Sweet Sayonara

Its a tale of two. The sweet and the sweeter.

They’ve come along a long way together. Its’s always been a time where she thought sweet was a her best companion, her soul. She is happy, she needed sweet. She is unhappy, she needed sweet. She wanted to surprise someone, she needed sweet. She wanted to surprise herself, she needed sweet. She wanted to celebrate she needed sweet. She wanted to sulk, she needed sweet.  She visited someone, she needed sweet. She were to just hang out by herself, she needed sweet. She felt hot, she needed sweet. She felt cold, she needed sweet.

Sweet wanted to give her a rotten tooth. Sweet wanted to give her some unmanagable weight. Sweet wanted give her some fat, flesh and flab. Sweet wanted to get her addicted. Sweet wanted to give her a swell. Sweet took her attention away from her family. Sweet drowned her.

She bids sweet good bye.

No Reader . Slow Reader . Reader

“I just can’t read words. I need to see some images, some pictures. I am like this hard-core visual person. I just cant read. Not sure why? Why?” comes a standard reply when anyone asks if I have read any book at all. And of course with an extended line to it with utmost pride..”you see, I can sit through comics and magazines. And may be something related to my subject (which is again to do with visual arts or graphic design!) I will read loads of it.” Now wait a minute, did I just say graphic design? Are’nt we the one who say look at type as a form? What happened to all the visual gyan? Guess I only looked at them as forms with no meaning. Perhaps why the No Reading.

Movies fascinate me. Paintings I love. After all I do illustrate myself. Narration is in my blood somewhere ain’t it? So whats with the alphabets? ‘One night at a call center’ is’nt all that complicated a sentence. Sounds like someone is telling me something and left the sentence incomplete and I had to say in my head ‘what happened?’ to complete the sentence. I grab the book off the book shelf that I pass by every morning in my room. Chetan Bhagat, I did not know he was an author. I thought he would only give talks at IIM or IIT and send them as forwarded emails across the world. I flip through the first two pages and he talks to me. I have animated expressions on my face unknowingly as I read past and just realise that my driver can see me animate in the rear-view mirror. Now that is an unexpected narration. Perhaps thats why the Slow Reading.

The traffic and 2 hours of sitting on the back-seat hurts my arse and probably even gets bigger pscycologically. Sing-along the radio is fun. But not the same songs twice in the span of two hours. Wish I had a DVD played in my car is what I think sometimes. But this time I wanted to know what more happened at the Call Center. So pick up Chetan again. I dont care about the animation. Honestly I am enjoying it. I don’t put the book down, not even after I reach my office. And hey I am reading after all. Wise people read! I finish with the Call Center and begin to analyse Chetan’s next 3 mistakes of someones life. Perhaps thats why the Reading.

Art Instillation for the smokers by a smoker!

 The latest buzz in the country is about the new law with the ban on smoking in all public spaces. And so sprouted out a smokers voice himself for a change to support the cause. A voice in the form of an instillation, or rather should I say a very “moving” instillation. Baiju Sugathan, hailing from an advertising and design agency marketing background told me one evening that he loved to do something beyond just his job and was very passionate about some ideas addressing social issues and wanted to chern them out as an instillation. Timely indeed came out the law and out came the idea of the instillation titled “passive smoking kills” by Baiju.

The art instillation at Divyashree Chambers

aerial view of the art instillation

 Baiju conceptualised the whole intillation by relating passive smoking with the concept of Sati. “You remember the traditional act of Sati?”, said Baiju to me with the most excited tone I have heard him in. “Well, just like how the mans death impacts his wife’s too, I want to show the consequences in a metaphor to passive smoking too. I want this as my first subject as the instillation”, continued Baiju on a positive note. And thus unfolded his first dream of an instillation reaching out to many. Baiju decided to move the crowd by shocasing a death scene right at the centre of the atrium of the building, and chose to have a male character who was portraying the head of a family lie dead on a crematory bed of cigarettes and surrounded by his dead family around him as an impact. And well…well was the crowd moved or what?

 

crowd viewing the instillation from around the atrium

 

artist Baiju interacting with the crowd

 The instillation was showcased on 6th October, 2008 at the central atrium of Divyashree Chambers with an outstanding response from the viewing crowd as well as the supporting organization. Baiju’s next action would be to showcase the instillation at yet another location…reaching out his message to more people. And whats his next ideated venture? Well thats something we all have to wait and watch!

Review of A Wednesday on a Friday

A Wednesday turned out to be rather gripping on a Thrusday for us. Although not the most recent in release, Neeraj Pandey’s film ‘A Wednesday’ featuring Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher turned out to be one the most recent shaking events for us this week. A tale that translates all that each one of us very normally and casually have to say when there is any sort of a communal disturbance in the country “Why the common man? What did he do? Thank God I was’nt there at that time.”

October 2nd, Gandhi Jayanati called in for yet another relaxed holiday mood and so we choose to go watch a movie. People on Facebook have been recommending A Wednesday and for no second thoughts since it had been long due, with all the hassles with online booking and just about scraping into the Cinema hall in time we chilled out with a drink and some popcorn. Oh wait…did  say chilled? That was so not what Naseeruddin Shah churned out of his ever natural and guts of polished acting. The movie was  like watching a 2 hour live news channel, wanting to hear information from every character. The Shah-Kher duo steal the show and make you want to beleive they are what they are playing as characters in the movie. A Wednesday…makes one actually want to plan ‘A True Wednesday’!