tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15933822506688286872024-03-14T05:13:05.726-07:00thisandthatandmuseAnand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.comBlogger342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-55810188278980417282016-03-28T11:44:00.002-07:002016-03-28T11:44:47.812-07:00Design sense....do you have it?“This city has a legacy of textile production, so there’s immense
variety of fabrics in the local market, plus there’s a history of both
industrial and craft production, karigari. Craftspeople here understand
what it means to make export-quality products, and time-based
commitments; the city and the craftspeople here are already geared
towards that,” he says. Varman is part of a small-sized Ahmedabad-based
fashion brigade that includes Shyamal and Bhumika Shodhan and Anuradha
Vakil. One of Varman’s essential crafts-partnerships is with 56-year-old
Sitaben. An expert at traditional bead embroidery, she learned the
craft when she was 16; these two found each other at a crafts bazaar
held at NID. When Varman and I visited Sitaben’s home in a traditional
Gujarati pol (traditional housing cluster), she chided him for looking
so thin, telling him “<em>Tu khaata nahin hain.</em>”<br />
<br />
They talked as equals, and she spoke with confidence about her work.<br />
<br />
Access
to good craftspeople with varied expertise is as crucial to
architecture. Soenke Hoof is Doshi’s grandson-in-law and a partner at
Vastu Shilpa, which Doshi set up in 1955. Hoof’s entire career has been
spent in Ahmedabad since moving from Germany 12 years ago. I asked him
if he thought the relationship between designer and artisan is different
here. “I’ve only practised in Ahmedabad, though I have worked on
projects in other places. Here, I find a craftsman is eager to do a good
job because he takes pride in that. In many other cities, that
eagerness is missing.” Another designer confided, “Unlike in many other
places, a Gujarati craftsman will never take your design and give to
another designer.”<br />
<br />
(Because I have always been mad about design.)<br />
<br />
Read it all <a href="http://www.gqindia.com/makeinindia/ahmedabad-the-design-hub/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=GQ_Ahmedabad-the-Design-Hub&utm_campaign=FB_MII_Campaign_CtW_23-Mar-16" target="_blank">here </a>Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-69389295346779089612016-03-28T11:08:00.002-07:002016-03-28T11:08:45.129-07:00The changing face of urban IndiaLook around you.<br />
<br />
(That is, with an mindful eye, an eye that "remembers".) <br />
<br />
Chances are -- immaterial of which Indian city you live in -- you would have seen a lot of greenery disappear in the last couple of years, and a lot of open spaces too.<br />
<br />
Across most cities, this happens only around the suburbs, mostly because the city proper is already choc-a-bloc "developed".<br />
<br />
But, among many...it is also happening in once-relatively-more-living (and saner) areas. As the cost of land (available for buildings / real estate) goes up...keeping it unpaved becomes an impossibility. An economically unviable proposition, if you will.<br />
<br />
Most of this so called development is supposed to lead to "wealth creation." After all, for many people a house (or a flat) or any other property is nothing but an investment...something that will appreciate, something that will make them wealthier in the years to come.<br />
<br />
And yes, all this "development" is supposed to be inevitable and an indicator of India's status as a "developing" nation.<br />
<br />
But is it?<br />
<br />
Can our already cluttered, close-to-asphyxiation polluted, highly overpopulated cities survive if we do away with whatever little soul that remains in them -- in the form of green and open spaces?<br />
<br />
And, is it the right way to "develop", the right way to aspire to catch up to international standards of living, to give our citizens a quality of life at par with the US or UK?<br />
<br />
(Especially considering the fact that...urbanization is not something that can be rolled back.)<br />
<br />
Lets take the case of the UK, how much of greenspace does it have? How much of it is built on?<br />
<br />
"<br />
The urban landscape accounts for 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of Northern Ireland and 4.1% of Wales. Put another way, that means almost 93% of the UK is not urban. But even that isn't the end of the story because <strong>urban</strong> is not the same as <strong>built on</strong>. <br />
<br />
In urban England, for example, the researchers found that just over half the land (54%) in our towns and cities is <strong>greenspace</strong> - parks, allotments, sports pitches and so on.<br />
<br />
Furthermore,
domestic gardens account for another 18% of urban land use; rivers,
canals, lakes and reservoirs an additional 6.6%.<br />
<br />
Their conclusion? <br />
<br />
In
England, "78.6% of urban areas is designated as natural rather than
built". Since urban only covers a tenth of the country, this means that
the proportion of England's landscape which is built on is…<br />
<figure class="media-landscape has-caption body-narrow-width">
<span class="image-and-copyright-container">
</span></figure><figure class="media-landscape has-caption body-narrow-width"><span class="image-and-copyright-container">
</span>
<figcaption class="media-caption">
<span class="off-screen"></span><span class="media-caption__text"></span></figcaption>… 2.27%.</figure>Yes. According to the most detailed analysis ever conducted, almost 98% of England is, in their word, natural. <br />
<br />
Elsewhere
in the UK, the figure rises to more than 99%. It is clear that only a
small fraction of Britain has been concreted over."<br />
<br />
I wonder how much of India is built over. And how much of it can still be called greenspace.<br />
<br />
But...oh wait.<br />
<br />
We are a "developing" country. Ha!<br />
<br />
Read more <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-18623096?SThisFB" target="_blank">here</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-73445481101439872452016-03-28T10:45:00.000-07:002016-03-28T10:45:16.093-07:00Hello world!Hello there blog, so I am back.<br />
<br />
After a bit over a year.<br />
<br />
I know its a real long break to take...but what to do, the photography of birds (and their showcasing on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Stray-Birds-182593628570910/" target="_blank">Stray Birds</a> ) is exhausting, to say the least.<br />
<br />
That apart, my life isn't exactly "settled" or anything...and definitely not into a "writerly routine".<br />
<br />
Anyway, for whatever good it be, I am back here, and hopefully for the good.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-19473285900478444522015-02-10T09:40:00.002-08:002015-02-10T09:40:39.513-08:00तुम्हारे आँखों की दरमियाँइतनी सी है ख्वाइश बस, <br />जा सकूँ मैं वापीस फिर जहाँ, <br />तुम ही थे -- साँस और सुकून<br />तुम ही थे ज़हां <br /><br />तुम्हारे आँखों की दरमियाँAnand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-20745399500982794632015-01-31T22:35:00.005-08:002015-01-31T22:35:42.103-08:00Confessions At the end, <br /> the realization dawns;<br /> everything is but imaginary.<br />
<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
It doesn't matter, <br /> that, your love was in vain;<br /> it doesn't, that<br />
<br />
You didn't learn,<br /> to hate. That, to strain <br /> your ears to hear<br />
<br />
What is never there<br /> is your own lifelong dirge.<br /> The only real thing,<br />
<br />
A defeat you live.</div>
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-43489026721848628302015-01-31T22:34:00.000-08:002015-01-31T22:34:00.752-08:00Inflammable Then, as is the wont,<br />of dismembered wood, voicing their lament<br />of embers, to sightless skies<br />the limbs of trees die;<br /><br />Again, sparks rise<br />in a Braille curse<br />and staying mute, the skies<br />stoic as the Gods, say nothing.<br /><br />I could have put a hand<br />in there, with my palms shoveled<br />the live coals;<br />
we have done<br />
<br />
Labour of a kind,<br />
before, writing<br />
<br />
<br />
P.S. -- This is not incomplete. <br />
<br />
<br />Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-13774867573596742312015-01-04T01:14:00.003-08:002015-01-04T01:14:34.586-08:00New Year, 2015<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">
I am still throwing up sputum,<br /> as the hours add up to the days<br /> and nights of cough-counting s h e e p<br />
<br />
It has been almost a week now.<br /> Or, is it more? <br /> There is nothing new<br />
<br />
About this sickly sweet taste<br /> we are old friends.<br /> Maybe it came when it did,<br />
<br />
(Sometime around when, <br /> the world switched off; <br /> for its annual binge of gifting and partying,)<br />
<br />
To tell me,<br /> there is nothing new<br /> for 2015 to throw up for me.</div>
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-17292005316266613182014-11-03T09:29:00.002-08:002014-11-03T09:29:27.743-08:00Empty epiphanies <div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Suddenly, as if it were a giant bird eye temporarily gauzed by a nictating membrane, the sun's searching ardour dims and the light turns soft, still retaining the yellow warmth that shows the grass all around me as a precious wilderness -- of subdued golden hues, the stems heavy with ripening seeds, nodding to each other or tangled together with a nonchalance that only grass growing wild can know -- of tones and shadows that belong in a painting, like scapes born from soft br<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ush strokes.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
I am large, I have multitudes.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I have walked something like 3-4 kilometres (over the dusty roads of my colony and then, Cross-country across as-of-now empty plots) to get to where the grass starts, and then maybe another...circumventing clumps of Lantana, walking doglegs around thorn trees, muscling my way through -- with the lens held high over my head -- where a barely seen trail is overgrown with wild basil and other brush, shoulder high, like a stockade.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
My footfalls aren't as light as I would like them to be. Juvenile baya weaver birds out on feeding sorties gather together and watch me pass; prinias and zitting cisticolas clamber up to vantage points and keep me in sight, repeatedly darting glances at me and as repeatedly looking away; a long-tailed shrike imagines I am some bird of prey out to steal its kill and gobbles down a fat grasshopper with unseemly haste; grey francolins burst into flight, in a heart-stopping explosion of wings, one after the other.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
But then, I have been here before, and because the grey francolins keep outsmarting me, I can say I have known these defeats before...</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I walk some more through grass that's a mid-thigh high, skirting a patch of nettles, all that is there -- this year when the rains failed -- of a seasonal puddle where I have seen munias feed in many, very hundreds.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I am here for the Booted Eagle. And I know (in the way a Birdman knows), I am on time; but no bird takes off into the skies out of the broken treeline in front of me, even as I wait -- shifting my weight from leg to leg, in turns standing tiptoe and rocking back on the balls of my feet to relax the muscles there -- what seems like an eternity or an hour.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
As oft before, my thoughts stray and I wonder again, if this is the pinnacle of my existence, that I can be footloose and fancy free to indulge in the pursuit of birds; or my nadir in monetary and career (aren't they the same thing?) terms -- that I, an articulate, educated and experienced professional while my way away thus, in a lonely wait, for a bird that doesn't come.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Then, peripheral to the gaze of my mind,out of the side of my right eye, I see movement.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Its the grass, I see. Its moving. A breeze has sprung and even as I watch, in wave after wave, the whole meadow dances in unison as if each stem and blade of grass has picked up some tune that stays unheard by me.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
That's all the answer I will ever get from a meadow of wild grass -- I chuckle to myself; as I turn around, to walk some more kilometres, and search for some more birds.</div>
</div>
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-6548631918293807972014-09-26T23:12:00.002-07:002014-09-26T23:12:36.246-07:00In TimeWhere do the days go?<br />
Do they know the anguish,<br />
the incompleteness of being.<br />
Can they slow, as another year ends?<br />
<br />
Then I see, how can it be<br />
or does it matter, really<br />
for some of us will lie and find love,<br />
some will succeed to gather wealth<br />
<br />
And some will be spent, searching<br />
for newer ways and measures<br />
to tell of simpler struggles<br />
of the in-drawn hiss, the muted scream<br />
<br />
At yet another night's<br />
touch of tincture iodine<br />
on a self raw with<br />
the sutures of loneliness.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-83838946539837110812014-09-26T23:07:00.000-07:002014-09-26T23:07:24.519-07:00September 2012<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">As the days dry out, </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">birdless, I remember the sight </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">of your closed eyes,</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">your repose as you slept,</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">a dream I dared not wake.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Now I curse my cowardice</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">and the past, now distant beyond a bird's flight. </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Two years away, the wells of your eyes </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">are depths I can't sound </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">with my deaf gaze.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">I should have</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">awakened you, after I had awakened to</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">the poems fluttering under your eyelids.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">As the days dry out,</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">birdless, I regret</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">Your love, your lies, fool me...</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">and the skin crawl of your memory </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px;">still writing poems such as these</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302948px; line-height: 17.5636348724365px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<br /></div>
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-68843153035347385482014-08-29T05:18:00.002-07:002014-08-29T05:18:14.283-07:00Vinayaka Chavithi, 2014As I type this, sitting in the penthouse (rather -- my bare, uncluttered, minimalist writing shack) on the terrace, the sun is peeking out and shining in a haze through the clouds.<br />
<br />
The terrace itself is still wet with the last of the rain that has fallen, mostly in a steady trickle, sometimes in a din...for almost a day now -- starting as it did yesterday evening when Naana and I got Vinayaka home, along with the fruits, flowers and other offerings that he relishes.<br />
<br />
All in all, thanks to the clouds and the rain, it has been a perfect Ganeshotsav at home for me.<br />
<br />
What with the overcast skies almost the exactly same colour as the three lines on my brow (and arms) it seemed as if the heavens were also wearing Tripundra, the mark of Shiva -- in obeisance to his son, Guru Ganesha. <br />
<br />
To fit the sanctity of the occasion, I wore a Panchi and Tripundra and as Amma recited the Mantras that I couldn't hear, I could still concentrate on the Puja apart from a thought occasionally straying away -- like an unfettered bird; where would I have been today if I was in Delhi?<br />
<br />
Would I have managed to make it to the Garhwal Himalayas (or Bharatpur) over the weekend? Or someplace closer by -- like Basai or Yamuna Biodiversity Park?<br />
<br />
After all, technically (at least for all those who are securely and gainfully employed) this is yet another long weekend.<br />
<br />
But then, I realize that I am not in Delhi any more.<br />
<br />
My thoughts stray again...is it equally cloudy (and raining) at Vizag now? If I was there at Vizag now -- probably on Thotlakonda or Pavuralakonda, would the light conditions have permitted me to shoot landscapes worthy of catching Ansel Adams eye?<br />
<br />
But then, I realize that I am not at Vizag either, that the trip I was to set out on was canceled...<br />
<br />
As some poet said, the best laid plans of men and mice (and, the best intentions too) sometimes come to just nought...<br />
<br />
Maybe such is life, maybe I am destined to be home and circumabulate the Buffalo Wallow (the Great Cormorants are now in breeding plumage, and the Pied Kingfishers are pairing up, looking for sites to build nests; there are also a flock of Streaked Weavers now more or less established in the reeds that flank the wallow).<br />
<br />
Whatever Guru Ganesha wishes. Om Ganeshaya Namaha.<br />
<br />
P.S. -- Blame it on the intense pleasure of being at home on Vinayaka Chavithi or the magical atmosphere today -- I did something that I have rarely done after my growing up (in Orissa) years. Left my pens at Guru Ganesha's feet for his blessings. And yes, seeing how I rarely write with them any more, seeing how a lens that is as long as a baby elephant's trunk is now my stock "tool of trade", I naturally asked him to bless it too.<br />
<br />
Om Namaha Shivaya :-) Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-57570320578959940392014-08-27T07:06:00.000-07:002014-08-27T07:06:09.061-07:00An old woman begging in a train<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">Her footwear were oversize </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">for her old and shrunken feet.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">Her Sari looked like its silk;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">her hair was a confusion </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">Of odds and ends, with the dull sheen</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">of old silver. Also enough black</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;"><br /><br />Drawn back in a decrepit bun<br />a little above her nape. Almost like<br /><br />Another eye. In the crook<br />of one scrawny, twig-thin hand<br /><br />She carried a faded yellow cloth bag.<br />What's in there? A blanket?<br /><br />Two more Saris? Her remaining years?<br />Into the wizened palm of the other hand<br /><br />I pressed down some money,<br />after touching it to my eyes.<br /><br />Those eyes are wet now<br />As I cry this poem on<br /><br />The tragedy that is<br />an old woman begging in a train.</span>Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-3566029317994295542014-08-27T06:59:00.002-07:002014-08-27T06:59:33.759-07:00Defeat<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">Four years, or are they five,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">or even some more? My own</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">mirror of time, they make </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">Gummed and then red-backed</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">with the dried crimson bleed of</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;">two ears and the disquiet </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;" /><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; line-height: 20px;"><br />Of all the words they never hear.<br />There are so many riddles<br />I see in my face. Gathering,<br /><br />The crow's feet around my eyes<br />seem to ask -- does loneliness age?<br />And how can I be both,<br /><br />That silent, stolen, upraised glance<br />into changeless skies of lies,<br />(when no one's watching,)<br /><br />That ritual cursing of an empty grimace;<br />the bird-like gaze, from up above<br />in my bumbling defeats,<br /><br />Seeing grace?</span>Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-1173392238716613472014-03-24T13:16:00.001-07:002014-03-24T13:16:41.515-07:00Hey you, you are not Intense any more...Well, I am not Intense any more it seems.<br />
<br />
(Not that this is very recent either, I mean one month will pass soon.)<br />
<br />
This wasn't exactly a verdict of course, nothing on e-mails, nothing that could be tracked back otherwise also, but you can't be a fugitive when you are someone who doesn't have phone skills, can you? Besides, you cannot be a fugitive when you are Intense, can you? <br />
<br />
Dunno what exactly happened; I mean what exactly was new (apart from a 5 day week -- Oh Golly! -- and an epidemic of we-know-it-all-marketing-branding-business development-social media-eff all because we know Excel / Google types); last time around I was told, all I do is put a semicolon here, a colon there, a comma wherever; this time some Grand Panjadrum who is arguably everything you can imagine (and cannot) under the marketing / analyst (shit!) relations / PR / advertising / whatever-else-you-want-to-think-of set me up even better (or should I say, worse?).<br />
<br />
Usually, when you are forty (plus?) and recruited directly by management, you probably count for more; maybe a generous severance allowance, if not...at least a decent notice period.<br />
<br />
Ha ha.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I am not Intense any more.<br />
<br />
In a way it is good, I don't feel like a fugitive (me?, the very idea!) and I don't glare at myself in the mirror in the morning when I shave either.<br />
<br />
That summer is on me is also fine; my ears have been no better or worse for more than a summer now, anyway.<br />
<br />
You want to know about my eyes?<br />
<br />
Ha ha.<br />
<br />
The lens is very VERY visible. <br />
<br />
<br />
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-21331200473428183322014-01-23T03:21:00.001-08:002014-01-23T04:50:47.570-08:00Another Rider Mania, another ride...Last time around Rider Mania was in Shillong. While I had any amount of leaves (read that as "not employed anywhere") and the urge to take a road trip was stronger than ever, I couldn't make it.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
Let's not get into that :-)<br />
<br />
This time around, luck was a lot favourable (so to say) and I registered much in advance and thereafter also managed to get leave etc, etc.<br />
<br />
So, come the 16th of January, I was on the road again (without any preparations whatsoever, on a borrowed, spanking new, Classic Chrome 500) and surprisingly enough had a pack of Bullets riding along too.<br />
<br />
The agenda was simple. Get intimate with the road again, rediscover it for the pure thrill of motorcycling, connect with the basics of biking again. Naturally then, I chose my painful motorcycling boots (if not for which I would have lost a toe or more when I had fallen and broken my collar bone en-route Kolkatta for another Rider Mania) over my birding shoes (and lenses and cameras).<br />
<br />
The agenda was also to rough it out (I had carried along my tent -- I did not need to pitch it because a fellow rider -- who also snores -- invited me to join him in his tent) and have fun in "life is a beach" terms.<br />
<br />
Must say I managed to do all that and more.<br />
<br />
And though I do regret on not being able to photograph a Marsh Harrier, any number of Common Kestrels and countless Black Shouldered Kites and White-breasted Kingfishers; I don't regret not having to lug the heavy backpack with me, for all of approximately 800 kms each way.<br />
<br />
More importantly, I do regret not being able to do justice to the landscapes on offer with my puny camera phone, but then at one level motorcycling is all about framing and freezing those vistas in your being -- with no camera involved!<br />
<br />
Yes, it was good ride. I had company both ways; tucked into some amazing food all over the ride, connected with a lot of biker buddies and made quite a few new friends too.<br />
<br />
But the icing on the cake was the fact that I started my birthday with a 200 kms odd trip (from the place where we had called it a night, at a seedy lodge somewhere after Pidiguralle on the absolutely hypnotic SH-2) to reach home for have the privilege of touching my parents' feet.<br />
<br />
That this ride was through inchoate early morning fog, under a drowsily weak winter sun added to the magical quality of the whole experience. Having the Classic Chrome 500 to stride and the challenge of maintaining a fast clip (while weaving in through the occasional truck traffic) gifted it a very special edge.<br />
<br />
So you could say I gifted myself a grand present for my birthday. Because, as someone known to me said -- If you don't celebrate your own birthday, who will?<br />
<br />
Most importantly, now I have the contextual depth to compare two different birthday rides. On the ride to Rider Mania, Kolkatta, I was riding all through my birthday and intent on getting the ride over and "partying". That's when (though I was not speeding) I fell and broke my collar bone. As such I spent the night of my birthday in a decrepit Kolkatta hospital, wracked with pain and surrounded by ghoulish looking, post middle-age, matronly ayah type nurses firing Bengali phrases at me.<br />
<br />
This time, I was more sensible and had 4 hours of sleep behind me and the mental focus -- "I will not fall, come whatever." As it turned out, I neither partied (came to work right from the ride in fact and got a nice talking to, as well) nor wore any new clothes, nor cut a cake (that way, someone has to celebrate our birthdays, no?) and spent most of the evening in a sleep-deprived vigil waiting for some biker friends to come and shack up at my place. But heck, I did manage to enjoy a "Beer and Biryani" before the night was over. And, I slept under my own roof, without any painkillers in me :-)<br />
<br />
I am not comparing, but its nice to survive all of life's vicissitudes, if only to celebrate small joys like a birthday ride.<br />
<br />
Om Namaha Shivaya (oh yes, I prayed a lot on the ride!) Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-77476395529914978502014-01-23T01:21:00.001-08:002014-01-23T01:21:14.183-08:00In praise of the little man :-)The little man celebrated his birthday on the 20th of this month. Sadly though, I wasn't there to see him play host to his "best friends" from the apartment building where he lives and from his class at school. Nor was I there to feel his special "smack", oh-so-wet kisses. <br />
<br />
Because I was on the road, getting back home from a motorcyclists event at Mahabalipuram.<br />
<br />
I will be catching up with the little man and making up for missing his birthday. And if I know him, he wouldn't sulk or throw a tantrum about the fact that I wasn't there. Still, missing his birthday does rankle me a lot!<br />
<br />
****<br />
<br />
What exactly is the little man to me?<br />
<br />
Well, he is a lot of things most children are -- lovable, petulant, demanding and so on...<br />
<br />
And also, in a very peculiar way, an yardstick of how bad my ears are :-)<br />
<br />
Some 4 years ago, on a train trip with my family to Tirumala, while we were in the upper berths and indulging in horseplay in the rattling and clackety clack din...the little man tried his level best -- for something like two / three minutes to tell me that he was sleepy and wanted to sleep. Then, being the smart fellow he is, he just mimed it.<br />
<br />
Around that time and much before the train journey, most of my motorcycling and wandering in the open spaces around my place were also driven by the need to satisfy his walkabout nature.<br />
<br />
It wouldn't be much of a revelation then -- if I own up to the fact that I discovered the buffalo wallow purely due to the little man's interest in going to "waters", since he liked throwing pebbles into the deeps.<br />
<br />
(It was on one such trip that I saw a lot of birds at the wallow -- black winged stilts to be exact -- and got around to getting more "reach" to photograph them; so the credit for my being a birdman goes to him too!)<br />
<br />
It wouldn't also be much of a revelation then that I miss spending time with him and chafe at the bindings of an idiotic adult world that ensures that little men (and women) are so burdened by school and outside-of-school tuition that they have no time to play, monkey around and generally be just children.<br />
<br />
(Also, its not that he wasn't coming to my place enough. Rather he would be mostly disinterested in anything as real as a walk or a motorcycle ride. Then again, at the very mention of the quarry or the buffalo wallow, my mother would become murderous as she did not want her grandson to be exposed to "bad air" and "germs", etc. Lastly, there were always various other virtual attractions -- the desktop and the laptop(s) and his tablet and my cellphone and of course the TV...)<br />
<br />
But then, if you wait enough, everything in life turns full circle, does it not?<br />
<br />
So, one fine afternoon around a week ago (the day before Sankranti, in fact), when as usual with my hearing aids not doing much, I invited the little man for birding, he surprised me by agreeing. And then, when my mother turned protested, the little man quelled her objections adroitly (I did not hear what was being said, I just noted that he probably said one or two sentences in all).<br />
<br />
And, thus history was made!<br />
<br />
But that's not all. The little man also took recourse to a notebook and a pen -- to write down instructions for me, more or less to say that :<br />
<br />
1.) He will be carrying along the notebook and the pen, just in case I cannot hear when he says something to me.<br />
<br />
2.) I should carry some money with me, because if we stay out too long and he gets hungry then we may need to buy something for him.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, he bought his favorite biscuits and some bubble gum (one for him and one for me -- according to him) and we made it to the wallow and I put up the tripod (with him offering to help carry the tripod on the way) and set up the lens too.<br />
<br />
But then, his snacks got over, he got bored (and progressively tired) of standing, and we did not do any photography as such.<br />
<br />
Oh well, there would be another time again, I am sure. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-47965242111942562422013-12-09T00:28:00.000-08:002013-12-09T00:28:50.307-08:00Dushman na kare दुश्मन ना करे दोस्त ने वो काम किया हैं <br />दुश्मन ना करे दोस्त ने वो काम किया हैं <br />उम्रभर का गम हमें इनाम दिया हैं <br />उम्रभर का गम हमें इनाम दिया हैं <br /><br />तूफां में हम को छोड़ के साहिल पे आ गये<br />तूफां में हम को छोड़ के साहिल पे आ गये<br />साहिल पे आ गये<br />नाखुदा का, नाखुदा का...हम ने जिन्हे नाम दिया हैं <br />उम्रभर का गम हमें इनाम दिया हैं <br />दुश्मन ना करे ओ ओ...<br /><br />पहले तो होश छिन लिये जुल्म-ओ-सितम से<br />पहले तो होश छिन लिये जुल्म-ओ-सितम से<br />जुल्म-ओ-सितम से<br />दीवानगी का......दीवानगी का फिर हमें इल्ज़ाम दिया हैं <br />उम्रभर का गम हमें इनाम दिया हैं <br />दुश्मन ना करे ओ ओ...<br /><br />अपने ही गिराते हैं नशेमन पे बिजलियाँ<br />अपने ही गिराते हैं नशेमन पे बिजलियाँ<br />नशेमन पे बिजलियाँ<br />गैरो ने आ के... <br />गैरो ने आ के फिर भी उसे थाम लिया हैं <br />उम्रभर का गम हमें इनाम दिया हैं <br /><br />दुश्मन ना करे दोस्त ने वो काम किया हैं <br />उम्रभर का गम हमें इनाम दिया हैं <br /><br />From Akhir Kyon, <br />
<br />
<br />
P.S.<br />
<br />
What a fabulously beautiful song this is, no?<br />
<br />
And Smita Patil was absolutely ethereal in it! Lovely trip down memory lane in piecing this song together, hopefully perfectly. Do write in, if I have missed something :-)<br />
<br />
Why am I blogging this here now? Ha ha let's not get into that, shall we? <br />
<br />
<br /><br /><br />Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-59022656749628206522013-11-20T00:19:00.000-08:002013-11-20T00:19:00.983-08:00An encounter with a Citrine WagtailThe White-browed Wagtail is an old, old friend. And, a resident at the buffalo wallow (okay, call it a pond if that suits you more, or a lake if you please) barely 200 metres from where I stay, where I do a lot of my birding.<br />
<br />
Naturally then, I have any number of absolute stunners of this constantly tail-wagging bird; and it weighs in with a big (or long) poem in Stray Birds too.<br />
<br />
But this post is not about the White-browed Wagtail -- rather its about a Citrine Wagtail that I encountered today morning on my traipse around the buffalo wallow. As encounters with birds go, this was long and extended (and since I had the extended reach of a Nikon 14 E II TC aiding me) and also led to quite a few keepers.<br />
<br />
Incidentally, this bird is not a resident at the buffalo wallow, but a migrant who -- if I am right (along with the White-faced Wagtail) makes its appearance in end September / early October.<br />
<br />
That I got to meet it so late is testimonial to the fact that I have been busy elsewhere, and also to the fact that the buffalo wallow's perimeter (the Wagtail is essentially a bird that is always on a walkabout at the edges of water bodies, a wader so to say) is nowadays heavily overgrown with weeds and grasses.<br />
<br />
But meet it I did, and that too when it was bright and light, early in the morning. If White-browed Wagtails are tough to photograph (they will saunter in a zig-zag right at waters edge, through all the the dregs of civilization piled up there -- the plastic bottles, the plastic packets, the quarter and half bottles of cheap alcohol, the coconuts and so on, all the while wagging their tails furiously) but not exactly shy, so waiting up for them works. The Citrine Wagtail however is a different kettle of fish and doesn't take kindly if you come close and also doesn't saunter as nonchalantly as the White-browed Wagtails.<br />
<br />
Suffice it to say that I have never managed to take "exceptionally good" photos of this bird, so seeing one of them feet deep in a trickle of water (technically the run-off from a still full buffalo wallow) made me feel that I have struck gold.<br />
<br />
Of the 50 or so photos that I could take a lot were truly full-frame; but then not surprisingly a lot of them are useless too -- with such a small bird, DOF is a huge thing...and in most of the photos, the entire bird is not in focus, in quite some of them the eye and bill are certainly not!<br />
<br />
But then, I know I will meet this fella again :-)<br />
<br />
And I do have a couple of exceptional photographs from this encounter. Especially one which shows the bird facing the camera and looking askance, its tail in the background and out of focus and its yellow breast dappled / lambent / awash with the light reflected by the water from the runoff.<br />
<br />
I don't have the right word to describe it -- light bouncing / reflecting from rippling water, itself looking like a ripple; but then its a good problem to have, its a good problem to have...and maybe the word will come to me too, as the bird has -- unbidden. <br />
<br />
<br />
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Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-81354352583703417602013-11-19T02:40:00.002-08:002013-11-19T02:44:14.878-08:00Stray Birds @ Thalam -- an updateThe exhibition is still open.<br />
<br />
That is to say, it has been extended till this Thursday, the 21st of November.<br />
<br />
So if you are in Bangalore (or passing through) do go and say hello to the Stray Birds! <br />
<br />
Must have something to do with the fact that it is seeing a lot of footfalls.<br />
<br />
Or that all the birds look serene and peaceful on the walls of Thalam, as if they were on familiar perches, and as such, the Thalam guys are not too inclined to take off the exhibits.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I wouldn't know, I am here in Hyderabad and missing out on all the action.<br />
<br />
~~<br />
<br />
The Bangalore Mirror did a story on the Stray Birds.<br />
<br />
Read it <a href="http://www.bangaloremirror.com/entertainment/lounge/On-wings-of-poetry/articleshow/25996655.cms">here </a><br />
<br />
The actual story (in the physical -- as opposed to online -- newspaper) has a lot many more birds.<br />
<br />
Hopefully, I will get my hands onto a copy of the newspaper. <br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-88185713507769313992013-11-15T01:21:00.000-08:002013-11-15T01:22:07.432-08:00Stray Birds in the news, etcetera The Hindu's Metro Plus Bangalore edition covered Stray Birds today.<br />
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No, this was not my doing at all, but rather that of the Thalam guys (from what little I understand about how these things happen). Do take a look, see <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/taking-wing/article5352178.ece">here</a>. I must say the questions I was asked were pretty thought-provoking (and evidently well thought out).<br />
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I would have liked some more questions about the bird poems themselves, but as we all know pictures (or photos) garner far more notice. In fact, I am told that Thalam is seeing a lot of footfalls everyday since the opening of Stray Birds. <br />
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Thank you Harini, thank you Thalam!<br />
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~ ~ ~<br />
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In the little bit of boxing that I have done, I have never lost a tooth (thanks to technique, gum guards, etc.) and the damage has been limited to swollen lips and the taste of blood -- which in a very funny way, is heady, almost a mood-upper, in the way it keeps you keyed up.<br />
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It was that very taste of blood that kept me going through the bus journeys to B'lore, the pillion-borne flying on a friend's bike and the launch of Stray Birds.<br />
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Yet, spending the whole day with your tongue trying to be an eye proffering uneducated diagnoses of your oral well being is no way to be.<br />
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So, the tooth had to come out (on Tuesday, some three days ago).<br />
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The knockout blows of the painkiller thereafter has been something altogether, even to someone like me.<br />
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The morning after grogginess (especially on the first day) was yet another. Luckily for me, I have a Dentist whom I can trust my life with, yet getting a tooth removed is certainly unnerving. But somehow, in some kind of an evolutionary way, I seem to have managed to survive it. <br />
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And yes, pain is good -- if for nothing else, for the fact that it makes one feel alive. <br />
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(On an irreverent, very self-depreciating aside -- that leaves me with 30 teeth. Thirty teeth and 2 hearing aids in my 40th year. If I do the math, what exactly is my value in the Marriage Market now?) <br />
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<br />Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-20757086564006276342013-11-12T22:01:00.000-08:002013-11-12T22:01:45.296-08:00This and that in B'lore -- 1Typically, 2-3 days after an event like Stray Birds @ Thalam, I should be doing a lot of digital PR.<br />
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Here on this blog and in other places like FB, etc.<br />
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(Digital PR -- in this specific case -- should involve me posting excerpts of my interview(s) and the links where they can be read at leisure by all and sundry. It should also involve a lot of photographs of the launch / release, with some specifically showing me hobnobbing with celebrities and a lot of me dazzling the camera with the sparkle of my teeth and dermabrased skin.) <br />
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But as you must have already guessed, I am not doing anything like that.<br />
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For one, nothing barely spectacular happened -- the event was low key (and lacked build-up) and even if anything like that happened, I would certainly not blog about it, will I?<br />
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And -- in a day and age when the What's App glitterati have elevated the word "selfie" to an altogether stratospheric level -- while I am not bad in the teeth department, far from having dermabrased dazzle, my face is the kind that would probably not even make it into any "dark is beautiful" campaigns, thanks to the liberal growth of blackheads on it (courtesy of more or less a lifetime spent out in the "unforgiving" sun).<br />
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So there. No digital PR here, either way.<br />
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~<br />
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Speaking of dazzling photographs, it sure is a heady feeling to see your work up on the walls of a gallery, with the lighting putting each framed bird under the spotlight. And, whatever it be said for the numerous "likes" bird photographs shared on FB gather, nothing beats displaying a bird in all its "everything in focus" glory in sizes bigger than cellphone (and phablet) screens. Who knows, someday I will also be spendthrift enough to print 20X30 (and even bigger) bird photographs.<br />
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~<br />
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Some trivia.<br />
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The exhibits were 50 in number when I went to get the prints.<br />
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One bird went missing somewhere in between the computer and the printer.<br />
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That meant there should be 49 birds up on Thalam's walls.<br />
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But there are 46, it seems 3 birds went missing somewhere in the flight of the courier packet from Hyderabad to B'lore.<br />
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I lugged along another 4 frames (along with some copies of all three of my books). But that's okay, since I am anyway used to lugging weights and expectations.<br />
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~<br />
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My biggest trepidation was the journey to B'lore (by bus). But since I was sleep-deprived and mentally exhausted (preparing for any public event does that to me -- mostly because I am all alone in dealing with the logistics) and was not carrying along any of my photographic gear, it was easy enough on the way out. The last hour or so into B'lore was in fact as relaxing as the concluding stretches of any of my train journeys -- with a wintry sun dappling a dew soaked bus and the sight of a just-waking-up Hebbal Lake (where I have never managed to go birding, in all my forays in B'lore) with its attendant Black and Brahminy Kites was a welcoming insight of the fact that -- hey, I do know some landmarks in B'lore too!<br />
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Coming back was something else, however. The horrors of Majestic (compounded by the traffic snarls all around) meant that is was a scene out of my worst nightmares repeating itself. Thankfully, I had a friend around and he has excellent phone skills.<br />
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So, I caught the bus and got back to the Deccan, far lighter than I had set out. And I can say, all's well that ends well.<br />
Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-60907950460718518962013-11-10T23:13:00.000-08:002013-11-10T23:13:20.347-08:00Stray Birds @ Thalam -- A big thank you!So I bussed it -- to and fro.<br />
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"To" was fine, "fro" was crazier than my craziest nightmares and reminiscent of the wild dashes to make it into the Rajdhani -- many a time while it was moving -- from B'lore to Hyderabad (surprisingly) less than a year ago.<br />
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Fro, wouldn't have been possible (since I cannot call up Enquiry numbers and bus drivers) if I wasn't lucky enough to have a good Samaritan (and a friend of long standing) along -- to put his baritone and hustling skills to excellent use.<br />
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Linking up again with M and getting babysat (yes, I am serious, what do you know) by his 2 year old daughter was in many ways the highlight of this trip (as was the pillion ride to some place where M owns land...). <br />
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Speaking of Thalam itself, it was a cool do, with quite a few chairs filled for the duration of the Book Launch and poetry reading. I was lucky enough to benefit from the erudite expertise of poet and writer, Ms Shikha Malviya -- she introduced me and the book, read some poems from it and then even asked me quite a few thought-provoking questions.<br />
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Naturally, she also did me the honour of releasing the book.<br />
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I again (after the Goethe event) got the idea that the bird photographs were a big draw and it was heartening to see people inside Thalam and getting close up to the birds long before the exhibition opened.<br />
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And I am sure, the photographs will continue to be a draw all through the rest of this week.<br />
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Thank you Thalam for a memorable evening (and for giving the Stray Birds the perches of your walls).<br />
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Thank you Ms. Shikha Malviya for being the nice and genuine person you are.<br />
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Thank you everyone who made it to Thalam for Stray Birds.<br />
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Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-89667347194271943302013-11-07T03:00:00.003-08:002013-11-07T03:00:44.755-08:00Bussing it to Bengaluru I constantly claim and even mock-celebrate the fact that I have a strong mind. And no, its certainly not because of the fact that I have managed to deal with the heartbreak of bird photography pretty adeptly. After all, when it comes to birds, there is always another chance to score, if not this season then in the next (speaking of which I am more than a bit put off as of now, owing to the fact that I still haven't had a proper encounter with the Chataks or even come across the Red Avadavats or the Eurasian Wrynecks this year).<br />
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And hey, I am not referring to the thousand and one rejections that I am collecting (apart from a handful of "actual" e-mails, they are all automated "rejections" and gathering electronic dust in a specified folder in my GMail inbox) on a certain matrimonial site.<br />
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I am referring to how I have managed to stay sane after so many run-ins with the IRCTC website for booking a ticket under the Tatkal scheme.<br />
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Primarily, because I am too poor to fly.<br />
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And because I hate buses -- especially so as it is well nigh impossible to figure out which one is yours in the chaotic bedlam that is Lakdi-ka-pul, from where most of the higher end buses (allegedly the most comfortable) leave.<br />
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Anyway, today's run-in with IRCTC was nightmarish. I am logged in long before the Tatkal hour strikes. Something like 15-20 minutes in advance. And since I don't want to be timed out, I keep "refreshing" the page every minute or so. Yet, with more than 8 or so minutes to go for the Tatkal hour, I see that "Bangalore Rajdhani" is already showing "Regret/CKWL1".<br />
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I am like WTF and I am like WTF some more.<br />
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But that (or breaking things or pulling out your hair) is of no avail with IRCTC.<br />
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Then, (quite naturally for IRCTC) I get kicked out the moment it is 10.00 AM<br />
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Even more naturally, by the time I can log back into IRCTC, the show is all over. And the tickets up for grab under the Tatkal quota for every single train (apart from one) are booked out. I keep trying and put my bull-headed nature to the utmost use and try in that one train too. And my ticket which was "Available 35" comes to me as "WL 33".<br />
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I then try once again; in the next class and this time (though it was "Available 002" at the time of booking) the ticket just doesn't manage to get ticketed! Even though the transaction goes through.<br />
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So anticlimactically enough, its a bus to Bengaluru (and no, its not from the chaotic bedlam of Lakdi-ka-pul, but far closer by and from a real "station") this time around.<br />
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This certainly has to rank as a life event for me -- but then, anything for the birds. <br />
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Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-51060725413193808242013-11-06T00:51:00.001-08:002013-11-06T00:51:42.691-08:00Stray Birds @ Thalam, Bangalore As promised, it is happening :-)<br />
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In fact, a big number of the Stray Birds have already set out on their way to Bangalore and should be getting up on the walls of Thalam starting today evening.<br />
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And some more may travel with me.<br />
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If you are in Bangalore, do take this as a personal invite and do please come.<br />
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For an evening of poetry and photography.<br />
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For an evening of Stray Birds. <br />
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<br />Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593382250668828687.post-394567732515667582013-10-21T04:15:00.000-07:002013-10-21T04:25:22.801-07:00A lust for life (and lenses)Or, since I have already managed to get myself a Nikon 600 mm f/4, what I am lusting for now is an as light as possible tripod (Gitzo series 5?) and as versatile and maneuverable gimball head arrangement (Wimberly? or Jobu Design Black Widow?) so that the lens is supported, stable, etc, etc<br />
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As opposed to being a deadweight that cannot be raised to eye level for shooting birds.<br />
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Aren't these -- the tripod and gimball head arrangement -- unnecessary accessories that will be put away in some convenient corner and gather dust? After all, that is what happens to most tripods, by virtue of their weight and unwieldy nature, it is not?<br />
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Ummm...well, I hate tripods and would rather handhold my lenses all the while. And I have managed pretty well all these while (the Sigma 150-500 is more or less a pygmy in terms of weight when compared to the Nikon 600 mm, but its no featherweight, all said and done). And over the last couple of weekends I have managed to do a lot of shooting with the 600 mm, totally hand-held and also by bracing it here and there (including my knee, etc) but the fact remains that it progressively ends up becoming a deadweight.<br />
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To get an idea of what I am saying, think of a scenario from a Hindi film, just after a gunfight in which one of the characters (mostly the villain) has taken a bullet but is still trying to raise his gun, summoning all the remaining vestiges of strength in his body and yet, fails, to either pass out or die. In my case, there are no bullets involved and nor is there any blood, but a bird looking at me with a mischievous glint in its eye while I am straining the sinews of shoulders and biceps and arms to hold the lens steady to squeeze off a shot...<br />
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And yes, most of the time I am able to squeeze of the shot as well...but<br />
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So, the lust for a carbon fiber tripod and a sufficiently advanced gimball head continues.<br />
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*****<br />
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Meanwhile, at the buffalo wallow (a buffalo wallow that is as full as it has ever been, in the last 3+ years that I have birded around it) a pair of Darters have taken up residence in addition to the numerous Cormorants (great and small) that are there from morning to evening. As have a pair of Purple Herons, in addition to the the Great Egrets and the Blue Herons that are there from morning to evening. Which means that I see a lot of fish getting caught and I keep missing "capturing" the moment "perfectly" (read full-frame and in absolutely sharp detail) mostly because I am a bit distant or because the bird gobbles the fish too fast or because the light is wrong or so on and so forth...<br />
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But catch the moment pretty soon I will, pretty soon...<br />
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And hopefully it will be when I will have the lens mounted on the Vanguard Auctus 283 AT that I have recently acquired and hence relatively stable as well! <br />
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Also back at the buffalo wallow (while a reed bed grows) is a Common Kingfisher. I mean I have seen only one as of now (incidentally the lady) but I am sure the other is around as well. And, something tells me it is Lil' Blue which is back.<br />
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About time, about time -- it was around now last year that they strayed into my life, to progressively grow more and more familiar and to make me feel accepted. In the process, making me promise that I will bring out Stray Birds in their honour. Would this year mean even closer encounters? <br />
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Speaking of which, I have already had one close encounter with Lady Lil' Blue -- saw her ensconced deep in the shadows of a thorn tree, went to ground as efficiently and soundlessly as a well trained hound and then fired away at something close to minimum focus distance (of around 6 meters) for more or less 10 minutes. I swear, I felt the bird was aware of me. And I would have got a couple of "perfect" shots as well (unimpeded sight of the bird, without any branches or leaves in between and with the bird in the light) by and by, slowly slithering through the dirt and slime, but then a Chatak came and landed on the thorn clump as if it belonged to it and our friend Lady Lil' Blue took off...<br />
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******<br />
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All this talk of lusting -- for a camera, a lens, a tripod, etc, etc -- is peculiarly not much off the mark considering how obsessively I photograph birds. Its even lesser off the mark when one remembers the madness with which I set out birding in March / April / May of this year; the costly visits to Uttarkhand and Bor, and the almost-daily jaunts all around my place in 45 degree plus temperatures.<br />
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But that is how it is, maybe -- sometimes its a madness that keeps you sane.<br />
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And yet, by comparison with someone like Van Gogh (his autobiography is titled "A lust for life") how mad can I consider my own obsessive streak to photograph birds? How much of what I capture is art? Yet, there are similarities -- I lug around a lot of gear, in all probability I lug around more weight than he did, in his quest to paint his subjects as seen in natural light, in situ.<br />
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And yes, my ears bother me (though I will never cut them off) more than his ever bothered him. <br />
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Meanwhile, I am assailed by sore wrists, thews, biceps, shoulders, lats, back, knees, thighs and (dead) feet. No, I have not joined back a gym or survived a duel with Conan, the barbarian, just lugging around 10 kilos of gear and photographing birds -- over yet another weekend.<br />
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But this is a good pain to have, I will say. <br />
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Anand Vishwanadhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12678761021142474477noreply@blogger.com0