Colour.Brushes.Pencils.Ink.Paper.

Blissful week this has been- sighs! And it was supose to hav been a complete week of prepping for interviews! That, was SO not wat the week was..*Guilt written across my face* Ah wat the hell- unexpected luxuries like this week rarely come by..Its like sumone gave u an extra week on your year - Not jus to you, but to everyone else who had anything at all to do with colleges, even amma had the week off! :)

Although I must admit, midweek, I was kinda dying from boredom, but that kinda death never kills does it? Found time to do most of the things I wanted to - So Yay for me!

This was a rock that i picked outside my house and oil pastel crayon d it! Oil pastels still feel so good in ur palm! :)

And this, was inspired by the angelic baby next door, whom i swear, by far, is the cutest looking represntative of the human race that I have ever laid my eyes on!
Dug deep into my cupboard and found some old stuff that I must hav painted right out of school. Which is why cupboards are priceless, the mystery with which u lose things inside them is totally worth the thrill of finding them back when u least expect to! I remember looking at some bottle of perfume for inspiration for this one with the flowers.

And then some random shrubbery, water colours really rock!
The layers that people can add,its such a rich medium... I guess Im happiest when I watch some one flesh out the entire painting, giving form and depth with every layer- sighs! Now that, would be my dream job, to stand next to a brilliant artist and watch the way the water colors are used, to just stand by and watch a professional's brush strokes.. Sighs! And this one,with the lamps, I remember, was done in total frustration when I went on and on about how there was nothing nice looking to paint in this house anymore, and people at home jus lost it , put these Velakkus in front of me and said here, If u really want to paint stop whining and get to work! :P

And this one, was just after 12th, a week before my Msc. Software interview, I remember, tried to illustrate for one of Devi' s childcraft stories.. :)

Pencil sketching, on the other hand, always holds it charm for me, mostly bcus it involves mainly only a pencil and paper, and does not involve hunting for brushes, the palette or a container for the water.. Also, considering how clumsy I can get, the damaged wrecked by water all over a painting is far more devastating than pencils all over a sketch. On the other hand, pencil sketching means I have to go on a scavenger hunt for an eraser, which I believe to be non existant within the confines of my house, or my room at the hostel. So I tend to not use an eraser, and if it sucks way too much, then I jus pretend I had nothing to do with the sketch ( :P ) - and that seems to help, for now.So one day, I get bak home from Sandhyas place, totally inspired by the stuff she does, and try something along similar lines.. I ended up with these- an attempt at carricaturing Barrack obama that exactly 6 ppl got right, and an extremely sad attempt at the same with Hilary Clinton, and only 1 person recognised her- and that was my sister! :( Work like that, better left to the pro's I guess.. Anyway, carricature watching proves to be way more fun than attempting it and failing miserably- So I don hav any regrets now.. And now, Im in this phase where I pick random faces off the tv or the newspaper and do very rough sketching- and since no one s can compare my sketch with the original, I can only go mua ha ha ha ha! :D

P.S: Don ask me why the pictures all of a sudden, jus that everyone kept saying this space had too much textual content, and I agree, and I was turning purple with guilt cus im here at chennai the past week and I hadnt posted anything at all..

* Relief floods my face as the purple ebbs away and normalcy returns to my guilt ridden heart beat*

Package time -

Its the secret codeword for "time to look reely important and busy and depressed and frustrated with life in general" - it involves staring at chaotic pieces of code that are strung together blindly on poor, old laptop that s already stuttering and stammering away into oblivion.


Zoom out a little, into the hostel room in general and ull find more of the same species, all creatures exhibitting similar behavioural patterns - an intense frown on the face, a white/blue/black screen on the corresponding laptop that beeps/burps/growls errors at regular intervals, the beeps are followed by further intensification of the existing frown, widening of the eyes, closing of the eyes, a two minute prayer heavenward, opening of the eyes, breathe in, breathe out, fingers that start to squiggle amoeba shapes in the air, inward sighs, outward groans accompanied by frustrated yells, sometimes a slap of the forehead, a moment of euphoria, inspired fingers that race over the keyboard, another beep/burp/growl of an error and we r back on track!



ps: id like all well wishers to know that this is an old post and that iv now made it through those difficult dark times. Im currently alive and breathing but im not too sure about the laptop :/

To each- his own way of grieving

To islero88, for inspiring me to blog,
To someone whose comments on this space will truly be cherished,
For the unparalleled wit and sense of humour that defined you,
For the crazy antics you played with your face,
For the uncanny imitations of a certain Mr.Jeeves,
For your beloved sunny a.k.a the sewing machine,
For the countless ways in which you touched our lives,
For the mad moments that we all shared,
For the warm and sincere person that you were.

arbit-

Its a life that invites,
That pulls,pricks and mocks,
A set of scenes strung together,
A thin strand of memory flipping past them all,
The anticipation of the next moment,
Is determinedly washed down by the previous,
To put a stop to it all,
To paint black over them all,
To think of nothing for just a moment,
To feel the emptyness throbbing thro the body,
To respond to all that with nothing at all,
To be at peace with the mind for once!

NOD along everybody!!

This one's for all of us poor mortals who indulge in that masterful practice of "eyes wide open-head goes up -head goes down-eyes still open" during class. And no- I'm not talking about the much over rated -cliched- much discussed (and frankly a trifle too boring?) set of sleepers-This blog is for the few of us uncool ones- the ones that stay awake and do the head bobbing.

I mean -Enough has been said about all other stereotypes- enough people belong to them- we- the less discussed -the less thought about.We, who have taken the tough decision to stay awake and battle it all out- this blog takes our cause!
And the rest of the world can just pretend to screw up their noses in disgust for all we care but this is who we are- and we know you'r squirming in your seat right now.We'v known it all along ppl! Its official- WAR has been declared!Not us Vs you- silly! Its us Vs them- the ones with the chalk and the walk and the talk-

They declared the war- i maintain-They start with a word, add another word, and then another, and then may be a cuple more and then do it all again!By the fourth round you will find most victims shifting restlessly and another 3-4 rounds later each is into

• humming her/his own tune in the head
• Turning around to see who bunked class(Lucky them!)
• Lovingly patting the edges of ones cell phone
• Wondering what day of the week it is
• Comparing bracelets with ppl 1 row away
• Reminiscing about how one shouldn't have missed that day morning's Dosa in the mess and how one should wake up in the morning the first time the alarm goes off (In my defence- the alarm was soothing to the ear)
• Wondering why the word why meant why

This could like go on-victims are too many- oppurtunities -even more - but the point is that "Ms/Mr Lovingly patting cell phone" by now picks up her/his cell phone and starts punching out the keys with lightning speed,mind numbing accuracy and all this without moving even a single muscle in the rest of(excluding the hand) her/his body.And that, we know, is when the victim recognises herself as being victimised- the first sign of failure!

We, on the other hand, we r still bobbing,let them plough on relentlessly- word after word that they throw at us- we give it back to them.Nod after nod we swallow their weapons, take it with a straight face and still end up looking brave and ready for the next word.I mean, we'v set our inds on staying awake through the entire ordeal-and by staying awake I refer to the "not acting out" of the following acts:

*No shut eye- primary rule.

*No half opened eye that could pass off for the above option either.

*No dropping the head down on the table- it is vital that there be intense eye contact between the victim and the perpetrator in order for both sides to continue waging this hideous war.

We recognise, at this point, that we do take a lot of stress whilst bobbing- and assume that if the bobbing were to become irregular- it would result in the victims(who have by now totally switched off)-not the bobbers- being questioned at random- and that is a scary prospect!(However much we may differ by principle- it all amounts to the fact that we r all students dosnt it!)

And thats why people, that is why we still go on- in the larger interests of the community!

In extreme cases of wartime danger, the bobbers are allowed to doodle on the extreme corners of their notebook's to their hearts content whilst still bobbing the head and looking extremely intrested in the weapons that whiz by.

A word of advice, to prospective bobbers- notes taking is a red herring for the perpetrators and comes as a major relief given the fact that you can avoid eye contact for a while.Also extremely useful is the 3 phase "dropping the pencil-bending down to pick it-never coming up again" act that brings immediate and effective release to prolonged eye contact.However these respites are against the principles of head bobbing and are frowned upon by true blue loyalists!

Meanwhile-Happy bobbing!

The defense rests.

Hmph!

A troubled mind. Waves of nervousness. Anxiety that grips. Alive with questions. Huge gaping holes. oodles of self doubt. smiles that are incomplete. Days that swing by- meaningless.Purpose of life - the very theme.

Brilliantly laid out plans, a smashboard that rocks it all, a tunnel that seems to choke, extends up to infinity.

When the meaning of infinity slaps you. When the person that u are is at conflicts. When all those doubts eat u up from within.

Lingering moments of nerve wrenching pain. The hurt. The mockery. The very idea.
Hmph!