bit is the need of the hour! Environmental degradation is something that I feel about and I want to do my bit by trying to undo the damage. I have been involved with this movement called Mumbai Unplug: Batti Bandh for some weeks now. I got introduced to it by one of my college friends Parth, who is one of the main supporters and organisers.

A child and his mother paint for
the Batti Bandh event at Juhu Beach
9.12.07

At the Procession/morcha in Andheri on the 7th

There is a story behind this movement and it goes like this:

4 months back, a group of young men - Neil, Shiladitya, Keith, Kevin and Rustom had been watching "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming and how we have just 8 years to reverse its effects. They felt it was time to get up and do something and they came up with this idea of making Mumbai switch off all electricity for an hour. Just one hour. On 15^th December. That’s not asking for much. This idea was actually inspired by a similar movement that happened that quite recently happened in Sydney. It was an event called the Earth Hour in which reportedly 2 million people participated. People switched off electrical appliances for an hour to conserve electricity. Now why go to such a length and what does it all mean? Well, stats showed that switching off all electrical appliances for an hour resulted in 24.86 tons of carbon dioxide not being released into the atmosphere which is the equivalent of taking more than 48,600 cars off the road. I want to spread the word to be a part of this thing and just unplug for an hour tomorrow. And you need not necessarily be in Mumbai for that. I guess all you guys all over the world, whoever reads this blog can take this forward, put it up on your blog and do your bit for our Mother Earth!

At Juhu Beach "Paint It Green" on the 9th
We made passerby paint a 25 metre long cloth with eco-friendly messages

Take A Stand on the 7th.

Shouting slogans. (Location: Link Rd, Andheri)

I have had a lot of fun doing this and we have a morcha or a procession leaving from my college till Lokhandwala in Andheri. It felt great shouting slogans that encouraged people to save water, plant more trees and to switch from normal bulbs to (Compact Fluorescent Light) CFL bulbs that use lesser energy.

Please guys do take this forward and spread the word to as many people as can!

Music: Eric Prydz vs Floyd - Proper Education

Freeze Frame Day

19th August - It's World Photography Day today!

Hordes of photographs taken by enterprising photographers and photo journalists have become famous (like the Tienanmen Square freeze, Auschwitz's concentration camps, the portrait of Winston Churchill, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's frame taken by Annie Leibovitz on the morning of the day he was shot dead, Che Guevara's spanning gaze taken by Alberto Diaz in 1960 and so many more...)

There are some pictures that really make a shiver run down my spine and the mind is numbed for a few seconds. The images do keep coming back to my mind... They speak for themselves

National Geographic's Afghan Girl

Food Chain Going Awry

Guevara's Crowd-Spanning Gaze

"Once labeled 'the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century', this portrait of Che Guevara, photographed by Alberto Diaz Korda on March 5, 1960, is considered to be the most reproduced image in the history of photography. "
Korda, while on an assignment for ‘the Revolucion,’ took this photo of Guevara at a protest rally, after a Belgian freighter carrying arms to Cuba was blown up by counterrevolutionaries while being unloaded in Havana harbour, killing more than 100 dock workers. As he later recalled, it was a damp, cold day. Using a 90-millimetre lens, he was panning his Leica across the figures on the dais when Guevara's face jumped into the viewfinder. The look in Che's eyes startled Korda so much that he instinctively lurched backward and immediately pressed the button. "There appears to be a mystery in those eyes, but in reality it is just blind rage at the deaths of the day before, and the grief for their families." However, it was only after Guevara’s death, that this image, noble and defiant, with tilted beret and flowing locks, rapidly spread and was soon taken up by advertisers the world over. Now ubiquitous: Che’s image adorns mugs, hoodies, lighters, key chains, tank tops and of course those omnipresent T-shirts. More than thirty five years after his death, it still remains the logo of revolutionary chic. Through a twist of fate though, Korda received no royalties whatsoever for this photograph. Speaking in Havana just before he died, he said, "life may not have granted me a great fortune in money, but it has given me the even greater fortune of becoming a figure in the history of photography."

I took this one on our Independence Day, 15th of August. I found, among other photographs of children that I took that day, the pure innocence and joy reflected on their faces so beautifully that I couldn't help smiling and following them around... :)
They say, don't photograph children, as they easy subjects. True, but capturing human moods is one difficult task.

Some More Freeze Frames

Music: Chrono Cross Time's Scar!

People

The city and its people.

Of all the things that I love photographing, people are my favourite subjects. It’s fun to capture the moods of people; people from the different strata of the society. I always wonder when I go by these pictures or when I just observe men and women in crowded buses or trains, on the streets, in the slums, in offices; what must they be thinking? How different are they from me?

I wish I could go through the huge Archives of Time.
Archives of the lives of people to know what shaped them to become what they are today...

I wish I could step into their Pensieve’s and weave a wonderful story of their thoughts and life, thing that goes unnoticed like so many things in life.
When I look at these people, I feel every life, every human is worth something. It is an injustice to judge some people according to their colour, caste and sub castes, where they live (whether in an up market town area or a down-market suburb), what their family background has been and so on.

I love the randomness of people, and their medley. I love random stories. :)

Music: "Hey There Delilah" by Plain White T's!

On A Sleepless Night...

And so I sit here by the windowsill
The night’s dark and chillingly still
Gazing up from my ivory tower
I see the faded moonlight shower

I wonder why I toss and turn
Have I got a guilty conscience?
The world deludes
All sleep eludes

I wait, and I wait
As my head hits the bed
For the blanket of slumber to keep me warm
To keep me safe from my raging storm

I wonder when I’ll fall asleep
Wonder if your word you will keep…

Music: "Bravado" by Rush!

Perfect Lies?

Some More Lies!

Wouldn't It Be Good... To Have Wings?

Nick Kershaw - Wou...

Amidst The Concrete Jungle

What Beyond?

Golden Paving

Horizons

Music: "Wouldn't It Be Good" By Nik Kershaw!

Put Me To Sleep, Mother...

In the space, she lay at the heart
Sinister loneliness moving like a dart
Acrid walls looking down upon her
Her life, she recalled, seemed a blur.

And now again she called out
Accosted by another dizzy bout

“Put me to sleep, mother,
In your lap
Drug me into oblivion, mother,
From all that crap
Release me, mother,
From that addictive trap

I was breathing my freedom and my flight
And you think mine’s a sorry plight?
How do you say that I lost myself to this rapture?
That my life’s in smoke-tentacled capture?”

But nowhere was mother to be found
In helpless agony, her head she did pound
Nothing could she do at the eleventh hour
Deserted her trapped daughter in her ivory tower

Muffled yet loud
The sobs reverberated in the room
Soft as the cloud
Her pillow solaced her gloom.

Her hymn floated and hung in the air
A dying song, audible and bare
“The world could be pink
What do you think?
Or is it blue?
Could be any other hue!
I see you through the purple haze
The needle pricks and my eyes glaze…”

Her pupils hoped for a purple haze
Her tower engulfed by a golden blaze
Life dropped, thudding to the ground
Silence killed all other sound.

“…Put me to sleep, mother,
In your lap
Put me to sleep, mother,
In your lap…”

Music: "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd!

Edit: Sigh... Does this seem so abstract? The poor junkie, the dying druggie (to put it crudely) is not noticed...!

Sky-Fi

Music: "In My Life" By the Beatles!