like an angel...

...you inch out another picture. another memory.

kini-ed

between work and the designer, hari and i stopped off at shanky's last evening for 'a quick blaze', black tea and some good music. don't care what anyone else might have to say or offer. shanky rox.

les vigilantes

while the reservation debate continues to swell and justify all those early bird nomenclatures - mandal commission 2 and even the rather ambitious 'revolution', some of them more peaceful folks chose to light a candle.



of course this symbolic and silent protest (and ineffective on account of an unseasonal stiff bangalore breeze) had to wind up with incident. one protester and his side kick walk into pecos for a perfunctory pee. yes, they forget to take their 'i am against reservation' announcement off. and this bunch of testosteroned boys eager to please two women in attendance start picking on them. and before you could say, "kiran, pitcher!" what do you know - it's a bar brawl. of course being the resident old skool patron at that point, i had to do my bit of shouting down people. all in the service of the haunts. they're a dying breed.

ओई फटीश

Is this the road to Itta Bena?
Uh... Itta Bena
Itta Bena, now, uh, that would be...
Isn't it uh...
I'm thinkin' it's uh, you could take this road to, uh...
...I believe, unless I'm very much mistaken - see, we've been away for several years, uh...
Hop on in while you give it a think.

lalbagh lacunae

after a saturday shopping spree to satisfy some of our budding neo-digital phallic urges, and satiated on rice, sambhar, RAM, external hard disks and the like, we stopped off at hyder ali's magnificent botanical adventure - lalbagh.



browne had the usual observations to make. about commonfolk making out on the rocks. in a near perfect bangalore sunset we settled down with butta into a 'curious lacunae of astounding ignorance.' little did we know a short while later my clutch cable would die on me, bang in the middle on the third tier of the diary circle flyover.

taupe, beige or crème?

when god made the rainbow, taupe, beige or crème weren't on the list. neither was white. but hey mr. painter was painting a wall as big as the sky and as far as he was concerned, wall colour comes in one size : blanc!

yellow hats inc.

"tweedledum and tweedledee
agreed to have a battle
for tweedledum said tweedledee
had spoiled his nice new rattle

just then flew down a monstrous crow
as black as a tar barrel
which frightened both the heroes so
they quite forgot their quarrel"

muh ladeez. giving away goodies to anyone who might remember where dum and dee are from.

oye shinde! happy budday!

and the galleries joined in a bawdy chorus.
oye shinde,
happy budday!

tower doves

tower power
shower cover

okiyo. i was a little off balance. both physically et mentally when i pressed the shutter on this one. ta dum lilies.

mumbai majhi ladki

above all mumbai is pavement town. if you're born on a pavement, grow up drinking desi daroo on the pavement, lose your leg in an accident a little off the pavement, sell drugs and sex on the pavement, get arrested on the pavement, return to the pavement, sell magazines this time around on the pavement, before you discover drugs and sex sell more on the pavement, marry on the pavement, make love on the pavement, build a home on the pavement, build a temple on the pavement, chew and spit paan on the pavement and then die on the pavement from too much paan chewing, then you can be sure you're a true blue mumbaikar. and i met such royalty. he said 'call me babu. yahan har tarah ke naazare dekne ko milte hain. kuch acche. kuch burre.'

For more random rantings and pics... click here.

hemlocked

"just drink it and walk around until your legs begin to feel heavy, then lie down. it will soon act." with that he offered socrates the cup.

today had to be the toughest day in my life.

jhatre janums

a near perfect night found us at bhoomi jhatre again. it's been a year and it refuses to sink in. there were familiar faces. some new kids and annoying ones at that. same old tree. similar commie ideals. gawd! i can't run away from it. life has pulled off one major u-turn on me. in one year flat. i'm not sure all of this qualifies as pleasant.
click here for more pics from the jhatre.

high is the court

liar rhymes with lawyer.
the serendipity of youth.

kitsch king

the first time i saw the word kitsch in the back pages of india today and alongside a woman in the briefest black number, i was struck by an odd moment of clarity. i knew there was a future to the word the very first time it plosived out of my mouth. kitsch.



today, call of duty found me stumbling into an old bangalore house somewhere in old bangalore. big airy windows. godrej steel cupboards. and the heady smell of old paper. 'vajreshwari combines' deal in kannada film stuff. somewhere midway to me exhausting my kannada, a plump cherubic woman plonked on a standard govt. issue metal and plywood table, an entire bundle of film posters of h.h.dr.annavaru raj kumar. with this gentleman, honorifics can never be too many.



so i now have my first genuine kitsch collection. only an amateur would dispose of these immediately as barter for a night's drinking. the true kitsch professional as most other collectors will hoard. until the moths dig in. and then sell it for 'liberia's deficit'. so they'll stay. because frankly i'm sick of playing amateur.

night comes, world jewelled...

"night comes, world jewelled,... the stars rush forth in myriads to wage war with the lines of darkness; and the moon, pale ghost of night, comes haunting the cold earth after the sun's red sea-death -- quietless."
Philip James Bailey