Desicritics Category: Culture: Hobbies

Introducing Astrology in Schools

Priyank Chandra — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:24:12 EDT

I believe astrology should be introduced in schools. This is my firm belief, one which I have settled on after years of observation. It is time we give legitimacy to a practice that most people in our country either follow or "see no harm" in not following. It governs the lives of many and is the "belief" called upon whenever any events need to be initiated. No matter how many hours of work are put in by the men of science and technology, the astrologers are the ones who gives us the green-light. Such is their power.

I digress for a moment. Most of astrology at least pretend to appear scientific, with a lot of pseudo-scientific bullshit and a long list of complicated rules that have seemingly been studied and practiced for thousands of years. But you know what I really despise? Tarot cards. I understand the need of humans to find patterns in the randomness that surrounds us. But please make an attempt to pretend to to look harder. Cards? Seriously. Is that even trying hard enough?

So anyhow, introducing astrology in schools will allow students to wallow in the power of determinacy. They can forget the bullshit about uncertainty and chaos, ignore the vastness of the universe, of which we are but inconsequential constituents and pretend that the infinite number of variables that have the ability to influence the course of a life are an urban legend.

We will create a population of determinacy-loving content fools, with no concept of existential angst, only resignation to fate or a desire to perform meaningless tasks in an attempt to ward bad luck away. The stars have decided our fates. Our destinies are riding upon all the patterns in the universe.

I concede that holding on to the illusion of free will is too much of an effort. Astrology provides you an easy way out. While supercomputers still struggle to figure out the weather for the next day, astrology claims to know far more with far little information. And all from the unique ability to look at anything in the world, and predict. And from the stars, we have already moved down to cards and dust, parrots and palms. In the end of it all, we now assume that a recognizable pattern has to run through ALL the events in the universe.

The ones who claim to have found it will tell us about it, help us plan our lives and negate the forces of the universe by taking money from us. By teaching astrology in school, we cut down on the middle man. Let every child in the country find his own patterns, and manipulate them through creative means to enable them to have a better future.

Ideart: Good Karma, Bad Medicine

IdeaSmith — Fri, 5 Mar 2010 17:17:30 EST

A few days earlier I had a thought. The words

Good karma, bad medicine

just formed themselves in my head. I can’t quite explain the thought. It was one of those ideas that just showed itself and vanished before I fully explore it further. It still sounded interesting. I put it up as my Twitter/ Facebook status to see if I could glean anything from it from seeing it in print. Still no luck. It was one of those things that you can just about see from the corner of your eye but never quite catch it straight-on. That’s when it occurred to me that the best way to communicate this thought may be visual and not verbal. And I realized that it had been awhile since I wielded a paintbrush.

The minute I had that thought, the image I needed flashed before my eyes.That was just it. The idea was a picture, not a sentence or story. After that it was just a matter of executing it. Luckily I had a plain black singlet handy and kept waiting for just such a time. A budding artist learns to store away material that could come in useful.

This is a tank top, that I picked up the first time I saw it because it is the thin, stretchy tee-shirt cotton material. There are no big logos or pictures on it and the cut is basic but curved along the sides rather than the straight up-and-down of unisex tees. I hate those since they hang and tug alternately.

The first thing I had to do was figure out a way to get rid of that little logo in the corner (little as it was, it was still in a white rubberprint and stood out) since that would certainly not do with the idea I had in mind. I was out of black paint so I tried dark blue and dark green but the rubber print of the logo showed right through both of these. Finally I coated it with Fevicryl Pearl Black no. 306.

I wanted the picture to be exactly in the middle of the visible area of the tee-shirt. If you are painting a tee-shirt for the first time, I recommend putting it on and marking off the area while still wearing it. Otherwise, one is used to the stark, solid borders of paper and too often the artwork goes over the visible area or looks too small or big. Clothes fall on each person’s body differently and ideally you should always see the garment on the wearer before painting on it. This area usually comes to about 8in x 8in or 20cm x 20cm on my clothes (and I rather smugly report that it turned out a perfect square without using a ruler or even pencil sketching!)

I started with a swirly line using a thin brush and Fevicryl Pearl Spring Green no.311 and then Fevicryl Cerulean Blue no.32. But I realized that a psychedelic design with multiple colours would need to have broad strokes for each colour to be visible and not get lost in too-intricate strokes so I switched brushes. After that it was a random selection of colours applied in strokes, splashes, squiggles and splotches. I painted over in a number of places and in other places I also used the same brush in multiple colours without cleaning the brush. This last gives the effect that you can see to the right of the second dot on the right. The yellow and pink run parallel for a bit before the yellow strikes out on its own. The colours must not be too liquidey if you want this effect since otherwise they’ll merge into each other.

This is one design where red (my favorite colour) was not the most striking note. On the contrary, the red quite got lost in the gloss of the other pearly tints so I used it as background in a number of places. When I had covered the entire square, I dabbed on circles with the Fevicryl Pearl Spring Green no.311 and you can see the colours beneath through the thin veneer of the green, in places.

I originally intended to paint the words over this design in black or white. But I realized the paint area was too small to fit in words and besides, it was too striking to waste as background. Besides, there was enough room above and below for lettering.

I tried for a digital-looking font and a religious-looking orange (Fevicryl Metallic Red no. 356) for the words ‘Good Karma’. In contrast the words ‘Bad Medicine’ at the bottom are in a more graffiti-like font in a Fevicryl Pearl Lemon Yellow no. 302.

Finally I noticed that the painted-over patch over the logo in the bottom right corner had dried and was standing out against the black. So I painted on a stretch in the same colour across the tee-shirt, a sort of rough underline the way one would highlight a graffittied sentence.

I’m not sure whether the finer points like font and colour would be noticed but I’m guessing they would register at a sublimnal level. The message just is one of those things. I wore this with worn-out blue jeans, a silver chain double-looped around my neck with a New Age faerie pendant. It got some appreciation. :-)

[
Garment: Sleeveless ladies tee-shirt

Material: Hosiery cotton

Background colour: Solid Black

Paint colours used:

Fevicryl Pearl Black no. 306

Fevicryl Cerulean Blue no. 32

Fevicryl Crimson no. 04

Fevicryl Pearl Spring Green no. 311

Fevicryl Pearl Pink no. 303

Fevicryl Pearl Lemon Yellow no. 302

Fevicryl Pearl Metallic red no. 356

Cut Loose All The Flying Kites

Halima Khan — Fri, 5 Mar 2010 00:09:59 EST

Basant, a tradition in the sub-continent especially in the more Punjabi sectors has been under the wire for a while now. Every year when it is time for flowers to bloom and for spring to make its grand long awaited entrance unconsciously Basant is all everyone is thinking about. Many understand why the government deems it necessary to wage this war against the harmless kite, but everyone still wants it.

Raza Rumi in ‘Sad news: Kite-flying to stay banned’ on Lahore Nama gives a new enlightened feeling to this prevailing ban:

“Hope that this festival will come back to Lahore. We strongly protest against this policy decision. Pakistan cannot be made a safe haven for roaming terrorists and suicide bombers while the peaceful citizens are denied the opportunity to celebrate a festival that is so deeply a part of our culture.”

The News, daily newspaper in Pakistan, reports how the Police force is all set to make sure violation of this ban does not go unnoticed or unpunished. On the other hand Daily Times, another English daily in Pakistan, reports how 75% population of Punjab, the hub of basant celebrations, wants basant. But the government and the judiciary does not plan to give in to the consensus of the masses.

Basant Ban by Hamza Ahmed Qureshi reads:

“The hue and cry raised by a certain section of the society on the recent banning of Basant by the Lahore High Court compels me to bring forward my point of view.

These people mourn for the loss of a cultural event which attracted thousands of foreigners from all over the world. In the prevailing geopolitical situation, I hardly think that a bunch of colorful kites would be able to lure an already fear stricken foreigner to a death trap. Moreover this cultural loss might be a matter of concern for a handful of socialites and five star hotels but not for the common man.”

Sir, we can’t control this. “Then ban it” by Momekh does not have much reason to disagree with the general feeling when he blatantly states:

“The ban on basant is silly. Loss of life and loss of the ever-so-present WAPDA supply are not reasons at all. And here’s why: the loss of life is not because the kite-flying itself is dangerous. Kite-flying has been around for quite some time.”

However Momekh kindly goes on to explain a little on what made basant a controversial matter. Hence clarifying the real issue the authorities should be addressing instead of canceling an event so looked forward.

“The murderous streak now automatically tagged with basant itself, has been introduced through the development of stronger string. A lot of people think that it is the razor-like solution that the string is soaked in that causes the string to be a knife-on-the-loose. Although the sharpness is part of the reason, the main reason is that the string itself is very strong. There was a time, I remember, when I was able to snap the string by pulling on it with both hands. It is a typical way of checking a string’s strength – tug at it and see when it breaks. But recently, I would notice that it has become harder and harder to just ’snap’ the string. You would have to resort to either some serious pulling or just use to teeth to sever the string. It is the combination of ultra-strong string with razor-sharp solution (a.k.a. manja) that makes the string a killer.”

According to a local news source if the government set some rules and regulations which could be outlined for this cultural and traditional event just maybe entertainment could for once not be made a matter of conflict. However in the meanwhile the ban is very much there. The same news source maintained that DCO Lahore Sajjad Bhutta held that kite flying would not be permissible even at the Governor House. In conversation with media persons here on Friday, DCO Lahore said that government would ensure the ban on kites flying, if any one would violate the ban, government would take strict action against him and about Rs.100, 000/- would be fined for violators of ban.

Spring-ing a Surprise

Purba — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 08:33:37 EST

Spring arrived without notice, sans any fanfare. Just a week back I was cosily wrapped in a shawl enjoying a night out with friends. It is another matter that I was the only one in anything remotely woollen. Delhi fashionistas are content shivering in their chiffons. And now here I am sweating profusely, complaining loudly to whoever is willing to listen as to how hot it has become. Gosh! I can’t even bear to look at my full sleeved tees.

A few days back, I went to our local shopping centre, “The Galleria”. The atmosphere was festive, with Holi just round the corner. I spotted quite a few people strolling around in their shorts and tees. My corduroys felt rather overdressed. “Why? It’s only February” I mused aloud to the husband.

Of course by now I was feeling mildly disturbed, I wanted to wear my shorts and tees too, weather be damned. So what do I do? I spent the entire weekend (two whole days to be precise) trying to unpack my summer wardrobe. Actually it’s a pretty complicated procedure. When you are living in a high rise apartment, space is the first casualty. My parents live in this huge three-storied bungalow and there are dedicated rooms and cupboards to store clothes that haven’t been worn the last twenty years. This is not an attempt to be funny, for a change I am dead serious. The kilometre long loft is used to store Diwali gifts accumulated over the last decade or more. Now that I have my own nest, I no longer have this privilege and my wardrobe has to be split according to seasons.

To unpack, one has to pack away stuff just to create space. And when you put away stuff, you can’t help but wonder at the sheer volume of apparel you have managed to accumulate in just one season. How the hell did I manage 4 pullovers in rust, even though it’s my favourite colour? Fine, aubergine (the colour, not the veggie) is hot this season, but did I really need that wrap, boots, dress and a bolero jacket in that colour? Actually I blame Gurgaon, the mall capital and my credit cards. The millennium city unleashes the shopaholic in you. The glittering stores with their tantalizing displays beckon at you, you walk in hypnotized, feel the textures, feast your eyes on the new collection, spot a pair of Jodhpurs in your favourite colour, try it on, it fits you like a dream. Ah, Nirvana! I loathe need-based shopping, it seems so mundane. For me it’s about surrendering to my impulses. Sauntering into a mall, inhaling the fresh aroma of coffee, sniffing at tantalizing jars and tubes with exotic ingredients at a Body Shop store, gently filling that enduring little basket with knick knacks and opening my eyes wide in horror when the cashier finally presents the bill to me. For such indulgences, thank god there’s always MasterCard.

Confronted with a pile from my latest indiscretions, I make yet another “no more shopping, I have enough” resolution. Every year I follow this ritual. Silently curse myself, wonder how I can create space for my ever expanding eclectic wardrobe. I weed out stuff and look for unsuspecting individuals I can pass on to - usually my maids.

So it’s that time of the year again, I am atop the ladder reaching out for the loft making careful pyramids of attires from a season gone by. I lug the 100 kilo (at least it felt that heavy) mattress off my bed and stuff some more woollies in my divan. But the incorrigible me is already plotting and planning my next conquest in the shopping precincts. I could definitely do with a few more skirts this season and I need a pair of tracks my dance classes, should I make a quick trip to Mango to check out their spring summer collection? Thank god my cramped closets can’t hear me think or else they would have collapsed in frustration by now.

Confessions of a Facebook Addict

Purba — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:49:46 EST

I blame the Aggarwala brothers. Had they not created the eminently buzz worthy Scrabulous on FB, they wouldn’t have featured prominently in the papers, and my interest would not have been aroused.

It was two years back that I read about this exciting new word game on the block that had taken the cyber world by storm. Am not much into gaming, the dexterity required eludes me. But I am hopelessly hooked on to word games. The joy of discovering new words (khi, titi, dado, apod) is unmatched. The game can get ruthless at times, but showing off your vocabulary has never been this fun. I wasted no time in creating an account on FB. Thus began my dalliance with the world of social networking.

So far I had successfully (well almost) managed to evade the lure of such sites. I had joined Orkut briefly. But the lack of privacy always rankled. My mailbox was inundated with enquires from strange males curious to know whether I was the elusive Purba they had been looking for years. All these years I was under the mistaken impression that mine was a unique name, until now. Within a few weeks I had managed a few stalkers and men desperate to have an affair. Disgusted I deleted my account.

My first few months on Facebook were uneventful. I had ventured into this unchartered territory with a gaggle of my friends. We were a close knit circle of thirty, playing Scrabble with passion. New terms baffled me: a wall to scribble messages on, status updates, notifications, getting poked. There was an exciting new world on my desktop waiting to be explored. What a convenient and novel way to keep in touch with your many friends and relatives scattered around the globe, I would often muse. I even managed to unearth my brother under a Jim Morrison inspired pseudonym. Here was a forum where everyone was sharing their opinions, sentiments and even trivial details of their lives. It was through FB I saw my nephew grow up from a cuddly baby to a cherubic angel in far off Baton Rouge. Shared my friend’s excitement as she traversed the East Coast on a solo trip to the US through her many pics and posts. A lyrical ode here, a scene captured there, the seduction was gradual but irreversible. Whenever I could manage some free time I would plonk myself in front of the system, gleefully share links, leave comments or just play my turns on Scrabulous.

On FB you cannot remain anonymous for long. My many ex-students sniffed out my trail and I was bombarded with friend requests. I did accept a few and was now privy to the psyche of the young Indian mind. I am in lurvvvv...teehee....Luv is nyc... Noooo...Yess?? (Subject to interpretation) My powers of deduction were getting severely tested and I was experiencing mild trauma. My news feeds were definitely getting spicier. X took a quiz “How good are you in a bed” Result: Man, you are a nympho. Y just downloaded the Lady Timer. Z just tagged you as “The one with the best body”. I had a choice between squirming and sighing in relief. It could have been worse (the indomitable optimist speaks) - “Best Hag” would have certainly incurred my wrath. To preserve my sanity I now use the hide function to protect me from unsavoury truths of life.

It never ceases to amaze me how even perfectly sane adults are capable of taking the most inane quizzes and add insult to injury by having the results published. Which shoe do I resemble the most?? Which female superhero are you? Which musical are you? A bunch of retarded questions masquerading as a quiz with even more retarded results.

And the status messages some of us write. Agreed the name Facebook stems from the colloquial name of books given to grad students at the start of academic year with the intention of getting to know each other. But posting details about your breakfast or your latest splurge at Bodyshop is definitely not welcome. Some people can write the dullest status messages. “Waiting for the flight to Dallas at Newark airport” “Have a toothache” “The avocados just gave me a rash”. To me it sounds more like an exchange between a husband and wife. CNN went to the extent of listing the “The 12 most annoying types of facebookers” “The-let-me-fill-you-on-every-detail-of-my-life bore” “The self promoter” (is that me?) “The friend-padder”, “The lurker” to name just a few.

They forgot to add the Farmville enthusiast. You can spot this individual from a mile. Farmville, Mafia Wars, Hatchlings or any new fangled application is their raison-d’être. Their wall is chock-a- block with gargoyles acquired, warehouse eggs hatched and fertilizer collected. Their status messages read more like Oscar acceptance speeches where they often thank their friends for helping them build the barn or some such thing. I admit I had joined this strange breed albeit briefly. For a few weeks my routine centred on the endless cycle of ploughing, sowing and harvesting crops. I was saving lost kitties, collecting eggs and tending to my cows. On my trip to Jaisalmer I actually logged in just to save my dying crops. Thankfully my fascination did not last long. I was becoming the butt of jokes of my family members and one fine day I bid adieu to the fascinating world of virtual farming.

But I have been fiercely loyal to FB. There have been temptations galore - Twitter, Myspace and now Google buzz. But I am content with my hundred odd friends on FB. I still play Scrabulous, now in its new avatar Lexulous. I owe my interest in blogging to a note I shared with my friends on this network. The overwhelming feedback made me think of taking writing seriously. Yes, I have this obsessive compulsion of checking my account every few hours and on days I can’t I end up feeling restless. My husband has a new term of endearment for me.....addict. Of late I have been reading about a new movement called virtual suicide i.e deleting all your social networking accounts in one go. Has that thought ever entered my mind? Not even for a fraction of a second. The kind of trash they now show on television I’d rather be the addict I am made out to be. And isn’t Internet one of the nominees for the Nobel prize for peace. So here I am logging in yet again for the sake of world peace.

Fiction: The Winning Point

IdeaSmith — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:35:34 EST

Vineet was an ordinary young man with one remarkable talent that came to fore only in his late teens in college. It all started with an inter-collegiate festival.

His college and the hosting campus had a long running feud and the annual festival was both, a new episode in the war as well as a chance for each batch to showcase its coming-of-age skills. When Anveeta, the cultural secretary had called for participants, he had been standing nearby, waiting for her to finish so he could leave the class. But she turned to him and snapped,

“Name?”

and his mind had gone on auto-pilot. Before he realized it, she had written it down and moved on to the next person. He didn’t even have time to tell her that he wasn’t into anything remotely cultural. Anyway, he wouldn’t have. Anveeta was not the kind of person one ever said no to. Not that she had ever asked him anything. Anveeta went with the power pack in college and he doubted that she’d recognize him on the road if they passed. Now that they had spoken, he realized that he would have agreed to anything she asked. Even though she had not really asked.

The festival had twenty-five events with about twelve colleges competing for the trophy. Each event awarded a point apiece for participation and more for clearing each level of the competition. The college with the highest total at the end of the festival would win the shining silver cup.

A bunch of 15-odd people were going to sing, dance, act, talk and strut down the stage for the various events. Vineet found himself herded in with the numbers to grab the participation points. These were the small runs, the ‘singles’ as his buddies on the cricket team called it. First to go were the accomplished artists into the music, elocution and art events. Next were the trained and rehearsed teams – the fashion show troupe, the debating team and the dramatics group. The sports teams had gone straight to the grounds and would catch up with them only at the end of the day.

That left four of them. One of them headed to the advertising contest, having set his sights on an internship at an ad agency that summer. The other two trouped off to the personality contest, more to ogle the participants of the opposite sex than anything else. They left Vineet standing in front of the schedule board.

What could he do? He ran his eye speculatively down the list some three times before he found an event right at the bottom. There were only 3 registrants so far and it sounded easy. So he signed up and walked towards the door he was directed to. To his dismay, it turned out to be a small sized auditorium rather than a classroom. What’s more, it was almost half full. Most of the students were using it as a resting point to lounge in the airconditioning, secure in the knowledge that the peons wouldn’t be able to evict anyone on this day of the festival when it wasn’t clear who was a visitor and who, a student.

It was too late to turn back since the co-ordinator who had registered his name was jostling him from the back. Too bad she was so pretty. She was the only girl to have even looked at him that day. So he took a deep breath and walked up to the raised podium and sat down with the other three participants.

It was two hours before he was able to escape from that room. Outside, his team was waiting, Anveeta hopping impatiently from foot to foot as she gave him an annoyed look.

“So how many points do we have so far?”

Each person spoke up their share while she added it to the tally. When the stars were done, she stopped listening and just starting counting off the remaining heads to allot 1 point each for participation.

“14…15…16…17…shit, we’re tying for third place. We’re never going to get there, dammit!”

“No, we’re at 24.”

Vineet ventured timidly

“Hmm?”

she paused in distraction and looked down at her tally again. He waited patiently while she recounted and turned back at him with a frown.

“The tally is correct.”

“No, you only counted 1 for me. I got 8.”

The rest of the group was listening now. Boldened a tad, Vineet raised his voice a notch but he was beaten by the captain’s low octave.

“That’s not possible. You’ve to cross all rounds and win to get that high.”

“Err, yes, I won.”

“What?”

She was looking dumbfounded now.

“Twist-a-tune.”

He heard the girl behind him whisper to her friend,

“What’s that?”

“It’s a music event. They give you two songs. You have to take the words of one and the tune of another and sing them without a break.”

Still dumbfounded. With a supreme act of bravado, Vineet opened his mouth and launched into an encore of his performance.

“Jaadoo teri nazar, khusbhoo tera badan”

It took everyone a few minutes before someone whispered,

“But that’s…that’s…Om Jai Jagadish Hare…the tune is that”

“Tu hain meri kiran”

finished Vineet.

He was rewarded not with applause but with a shriek from the captain herself.

“24 puts us in the lead!!!!”

“Excuse me”

said a voice at his elbow,

“You didn’t tell us your name.”

The pretty girl coordinator from the mini-auditorium was smiling back at him, pad in hand. Vineet grinned. Well, when she asked like that…

And that was the day Vineet went from being an extra participant to a winner.

Photo Essay: Flowers From Our Winter Garden

Aaman Lamba — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:16:16 EST

It might be best to begin with a disclaimer. While I did take most of the photographs in this essay and have benefited from the salubrious climes induced by the beautiful array of plants and flowers, the true credit and labours are those of Deepti Lamba, and thus the kudos.

We are fortunate to have a large yard. My mother and father were ardent gardeners, but of the functional variety. While we had a few rose bushes and gladioli, the layout was oriented towards fruit trees, garden vegetables, and some special breeds like the elephant's foot. I recall quite a few good bonsai, and that is a special art indeed.

Our garden today is quite different. The fruit trees grow strong, except for a couple cherry and banana that had to be removed. We suffer from acute water shortage though, like most of Bangalore, that odd city which wasn't built next to a major water source, and has murdered the few rivers that flowed through it. Our choice of plants is therefore oriented towards ones that can go without frequent watering and also our aesthetic tastes run to colorful vibrant flowers.

This January seems to have produced a fine crop of blooms. Here are some for your appreciation.

There are more than flowers in our garden, as with any ecosystem.

We got this Violet orchid recently.

This tom is a frequent visitor to our garden.

The Writer In The Artist Spectrum

IdeaSmith — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:43:38 EST

I think all artists need an audience. This is everyone from musicians to sculptors to painters. Everyone who has ever expressed an idea in tangible form or otherwise has needed an audience. To those who disagree - if they didn't, then they'd just keep the idea in their own heads. There is an undeniable need in an artist for other people to experience their art. Art is after all, an interaction between the artist and the audience. It is absorbing impressions and communicating them to the universe outside.

Each art form carries its own framework of the artist/audience interaction and I think we gravitate to art forms that fit our needs the best.

The visual arts, painting and sculpting and other related arts are at one end of the spectrum. The artists are usually recluses. They rarely interact with their audience during the creation of their art and their only communication is in the final product. How often do you see a painter or sculptor standing next to his or her work, willing to talk about it? These people are somewhat reclusive and in some cases even antisocial, preferring the least amount of conversation with their audience.

At the other end of the spectrum are the performing arts - music, dance, acting, oratory. The audience is crucial to the performance as the performer himself/herself. Ask anyone who has practiced these arts and they will tell you how important it is to relate to the audience, to get them involved and enjoying the performance. As a result I think these are also the arts that draw the more sociable artists of all. Immediate and constant interaction with other people is very important to the performer. I'll go so far to say that performers are the artists who need other people the most, during every minute of their performance. (For the after, that's true of all artists).

So where does writing fall on this spectrum? Are we the reclusive visual artists because we hide behind our smokescreen of words? Or are we the vivacious performers because we are constantly engaging and facilitating conversations?

I always thought of a writer as someone who lets you sit on his shoulder and view the world as he sees it. Or even better, he lets you in through a little door, into his mind and allows you to read what he thinks and understand what it is like to be him. In that sense, the writer is exactly in the middle. The visual artist is at one end, holding out his art at arm's length for you to see. The performer is the quicksilver, weaving himself around you to take on your form. The writer, in contrast to both the above, brings you into himself and allows you to experience the world as he does.

I have an interest as well as at least a little bit of talent in music as well as painting. I've performed on stage and I've won some recognition for my paintings. But writing is art that feels most like me.

Writers are the only other people who understand my alternating between being a social butterfly and an extreme recluse. That back-and-forth is the very essence of being a writer. Letting the whole world in and then shutting it all out - it's as natural as breathing for a writer. We have neither the stoic dignity of a visual artist who doesn't need another person till he has finished. And nor do we have the unwavering adaptability of a performer to dissolve into other people. We have a little bit of both and we oscillate, collecting material from the world around us, turning it over in ourselves, carrying other people inside our heads and then examining how we feel about that. The words, the thoughts are constantly shifting and shaping themselves and we chase after them with nets of language to convert them into stories for the next person to ride our minds.

IdeaArt: Rose Garden

IdeaSmith — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:54:10 EST

This is part of my series on fabric painting (after Peacock and Kathakali). But this was actually painted much earlier than those two.

I had this terrycot shirt checked orange and white. The overall effect was a sort of mustard. It's not a colour I've ever been fond of or one that flatters me. Painting it was a rather delayed decision since it doesn't occur to one intuitively to paint over something that already has a pattern on it. But I realized that the pattern was neither overwhelming nor highly visible. And it would serve perfectly well as a background.

I used several pictures of roses to figure out the basic geometric shapes and swirl-patterns that I'd need to use. It turned out to be surprisingly easy. I started with a round wavy shape (like little kids drawings of flowers) using black paint (Fevicryl no.02 Black). Then I added more waves and curlicues inside it. After that it's just a matter of colouring and adding leaves.

The painting was actually loads of fun, the messy, splashy way. I made blobs of the basic red paint (Fevicryl no.39 Carmine) on the fabric. Then before it was dry, I daubed on the shimmery pink (Fevicryl no.303 Pearl Pin). The pink was probably an older bottle so it had gone a little creamier while the red, newer was liquidey. The net effect was that the pink stood on its own but blurred into the red at the edges to give a lovely shaded effect. I waited for these to dry before outlining and highlighting in black again.

The leaves were done using a similar principle - outlined in black, filled in with basic green (Fevicryl no.06 Dark Green) and daubed with the shimmery green (Fevicryl no.357 Pearl Metallic Green). And finally redefined with black once that was dry.

The details came in later. I added hairfine strokes of black to show the stems. Tiny buds with triangle-shaped leaves in blue (Fevicryl no.32 Cerulean Blue); these were done with a thin brush dipped in colour and then pressed flat down on the cloth. These were given yellow (Fevicryl no.302 Pearl Lemon Yellow) centers. The leaf veins were lined with bronze (Fevicryl no.355 Pearl Metallic Bronze).

I started intending to only paint the back since it had an unbroken visage (the front has buttons all the way down so it's difficult to do one contiuous painting). Then it looked so good that I added some detail in the front to match the theme.

The front detailing is not uniform copy of the back. While the back is just one pattern of roses scattered all over, the front shows a rose-trellis creeping up on one side and small bouquet-like collection of flowers on the other side that look like they've been plucked off the plant and dropped on the ground.

On the same side, I added a tiny rosebud and leaf detail on the collar.

Garment: Waist-length shirt with short sleeves and collar

Material: Terrycot with tartan texture

Background colour: Orange-brown with white threads running through

Paint colours used:

Fevicryl no.02 Black

Fevicryl no.39 Carmine

Fevicryl no.303 Pearl Pink

Fevicryl no.06 Dark Green

Fevicryl no.357 Pearl Metallic Green

Fevicryl no.355 Pearl Metallic Bronze

Fevicryl no.32 Cerulean Blue

Fevicryl no.302 Pearl Lemon Yellow

Fiction: Rockstar

IdeaSmith — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:57:21 EST

I've just discovered a kink in my sexual make-up. I have a thing for gender role switching. That's not men dressing in lingerie (eww, gross!). It's a woman who's sexy because she's wearing a guy's long tee-shirt that comes down to mid-thigh. It's the breath-catching oomph of a rolled-up cuff revealing a slender arm. Or ooh...a chunky, sporty man's watch on a delicate female wrist.

How about the reverse? Hrithik Roshan gliding across an airport, pink tee-shirt, coloured sunglasses glory, the cool criminal in Dhoom 2. Oh he kills me, he kills me.

But the true master, the one that transcends gender, who takes sexuality beyond female or male has to be Sting. A voice that feels like a caress...of a man's tongue. When he lifts one foot to step forward and a field of golden corn springs up within him, it makes me think...that's the kind of sex that makes life, it makes you come alive.

How come all the lead guitarists, the famous ones, the images you have of a rockstar are all male? There's obviously something vaguely sexy about a guitar. The curvaceous soundbox, the long phallic arm and what about the strumming? I've played the guitar and I know it doesn't have to be held at crotch-level. And yet, why not? It goes from song-making to love-making.

I'd love to be straddling a guitar with my torso, strumming in tune to the master, letting his melody caress my song.

Ooh....

Oh, it's my phone. That buzz in my pocket feels so good.

Down with flu. Can't make it to practice today.

AHEMMM.

My mother's grim throat-clearing conveys that she is very, very angry about my checking my phone in church.

It's about choir practice.

Her thin-line mouth is a pointed reminder that we are still in church and I'm talking. I drop my gaze and shut up.

Twenty minutes later, I am settled in as comfortably as is possible in the confessional. Why do they make these seats so uncomfortable? Probably to punish the confessors for the sins they confess to.

Yes, my child.

Father, I have sinned.

Tell me about this thing you have done.

It's not something I did. I've been having...wrong thoughts.

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep brooding silence. Presumably to make me ponder on my wrongdoing. Shame me into confessing all and purging my sins.

The silence is music. The silence is sexy in its own way.

About what, child?

About three notes too low. But low is good. It takes me higher. Go down, down further, go down on me.

I've been thinking of quitting the choir.

The silence is different now. Taut tension knife-edge sharp like the orchestra falling away to leave just that one high-pitched note behind.

I want to be in a rock band instead.

CRRRRRASSSSSHHHHHH.

I take a bow.