tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17856342768139755102024-03-14T01:56:30.819+04:00I am just a visual person...or the running visual commentary in my headPriyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-5706080008268954352018-06-22T12:13:00.000+04:002018-06-22T12:18:53.622+04:00Decoding The Poetry of Dreams<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HO3_iNYT5M4/Wyyt_lR8nsI/AAAAAAAADkM/XvwZnZMGax8WHHX5b41fKnOeoCElV2aUgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_6800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HO3_iNYT5M4/Wyyt_lR8nsI/AAAAAAAADkM/XvwZnZMGax8WHHX5b41fKnOeoCElV2aUgCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_6800.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
This week, I had two dream-related conversations on Twitter and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BkMVyo3FqZ1/?taken-by=iamjustavisualperson" target="_blank">Instagram</a>, which led me to thinking more closely about dreams, dreaming, and my relationship with them. I have always dreamed vividly, intensely, often a series of dreams, one brilliant movie-vignette after another so much so that I wake up with a million images in my mind.<br />
<br />
When I was growing up, I observed that while my father and I had vivid, detailed, technicolor dreams, my mother and brother on the other hand said that they never dreamed - and even on the rare occasions that they did, the dream was certainly significant enough to warrant them remembering it. I wondered if it was rather a case of not being to recall dreams rather than not dreaming at all. Dreaming occurs during the <a href="https://www.sleepresolutions.com/blog/rem-sleep-what-it-is-why-we-need-it" target="_blank">REM (Rapid Eye Movement) </a>part of our sleep and it is interestingly enough similar to a state of wakefulness; in fact, it is considered to be a vital part of our sleep cycle so for those who saying that they never dream, it may well just be not remembering them.<br />
<br />
I certainly remembered all my dreams and would share them soon after I woke up in a bid to hold onto them; if I couldn't share them, I would write them down at the back of my personal journal, paragraphs after paragraphs of individual dreams. When I was in sixth grade, I obviously felt the volume of my dreams was demanding enough to require a separate journal. (I was an intense sixth grader: I remember asking my mother if I could convert to Buddhism after studying it in social studies and writing long impassioned poems about karma and fate!). I recall selecting a notebook with an adorable picture of kittens on the cover and filling it with dreams after dreams in pink, turquoise, and jade-colored ink. I stopped keeping the journal after a while but continued transcribing my dreams in my journals. Even now, after so many years, I still recall one of the most beautiful dreams I have had till date: I am standing on a beach, looking out on the sea at night only to see a full moon rise in the sky, scattering its pearl-white beams upon the water and the boats lying nearby. The sky is a deep soft blue mauve and<br />
<br />
When I grew older, I was no longer interested in merely transcribing my dreams; I was interested in analysing them as to what they were trying to tell me. I understand that many scientists do feel that there is no meaning to dreams but I still stubbornly believed that dreams were a gateway to my subconscious, that unexplored, uncharted terrain, which saw and understood the bigger picture of things. Why was I constantly fighting with a girl who looked like me in a yellow dress? Why did I frequently find myself unable to run? I would consult a book of dream symbols and then later trawl through the myriad dream interpretation sites online to understand what my dreams could be telling me about myself. Was the fight an internal battle within myelf? Did the inability to run represent a lack of self confidence?<br />
<br />
There is a diversity of modern scholarship and research done into the world of dreams along with the age-old Freudian and Jungian schools of dream interpretation.It is widely agreed upon that dreams are definitely important for one's emotional health (again, even if you do not recall dreams, it is assumed that your mind still dreams). What I have understood is that it is the mind's way of processing the vast amount of information it gathers from various stimuli throughout the day. I have often found it bizarre and amusing as to how I will find myself encountering persons or places that I have not thought of for months or years and suddenly will experience meeting or visiting them in my dreams. Our minds are these incredible libraries and repositories of all our memories, thoughts, associations, and yearnings and it is actually staggering to think that there are galaxies upon galaxies of narratives that the mind can fabricate from vast amount of material available to it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EA40Ix2wJ-s/Wyyu9rSdOPI/AAAAAAAADkY/YdkGo19nxo4ezNN1QbG52KACkg65y8QiQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_6165.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EA40Ix2wJ-s/Wyyu9rSdOPI/AAAAAAAADkY/YdkGo19nxo4ezNN1QbG52KACkg65y8QiQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_6165.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
Although I do occasionally consult dream symbol websites and their ilk, I have come to believe that the only person who can decode your dreams is - you. If dreams are poems that your mind writes, then only you will be able to mine the meanings from their words. Only you can make sense of what the subconscious via the medium of dreams is seeking to communicate to you. Only you can know and appreciate the meaning behind the layers of symbols and associations and jigsaw them together into something you will appreciate and understand.<br />
<br />
I still dream intensely, lushly, profusely but the trouble is I cannot recall the majority of my dreams these days. The terrible habit of immediately reaching for the phone as soon as I wake up means that the series of images in my dreams are replaced by the ones I see on my phone. I can't even remember them a few hours later, let alone thinking of writing them down in my journal later that day.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
I wish I did take the time out to remember them regularly because I feel that our subconscious mind is a storyteller, mentor, and therapist and more; it advises, it whispers messages, it soothes, it entertains. Sometimes, I see the core truths of my life so seamlessly weave into a pattern in my dreams and I find myself thinking as to why didn't I realise it before? My dreams are the only space where in fact these core truths can manifest. And then I wake up and find myself searching for those truths, those utter moments of clarity - but they have vanished and only traces of that truth linger in my mind, like brilliant shards of a vase found in ruins and which can no longer be reconstituted into what it once was.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-6338116394215337102018-05-07T19:11:00.003+04:002018-05-07T19:21:59.260+04:00Bangalore's Hebbal Lake: When Enchantment Came Calling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hq36YGirRjY/WvBlR6VTtrI/AAAAAAAADhg/U37hnD7G7lw2Mtt9U8X8giAKgNwuyGAOACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_8460.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hq36YGirRjY/WvBlR6VTtrI/AAAAAAAADhg/U37hnD7G7lw2Mtt9U8X8giAKgNwuyGAOACEwYBhgL/s400/IMG_8460.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The beach at Lake Superior</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I still remember the first time I was in awe of a lake. We had been driving around Upper Michigan for a few days back in 2014, cutting through vineyards, desolate pine-tree thick landscapes, icy, tumbling rivers, and of course, the Great Lakes. Up till then, for me, the Great Lakes earlier had simply been a famous cluster of distinctive blue shapes on a map and to imagine that we were travelling around - lakes - was difficult to grasp for they did not seem to me as much lakes as captive seas. And indeed, as we stood below a cirrus-streaked blue sky on the shores of Lake Superior, I realised that lakes too have beaches although they were not as distinct or prominent as those of the sea. I recall standing there, gazing into the hypnotic endless sea as it merged with that of the sky, realising that I would never again see lakes as I once used to do.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CSnpcLsvH0Y/WvBoJZwGopI/AAAAAAAADhs/rviCrjfgzVs5UvHIU10KP5zKo87oiSe1QCLcBGAs/s1600/Hebbal%2BLake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CSnpcLsvH0Y/WvBoJZwGopI/AAAAAAAADhs/rviCrjfgzVs5UvHIU10KP5zKo87oiSe1QCLcBGAs/s400/Hebbal%2BLake.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Hebbal Lake</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bangalore, of course, is the city of lakes: beautiful lakes, ghost lakes, dying lakes, lakes on fire. What was once home to over two hundred eight lakes have now dangerously dwindled to only fifteen healthy ones, the remaining ones sewage fed. It made me think more about the idea behind healthy lakes, what is it that makes a lake healthy. If the lakes are being pushed beyond their limits, ravaged beyond description, l<a href="http://bengaluru.citizenmatters.in/5317-kaikondrahalli-kere-a-success-story-of-lake-rejuvenation-5317" target="_blank">ocal citizenship initiatives here are taking the mantle of restoring and rejuvenating lakes to promising results.</a> Afroz Shah's incredible clean-up operation at Versova Beach, Mumbai and t<a href="https://thewire.in/environment/olive-ridleys-make-a-come-back-in-mumbais-versova-beach" target="_blank">he subsequent arrival of the Olive Ridley turtles </a>to nest after over a decade is a testament to the difference a noticeable change in the environment makes to its inhabitants and how they respond to it. Given the hugely important role that lakes play in Bangalore's heritage, water supply, and indeed its very character since its inception, it is so imperative that every effort be taken to preserve them. The apocalyptic sight of the Bellandur lake on fire, breathing ugly white foam should be enough of a frightening deterrent.</div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cW1epgqj0yc/WvBod1asBrI/AAAAAAAADh0/UfvI3oF8VcMzF3Y3npWgr2bY_UkiiQnaACLcBGAs/s1600/Enchantment.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cW1epgqj0yc/WvBod1asBrI/AAAAAAAADh0/UfvI3oF8VcMzF3Y3npWgr2bY_UkiiQnaACLcBGAs/s400/Enchantment.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Enchantment</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After moving here to Bangalore, I have visited Ulsoor Lake several times as well as paid a trip to Sankey Tank. Yesterday, though, it being a Sunday and having been in a lackluster mood all week, I wished to venture out a little further to Hebbal Lake Park, which fringes the Hebbal Lake. The park itself is not very big but it was crammed nevertheless with visitors, couples mostly, enjoying their quiet time as they sat on stone benches overlooking the rippled waters. Families played tag and badminton on a rectangle of lawn while there were several those walking around with a camera undoubtedly there to capture the lake at sunset, much like me. I was sorry to see though that the visitors had no qualms in scattering their rubbish all across the place as well as towards the lake edges too despite the presence of rubbish bins. The sight of washed up plastic bottles, chip packets, discarded paper cups, and more was an eye sore and more.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sDuBvMj3xh4/WvBon88jtgI/AAAAAAAADh4/LjNmpMmK1l4vUaskcYb0tAwM-v05qMdDQCLcBGAs/s1600/Lily%2Bpad%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sDuBvMj3xh4/WvBon88jtgI/AAAAAAAADh4/LjNmpMmK1l4vUaskcYb0tAwM-v05qMdDQCLcBGAs/s400/Lily%2Bpad%2B2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yet such was the beauty of the lake and its surroundings that I found myself lost in contemplating it. The seemingly embroidered dense thicket of leaves fringing its edges, I could only gaze in delight at the still sleeping fuschia candle-buds of lotuses emerging from a city of lilypads in the middle of the lake. As we walked on the lake edge, hearing the lake and the birds, the copper-pods, gulmohur, jacaranda, and jarula showering bright yellow, red, purple, and pink blooms upon our heads, I was disappointed to reach the end. But there was a magical lush bougainvillea tunnel to console us, the paper bougainvillea carpet crunching below our soles. On the other side of the park, after navigating some ugly construction, we spotted a distant cluster of reed-covered shore and islands in which sat a pair of ducks.A shining black cormorant swam and hunted, briefly disappearing into the water before triumphantly emerging with its evening meal White egrets shimmied across the water and eventually into the sky only to join their brethren on a tree at some distance away; an elegantly long beaked bird emerged from the rushes and patiently waited on the shores, undoubtedly in hunt. Dragonflies looped in twos and threes over the thrumming water and I wondered which insect was making a buzzing, tinnitus-type sound while secreted away in the leaves. Suffice to say, I had come to be enchanted, to be spirited away from the world of urban chaos, noise, and drama - and I was well and truly enchanted.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RuGxKHU1Ph4/WvBozdGB53I/AAAAAAAADiA/LX39TOiWSyQA6WqV_K-aOHpON-6An_2TACLcBGAs/s1600/Fisherman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RuGxKHU1Ph4/WvBozdGB53I/AAAAAAAADiA/LX39TOiWSyQA6WqV_K-aOHpON-6An_2TACLcBGAs/s400/Fisherman.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fishing, Fisherman</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Before we said goodbye, we made our way to the pier; a father and son were taking turns to pose against the sun which lay low in the sky along with one lone ragged scrap of a cloud. The lotuses were now beginning to open; as I bent down to take their picture, I noticed a fuchsia bougainvillea slumbering on the lily-pad, like a fairy, eliciting a gasp of delight. There was a man sitting there, fishing ever since we had arrived at the park; I watched him putting dough as bait and hauling silvery palm-sized fishes within minutes, depositing them in a plastic sack. I gazed at the water as long as I could, the jade-greenness of it all, trying to mentally crop out the eyesore of the buildings sprouting in the distance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4FGI8BhwW8g/WvBpORyh-5I/AAAAAAAADiM/LpIEkakn0xoWZ3QaJXURv0Ito7kFyuqugCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_4739.mp4" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4FGI8BhwW8g/WvBpORyh-5I/AAAAAAAADiM/LpIEkakn0xoWZ3QaJXURv0Ito7kFyuqugCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_4739.mp4" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Floating</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Would this lake survive? The presence of wildlife despite the rubbish and the construction despoiling the area provided a glimmer of hope. And then, as if to further placate me, a clever coconut husk masquerading as a boat began to float on the water, a nature's toy dancing of its own accord. It appeared lost in its own private world, a world which would always be there, if I allowed it to be, if I did my part too. I watched it for a long time and then turned away, mouthing a goodbye.<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-73295388176898193182018-03-24T07:38:00.000+04:002018-03-24T08:57:00.484+04:00Of History Twitter, Imagined Delhi, and Bangalore's Many Pasts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8HV82kvyWDI/WrW16iLp1wI/AAAAAAAADeY/IJo5LxdJrzQHtx3K-ppp2SpR418H7_xdwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_3486.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8HV82kvyWDI/WrW16iLp1wI/AAAAAAAADeY/IJo5LxdJrzQHtx3K-ppp2SpR418H7_xdwCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_3486.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Balabrooie Guest-House, Bangalore</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I should have been a historian, or at the very least, studied history in university. I instead chose to study English Literature and Creative Writing, of which I only really enjoyed the creative writing part. I soon learned that it was one thing to read for pleasure, losing yourself in these imagined worlds but another thing altogether to<i> study </i>literature. I was loath to analyse and mine meanings from a book when in fact, I was more interested in <i>writing </i>a book myself. I didn't realise back then that being a historian would have been a perfectly viable career option or that I could have written a book <i>and </i>simultaneously been a historian: I could have written a historical novel, for god's sake! I now wonder whether I secretly perceived history as akin to a museum, full of glorious beauties to be admired and yet ultimately belonging to that alien planet, the past. Perhaps, my eighteen year old self also perceived historians as fusty individuals imprisoned in the past, constantly trying to achieve time-traveling when in fact, they could not? And yet, the truth was also that the courses I took in history during my undergraduate and graduate years were the ones I enjoyed the most.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I have been on Twitter for a while now, largely as an observer/eavesdropper on the incredible diversity of conversations taking place among those I follow. What has really fascinated me though in the last year or so has been my discovery of History Twitter, where I have stumbled upon the most amazing treasure-troves of threads; historian and writer, <a href="https://twitter.com/PaulMMCooper" target="_blank">Paul Cooper</a> is one person that springs to my mind, whose threads are a wealth of information, his 'Ruin of the Day' thread masterfully knitting the past and present in form of the intriguing ruins across the world (fun fact: we are both alumni of the same course at our alma mater, University of Warwick!) I have also admired how yesterday and today come together, as in this<a href="https://chiraghdilli.wordpress.com/2018/01/12/love-in-the-time-of-the-monumental/" target="_blank"> piece </a>by <a href="http://khojworkshop.org/participant/sarover-zaidi/" target="_blank">Sarover Zaidi</a> on <a href="https://chiraghdilli.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Chirag Dilli</a> where she exquisitely wrote about love in Lodhi Gardens, "a map for lost lovers" in that wondrous green space in Delhi, where sprawling, iridescent bougainvillea trees rain flowers, the ancient tombs and mosques watch, as they have done for so many centuries.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OFsyv3a7f7s/WrEnZzKtX4I/AAAAAAAADdc/nTDcB9h4fXo6sdiD6MaibPm6islXKmQygCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1281" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OFsyv3a7f7s/WrEnZzKtX4I/AAAAAAAADdc/nTDcB9h4fXo6sdiD6MaibPm6islXKmQygCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1014.JPG" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Safdarjung Tomb, New Delhi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SzIECUNbl9Q/WrEnqFbAkiI/AAAAAAAADdg/nWERRpF4IqEz6mpIPcocxDfLlLYlYtfEgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SzIECUNbl9Q/WrEnqFbAkiI/AAAAAAAADdg/nWERRpF4IqEz6mpIPcocxDfLlLYlYtfEgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1016.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking up</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When I lived in Delhi, Lodhi Gardens used to be one of my favorite places to visit in the city, aligning to my imagined notion of Delhi. For, before I moved there, I had honestly and excitedly thought I was moving to the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/book-review-swashbuckle-and-decay-in-an-ancient-city-city-of-djinns-william-dalrymple-harpercollins-1463889.html" target="_blank">City of Djinns</a>, the Delhi which William Dalrymple so romantically describes and evokes in his book of the same name. I imagined myself wandering through the tombs at dusk, peeling away one historical palimpsest after another, immersing myself in the drama and beauty and pathos that was the city. However, I arrived in Delhi, fell sick on the first day, and developed respiratory issues which would greatly plague me during my two year stay - and realised the stark difference between anticipation and reality. It's not as if I didn't explore the city at all, though. My husband and I loved visiting Hauz Khas Village: I recall the domes turning lavender at night to the beat of live music, the crumbling madrasa ruins crawling with lovers, families, and instagrammers. I spent a lovely winter afternoon at Humayun's Tomb (my favorite tomb of them all), taking around out of town visitors to Sadfarjung Tomb and the vibrant Lodhi Art District, listening to a concert one almost-winter redolent October evening at Purana Qila. Yet, as I recall these explorations, I find that all of them are underscored by feelings of melancholy or lassitude or plain physical unwellness. After a while, these tombs and buildings and histories simply did not matter because there were so many things to grapple with your today; the yesterday was subsequently of significance anymore. And we ultimately left the city, having no other choice.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_l0rYBJZ-Cs/WrW2ykBvWkI/AAAAAAAADew/jC3IK0nt_S08hUaE8caRfnPRZ6l5Bw_mACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_3104.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_l0rYBJZ-Cs/WrW2ykBvWkI/AAAAAAAADew/jC3IK0nt_S08hUaE8caRfnPRZ6l5Bw_mACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_3104.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I sometimes like to say that I came to Bangalore for the trees - and while that still largely remains true, I have to admit that it has encouraged me to start thinking about history more consciously than ever before. Even though the skyscrapers pile up and unattractive cuboid plastic-glass buildings spring up everywhere, I see tantalising glimpses of its recent colonial past in its bungalows, government buildings, and churches along with its much older ones in inscription stones, temples, and monuments, inviting me to unearth their stories. When I recently took a heritage walk in Avenue Road in central Bangalore, I learned about its beginnings, how KR Market used to be a pond and that the aftermath of a war saw it becoming a market, and how the founder of Bangalore, Kempegowda determined the the boundaries which once defined Bangalore. During the walk, we found ourselves inside a courtyard of <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/specials/a-public-art-project-is-stirring-time-in-bengaluru-115110501199_1.html" target="_blank">Mohan Building</a>, a building which once used to be a family home, a police station, a lodge, and now a commercial market housing silk and cotton shops; a collective of Bangalore-based artists, the Klatsch Collective subsequently decided to reinterpret its multiple layers of historical avatars through a multi-disciplinary art intervention by holding on-site installations, paintings, and dialogue last year. </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hIWPpQVs-K0/WrW2oc0w3yI/AAAAAAAADes/YwUfgt34lG0JG4v__UOEmwo8iVoAnzV8QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_5554.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1281" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hIWPpQVs-K0/WrW2oc0w3yI/AAAAAAAADes/YwUfgt34lG0JG4v__UOEmwo8iVoAnzV8QCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_5554.JPG" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Beauty of Space: Ambara, Bangalore</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rQymiwDtUTs/WrW1ua1VggI/AAAAAAAADeg/BUM6zxoVtN4Ou6c84u7k-wSBJadEDbSNgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_3389.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rQymiwDtUTs/WrW1ua1VggI/AAAAAAAADeg/BUM6zxoVtN4Ou6c84u7k-wSBJadEDbSNgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_3389.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Balabrooie Guest-House</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Over the years, I have come to appreciate more than ever at how heritage structures are finding new, alternative, exciting contexts in which to reincarnate. Bangalore has been no exception at this front and I am glad to see how beautifully restored and renovated mansions are enjoying a new avatar as hip boutiques and cafes and art spaces such as<a href="https://architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-166162" target="_blank"> Cinnamon</a>, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/rain-tree/article7862760.ece" target="_blank">Raintree,</a> and <a href="https://lbb.in/bangalore/ambara-boutique-ulsoor/" target="_blank">Ambara</a> and of course, the magnificent structure that is<a href="http://ngmaindia.gov.in/ngma_bangaluru.asp" target="_blank"> NGMA Bangalore</a>. Yet, I am also painfully aware of the numerous heritage structures which are being demolished or under threat of demolition every day, the colonial bungalows springing to my mind, for instance. The other day, after I chanced upon and explored<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/the-balabrooie-guest-house-in-bengaluru-reminded-the-british-of-the-isle-of-man/articleshow/51276022.cms" target="_blank"> Balabrooie Guest-House,</a> which was built in 19th century, I learned that it had been rescued from being destroyed thanks to the valiant efforts of local activists back in 2014. The demands for its demolition. had been made so that something more useful could spring up in its place. Does history always have to be useful? Can one not appreciate history for what it is: history?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a6-PqCMxdQA/WrW4wPhXvmI/AAAAAAAADfA/R_lVcDDF_vAr8Jafu_MNM0JrIzojeNmlACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0365.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a6-PqCMxdQA/WrW4wPhXvmI/AAAAAAAADfA/R_lVcDDF_vAr8Jafu_MNM0JrIzojeNmlACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0365.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pnv4PecF7VM/WrW43k4kMBI/AAAAAAAADfI/LPnD8KfJdT4x4VQZ4Li8bmGadc38tZ5cQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0378.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="1080" height="241" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pnv4PecF7VM/WrW43k4kMBI/AAAAAAAADfI/LPnD8KfJdT4x4VQZ4Li8bmGadc38tZ5cQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0378.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
There is no singular past just as there is no such thing as history; our many pasts are full of both his-stories and herstories. Last November, I greatly enjoyed participating in a mapping walk led by Aliyeh Rizvi of <a href="https://aturquoisecloud.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Native Place</a>. As we walked from Cubbon Park to MG Road (the boundaries which once marked that of the erstwhile British Cantonment), we heard stories about what it once was, what it was now, and what it could become; we participated in constructing new stories about the city while reinterpreting the old, mapping a new atlas upon that of the old. And it struck me that I too was doing the same in a sense through my daily documentation of my experiences in the city on Instagram, a city which I was now starting to call home. With the exception of Muscat, I had never stayed long enough in all the other cities I had lived in to call them home - and if I forever remained a migratory bird of sorts, how could I invest myself in the city and its stories, let alone begin to narrate them?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oxmTVJaDCzI/WrW2C5-USKI/AAAAAAAADec/7xesNfE27_8805RfjCe4_G0Lrqi2Thh1gCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_2861.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oxmTVJaDCzI/WrW2C5-USKI/AAAAAAAADec/7xesNfE27_8805RfjCe4_G0Lrqi2Thh1gCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_2861.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Yet, in Bangalore, I have found myself wanting to narrate its stories of its past and people and architecture - and realise that there lies the making of a historian somewhere anyway. I place my ears against these ancient walls, like one does with shells, conjuring up the sound of the crashing waves and wind. And I try to hear what once happened inside those walls, what secrets I can persuade the matrix of stone and cement and design to reveal to me if I am patient enough - and how they will color in the blanks of a city which is only just beginning to take shape for me.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-47372877515340790562018-02-17T15:13:00.001+04:002018-02-17T15:13:51.463+04:00A year later on: Notes on Bangalore trees and me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-myOhjkGdcQA/WogLtvvLcdI/AAAAAAAADbg/TmYKwO7jPVgv9uX2cF1C37HDjOGAYiuKQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_7735.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="512" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-myOhjkGdcQA/WogLtvvLcdI/AAAAAAAADbg/TmYKwO7jPVgv9uX2cF1C37HDjOGAYiuKQCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_7735.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I can't believe it's been over a year since I last posted here. Where to begin? How to begin? Perhaps, where I ended last year: the trees, the trees of Bangalore, which have given me so much life and inspiration and beauty that I often quite can't encompass it all.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oC6V3-kXUFI/WogM3YNkIqI/AAAAAAAADb8/LCu3ACnvkRAfuEEe6w10-RUmrb3nHDf6gCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_2048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oC6V3-kXUFI/WogM3YNkIqI/AAAAAAAADb8/LCu3ACnvkRAfuEEe6w10-RUmrb3nHDf6gCEwYBhgL/s400/IMG_2048.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The tabubeia are now beginning to lose their flowers and I will have to wait for another year to see them bloom, lushly coloring the Bangalore skies. But this is the thing that a year of Bangalore trees have taught me, gifted me, rather: there will always be a tree leafing, flowering, fruiting somewhere whatever the season.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SN-lMcxjx0g/WogLxBYu6vI/AAAAAAAADbk/3EbIl-kxuVci7mf44vjumVtbK8D6iKsAQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1744.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SN-lMcxjx0g/WogLxBYu6vI/AAAAAAAADbk/3EbIl-kxuVci7mf44vjumVtbK8D6iKsAQCEwYBhgL/s400/IMG_1744.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The rain tree outside my apartment is bursting into the brightest of life-affirming green; all last month, I saw the old leaves fall in a rain of yellow, one by one, until the branches were entirely shorn of them and I could clearly see the eagles which came to rest on the bare tree limbs. A green-throated woodpecker has made its homes in one of the trunks: perfect black holes of nests. One of the three avocado trees is filled with upside-down Christmas trees of flowers, the bees and butterflies giddily orbiting around them. The imli tree hangs heavy with deep brown pods, home to several birds including a owl couple; it now splits its time between the imli tree and an enormous peepal tree metres away. A tree I discovered only last year, the lipstick tree offers spiky chocolate brown fruit to the sky; once, when I picked up a cracked open fruit, the red seeds spilled out and I rubbed them on my palm skin, seeing a cloud of red form. And it occurs to me that all trees are not the same, responding to seasons as they please: if one avocado tree is ready to flower, the other is patently not.<br />
<br />
One of the fig trees is plump with fruit, a few hardly making it to the ground without being bitten or tasted. Last year, I learned about the flowers inside its fruit, the wasps who make it their universe, their dance manifesting into a <a href="http://www.earthamag.org/stories/2017/9/19/building-bridges-between-ecology-and-art-a-ficus-love-story" target="_blank">theatre production which I was proud to be associated with</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5WJc35zrpc/WogL0cOxLxI/AAAAAAAADbo/I-zPTC5iQxYzdwNik-TwIQGHzuZsCWhSgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_9420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="512" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5WJc35zrpc/WogL0cOxLxI/AAAAAAAADbo/I-zPTC5iQxYzdwNik-TwIQGHzuZsCWhSgCEwYBhgL/s400/IMG_9420.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I participated in a human chain last July where we protested the proposing felling of trees on Old Airport Road, Bangalore. The trees had already been daubed and marked with bright red paint, much like branded cattle, in my eyes. The protests worked as in those trees were saved from senseless destruction; yet I hear today that there is yet another protest for 600 trees that could be purportedly axed elsewhere in Bangalore. I hope and hope that these trees too will have the opportunity to grow and spread their wings of branches for many more years. What price, development in face of these venerable creatures who give you shade, water, filter the sunlight, and illuminate the otherwise drab urban landscape with their leaves and flowers?<br />
<br />
There was a rain tree which I made friends with soon after moving to my neighborhood; I would see it every day, its branches in conversation with that of its neighbors, the massive peepal tree and the jacaranda. Last summer, it was cut down in order to make space for an Indira Canteen. The process to uproot and destroy its existence took days: the stump lingering for days before giving way to the messy sight of the massacred leaves and branches and those once indomitable roots. The Canteen was built, the space where the tree once stood unused. Do trees have ghosts? Do their ghosts haunt the spaces which they once called home? The peepal tree leaves look lonelier, the jacaranda when it flowers seems less purple in its absence.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mqAcpMzUa8g/WogNtJ-2vCI/AAAAAAAADcE/aglEhzDacVsmbmt0bQLvkfc6j3X1j1cggCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mqAcpMzUa8g/WogNtJ-2vCI/AAAAAAAADcE/aglEhzDacVsmbmt0bQLvkfc6j3X1j1cggCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_2350.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
The other night, as my husband and I sat in our apartment balcony listening to Chopin's Nocturne, it was as if the surrounding trees' leaves too had ceased to rustle, the trees as absorbed as in drinking these slow, languid, gorgeous musical notes. Moments later, once the music stopped, I could hear the trees rustling again, in response to the music that they had just heard. I went to sleep, lulled by this most sweet lullaby of them all, thinking how fortunate I have been to live in homes overlooked by trees. They are my guardians, my protectors, emblems of spirit and strength and defiance.<br />
<br />
I would be so very different in the absence of trees.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-62361187227622365762017-01-16T14:31:00.002+04:002017-01-16T14:31:21.944+04:00What Happened When 2016 Became 2017: Notes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
The last post I wrote was about burning autumn trees. The last post I tried to write was about trees with pink flowers which I saw on a warm November morning in Delhi. It remained incomplete. But the tree and pink flowers have followed me here to Bangalore, which incidentally is my new home. The gorgeous, joy-making pink tabuleia plume the tops of trees, reminding me of cherry blossoms that I used to see during spring in the United States. I see the pink flowers silhouetted against the blue sky, carpeting the dusty sidewalks below, or simply spiralling in the air - and I smile.<br />
<br />
It's spring in my heart.<br />
<br />
What have I been up to in the last few months? I moved, I travelled, I did a road trip in Rajasthan (birds, mirror lakes, sunsets, haunted ruins, dogs), I stood on top of a mountain in Oman (smelling ghost roses), I climbed trees, and photographed a <i>lot</i>.<br />
<br />
I didn't write much. <br />
<br />
I visited Blossoms bookshop one cool Sunday morning and bought ten books. The first book I am reading is <i>Known and Strange Things </i>by Teju Cole, inhaling his words, as if I am afraid that they will evanescence into air and I will never ever know what it was like to read them, experience them.<br />
<br />
Delhi is a blurred, hot, uncomfortable memory.<br />
<br />
Bangalore is trees with pink blooms, trees that deserve odes written to them, rust soil, colorful kolam patterns, fresh flowers, sugarcane stalks, ice-cream hued homes, the smell of old books, streets of art, and snacks wrapped in banana leaves.<br />
<br />
I know there is much more to it. And I am waiting to explore.<br />
<br />
But for now, I leave you with this. Happy 2017 everyone.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tpDd6BWN-JA/WHyf-EB8H3I/AAAAAAAADLI/Bldu4nM486UHQwWnhFleuBvkM8xTmjbvwCLcB/s1600/IMG_5550.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tpDd6BWN-JA/WHyf-EB8H3I/AAAAAAAADLI/Bldu4nM486UHQwWnhFleuBvkM8xTmjbvwCLcB/s400/IMG_5550.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HhfVzmt64gA/WHyf-BlRhTI/AAAAAAAADLE/KZg1BjNNjAkSzYiKe-5AiNlHaiY4q7YrACLcB/s1600/IMG_5559.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HhfVzmt64gA/WHyf-BlRhTI/AAAAAAAADLE/KZg1BjNNjAkSzYiKe-5AiNlHaiY4q7YrACLcB/s400/IMG_5559.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_pMq-uwxyp8/WHygMaKullI/AAAAAAAADLM/_JslvG0itsU8_9oZVZTn1a8PUFoL1lY0QCLcB/s1600/IMG_5558.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_pMq-uwxyp8/WHygMaKullI/AAAAAAAADLM/_JslvG0itsU8_9oZVZTn1a8PUFoL1lY0QCLcB/s400/IMG_5558.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-20188304640900489732016-09-20T14:54:00.002+04:002016-09-21T13:15:18.878+04:00Of Autumn Nostalgia, September, and The Blank Spaces Between Chapters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"> </span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span title="Edited">I remember the first time I saw trees in fiery autumn finery. It was late September; I was a newly arrived undergraduate at the university that I was attending in West Midlands, United Kingdom. As I battled all-consuming homesickness, cultural disorientation, and other newbie university student challenges, I nevertheless did occasionally emerge from my fog of bewilderment to briefly appreciate the brilliant theatre that these trees were putting up on display. They were in decay, true, but they appeared no less magnificent than in their glorious summer plumage. But I didn't take any pictures of them. All the photographs that I took of those initial months on my analogue camera depicted my university, my friends and the exciting memories I was making and accumulating. I experienced three more autumns during the time I lived and studied in United Kingdom but apart from a handful of pictures taken in my Oxford college's garden where bright yellow and orange autumn trees provide an arresting backdrop, it never occurred me to photograph the autumnscape for posterity.</span></span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"> </span></span></span></h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"></span></span></span></h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"></span></span></span></h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"></span></span></span></h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"></span></span></span></h1>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L7XYQ5PUtZ4/V-EUcDAJbaI/AAAAAAAADGs/_DcmIgIWlzEYzUpA_z5fBxT9ts_QjtfQgCLcB/s1600/IMG_4022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L7XYQ5PUtZ4/V-EUcDAJbaI/AAAAAAAADGs/_DcmIgIWlzEYzUpA_z5fBxT9ts_QjtfQgCLcB/s400/IMG_4022.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"> </span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited">How times have changed! Or, perhaps, more significantly, the way and how I look at nature. I made up for my earlier lack of autumn appreciation when I lived in Pittsburgh for a year and half, savoring how autumn unfurled over the months. I learned to love its nuances: the toast-crisp air, the sharp, invigorating, buttery sunshine, and a certain headiness that belongs to only autumn. I remembered exclaiming in surprised delight when the massive tree just outside my apartment window seemingly turned scarlet overnight. Yes, the summer was over, we were approaching winter - and yet, there was a promise in the air that was autumn's alone. That I could not photograph. What still vividly remains in my memories is the pleasure of walking out on a cool autumn morning, bundled up just so, literally drinking in the autumn air, the leaves crunching below your feet, so thickly, densely carpeting the path ahead that you could scarcely see the gray concrete or the viridian grass below. If no one was looking, I would take a childish pleasure in running through the leaves, seeing them swirl in the air, like birds agitated into flight. </span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"> </span></span></span></h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6lyOC3pPDjM/V-ET3VukL0I/AAAAAAAADGo/q89rw9hJvFgxC2RulPBdLget9sRsLZhmgCLcB/s1600/IMG_4017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6lyOC3pPDjM/V-ET3VukL0I/AAAAAAAADGo/q89rw9hJvFgxC2RulPBdLget9sRsLZhmgCLcB/s400/IMG_4017.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited">The other day, while glimpsing these orange
gulmohurs dotting the soil, I couldn't help but remember similarly hued orange leaves, as they must once more densely fall on the ground in various
parts of the world while the season transits from summer to autumn. There is no autumn here, of course. The monsoons have concluded in Delhi, at least...but still, something feels different. It gets darker a tad earlier each day and the cool morning breeze makes me smile in anticipation for the mellower, delicious days of between late October-early December</span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited">Perhaps, the season reflects my current state of mind (or is it vice versa?) I </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited">must admit that I too am in transit, immersed in a limbo. I feel that I currently inhabit the
blank spaces in between chapters of a novel. The hectic summer flew past
and I wonder what beckons in the newly forming season ahead. So I
hibernate in the den of my words, the short stories that I am trying to write, characters who are slowly
beginning to form and take shape on my pages. I don't know them and they
don't know me - yet. And so we are both in - there's that word again -
limbo. But I persevere, writing and writing, persuading them to reveal themselves. And
perhaps, by doing so, I will migrate to my next chapter, writing myself
into what is going to happen next. </span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited">September is not over yet. </span></span></span></h1>
<h1>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span title="Edited"> Inspired by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BKXksCmhXQ5/?taken-by=iamjustavisualperson" target="_blank">this </a>Instagram post of mine </span></span></span></h1>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-72595589197085843652016-09-14T08:33:00.002+04:002016-09-14T08:33:24.940+04:00The Story of a Lotus Bud<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PY8PkdEKnTQ/V9fo_o551eI/AAAAAAAADGM/BKzkQW6YJekPydNnfGITTCrXvw2cou1-QCLcB/s1600/IMG_3981.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PY8PkdEKnTQ/V9fo_o551eI/AAAAAAAADGM/BKzkQW6YJekPydNnfGITTCrXvw2cou1-QCLcB/s400/IMG_3981.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I found it at my flower-wallah on Sunday night. This flower-wallah was the one whom I had been buying my flowers from ever since I had moved to Delhi. In all these months, I had previously never seen lotuses there; I was instead accustomed to choosing from a library of roses, carnations, gladioli, marigolds, mogra, chrysanthemums, and rajnigandha, becoming blase about their beauty in the process. The lotuses were a pleasant surprise to encounter. A few days ago, I had seen them featured in pink bloom on someone's Instagram feed. A month ago, my family had sent me pictures after pictures of pink, white, and ivory-hued lotuses while holidaying in Sri-Lanka, where the blooms lay luxuriously massed upon the tables as temple offerings or sold in street-side shops. I remembered the first time I had seen devotees offer lotuses at temples in Bangkok; they resembled pale gray green candles from the distance until I peered closer and realised that they were in fact lotus buds. I tried to recall where I had last seen a lotus; I could not remember. I thought of the Buddhist mantra I frequently chanted these days, the lotus a powerful symbol and component of its spiritual structure.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I did not have to think twice about buying the lotus buds. I don't know why I bought just one though. The first lotus that I saw was greying, its outer almond-shaped petals the color of an ageing flamingo. Please give me a new, fresher one, I imperiously declared. The flower-seller picked one out from the many buds nestling together in their current home, a greying green bucket and began to swaddle it in a newspaper sheet for me. The lotus exuded no fragrance though. For fragrance, I bought my mogras, whose scent I forever associated with summer, smelling of rain when there was none. How long will it take to bloom, I asked, after he finished wrapping the lotus bud for me. Not much time, he replied. <i>Not much time</i>: that was hardly any time at all! I was prepared to wait. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I posted a portrait of it on Instagram the next day, murmuring about the multiple beautiful truths that resided within its delicately striated pink bud. I talked about the delicious anticipation of waiting to see it bloom. I was in oblivion until <a href="http://neelavanam.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Subhashini </a>gently reminded me that lotuses usually do not bloom outside of water. But of course! How <i>could </i>I have forgotten? Was mine a magical lotus that would bloom in air? She instead asked me to carefully open the petals to discover what lay inside. I felt as if I was being asked to go on a treasure-hunt. Our conversation took place during the night. I waited until the next morning to perform this pleasurable task. But alas! I thought I was being careful but I was not. As I coaxed the bud to open, the petals swiftly and disintegrated, detaching themselves from the stalk like the pages of a dying antique book fleeing from its spine. I was left with the denuded heart and the petals scattered around me. The lotus was no more. I touched its heart. I wished I had been more gentle, more thoughtful, I said. But there will be a next time: a new lotus, a new heart to love, new petals to read. Until then, I will content myself with a memory of eternal longing, the longing of waiting for it to bloom.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-23938062985863198552016-09-12T09:06:00.000+04:002016-09-12T09:06:22.125+04:00The Right to Walk: Women in Public Spaces<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p5bo06VdwIw/V9P7_sjUkBI/AAAAAAAADF8/xewaQ3Bov-Q3OOqoFGLBhskX1jMU87-KgCLcB/s1600/india-women-rape-protest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p5bo06VdwIw/V9P7_sjUkBI/AAAAAAAADF8/xewaQ3Bov-Q3OOqoFGLBhskX1jMU87-KgCLcB/s320/india-women-rape-protest.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Courtesy:<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-women-are-reclaiming-their-right-to-public-space-in-delhi-44105" target="_blank"> The Conversation</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I recently published a piece, The Right to Walk: Women in Public Space on <a href="http://www.feminisminindia.com/" target="_blank">Feminism in India.</a> It was the first time in ages that I had written a consciously feminist piece about a subject which had been consuming me ever since I moved to Delhi. I talk about accessing the public space in Oman and the United States before narrowing my focus on how I navigate the Delhi streets. It is an issue which continues to impact me but what I have observed is that I have recently begun adapting to the situation, deliberately becoming oblivious to the aspects which earlier made me furious: constant staring, the paucity of sidewalks/space to walk (well, at least, I have the gardens to walk in), and in general, never being at ease in the public space. Is adapting the right thing to do? Should I actively challenge the things which I resent and cause discomfort? However, so far, my only way to address the situation has been to write this piece, articulating my frustrations. I was amazed to see the number of likes (over 1000) the piece garnered on the Feminism of India's Facebook page and how many times it has been shared. It just goes to show how many women identify with the piece and how incensed and intense we are about the fact that we cannot access the public space in the way that we should be able to do. In any case, my voice is just one of the many who are championing the right to women to access the public space through movements such as the<a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/" target="_blank"> Blank Noise Project,</a> <span class="st"> which is a commu</span><span class="st">nity/public art project that seeks to confront street harassment in India and a movement explores and encourages women to loiter in streets of India, <a href="http://whyloiter.blogspot.in/" target="_blank">Why Loiter.</a> Our collective voices and action will contribute towards normalising a women's right to walk in the public space.</span></div>
<br />
I hope to explore this idea in other pieces but for now, am just reproducing this initial piece on the blog:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I clearly remember the first time I experienced the unadulterated pleasure of walking. I had recently moved to Pittsburgh, United States; even though it was a steel-cold, gray December afternoon, I must have walked for over an hour, eagerly exploring the bylanes of my new neighborhood. By the time I returned to my apartment, I had seen several runners, mothers pushing babies in prams, and elderly folks amongst other using the sidewalk. That walk marked the first of the many walks I was to take over there. What I appreciated the most was the abundance of space that the walks afforded to me; I often had the sidewalk to myself, walking unobserved while simultaneously observing my new surroundings and people. The public space was a friendly, welcoming, and accessible one, encouraging me to walk and take pleasure in the experience, significantly offering it to men and women alike.
It was nothing like I had ever experienced before.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Prior to moving to the States, I grew up and lived in the Sultanate of Oman, where I only walked during the night and that too for the exercise. The night made me invisible, something which I was grateful for because I no longer had to negotiate men constantly looking at me while I walked. The men never said anything but their act of looking spoke volumes enough – and the looking-at-edness made me experience extreme anger and discomfort. As it happened, I lived in a self-contained university campus kilometers away from downtown Muscat, where I still felt more protected than I would have in the urban spaces. I would like to point out that while Oman was a largely safe country for women, I nevertheless did not feel entirely comfortable walking for long stretches or periods of time in the urban areas; women friends and acquaintances often spoke of being followed or being harassed, making it extremely difficult for them to freely access the public space. Passing drivers often shouted out demeaning remarks, as if women walking on the street and moral laxity were synonymous with each other. Given all of these constraints, I welcomed these nightly walks. They say that you do not miss what you do not have; indeed, until I moved to the States, I did not really think so much of my walks apart from the functions they provided of exercise and contemplation. It never struck me that I was being deprived of a right or its gendered implications.
I should add that it was not as if I did not have to face cat-calling or unsolicited conversations while I walked in various parts of the States; yet, on the whole, I still felt a lot more comfortable walking over there, no matter if it was night or day.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I moved to New Delhi in October 2014. Even though I had grown up in Oman, I had regularly visited India during annual trips since my childhood so it was not as if gendered public space dynamics were alien to me; however, I had always significantly moved around in a sheltered bubble which meant I hardly ever had to access the streets and public space on my own. Arriving and living in Delhi meant that I had to now consciously pay attention to renegotiating how and where I walked.
I currently live in a gated, security-fortified Delhi Development Authority colony where it is still relatively easy to walk around but what happens once I step out? I encounter broken side-walks, if there were any at all, truncating the space that I have to myself when I walked. The narrow streets with their unpredictable traffic mean I have to be more vigilant of the passing vehicles, reducing my singular focus on the walk. Walking has become a mode of getting to point A to B, the destination taking precedent over the journey of walking, which I so enjoyed earlier. The sidewalk here does not offer much incentive for walkers to enjoy and be aware of the act of walking; there are no benches or other ways in which the pedestrians could engage with the urban space, which would invite them to linger there longer. You had no choice to but to simply carry on walking.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A public space theoretically allows democratic access to its users; yet, what I have most singularly realised over here is that there are sharp differences between a man and a woman walking in the public space. A man walks with authority, without perpetually looking over his shoulder, without worrying about constantly being watched and examined. Given that I am fond of phone photography and perpetually taking pictures while walking, I have faced double scrutiny of being both a woman as well as a photographing one. I am deprived of the precious me-time that my walks should afford me, encroached as they are by constant watching or unwelcome conversation. Can they not read my eyes and body language which singularly say, 'Leave.Me.Alone'? And as for nocturnal perambulations, I cannot even think about it, here in Delhi, the darkness potentially yielding multiple unknown terrors and threats.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I thought that I would find solace in the many parks that happen to dot my neighborhood; I thought that I would find the pleasures of walking there at least which was otherwise deprived to me in the streets and roads. I would find regulars walking around and around the circular paths, using the park space as a much needed one for exercise, social activities or to simply sit and soak the fresh air. Yet, even there, I was either constantly watched or found myself being followed on several occasions, the culprit tracing my steps within the garden and then from there onwards. I had to take alternate routes back home to dodge the follower, furious that the brief pockets of serenity I experienced in the parks was no more my own. What public space was left for me to call my own? Or perhaps public spaces and women were not synonymous with one another?</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The only time I have found joy in walking the streets in Delhi have been the ones which curiously enough have been the canvases for incredible street art, such as the neighborhoods of Shahpur Jat and Lodhi Colony; the local populace is perhaps accustomed to the sight of people photographing and documenting the street art. It doesn't matter whether you are a man or woman; they simply encourage you to go and seek the wall-canvases which have made their neighborhoods attractive magnets for photographers, tourists, and art connoisseurs. Having taken ownership of and deriving pride from their neighborhoods, the inhabitants in turn seek to make visitors to the spaces that they call home as welcome as possible. For me, as a woman, I felt entirely comfortable walking around those neighborhoods, taking pictures, pausing to linger upon the art, chatting to the residents about the stories behind the art. I experienced the double pleasure of accessing the art in a public space as well as being able to appreciate it just as easily as any man would.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The public space is for the public and that public consists of men and women; it is not a contested territory, affording more rights to one gender over another. When I walk in a city, I would like to walk with the knowledge that it is my own and that I can access anywhere I want. At the end of the day, I do not want to move around in circumscribed spaces, subjected to a spatial censorship.
I demand the right to walk without thinking that it is a right. </div>
<br />
** <br />
<br />
You can read the full piece <a href="http://www.feminisminindia.com/2016/08/05/the-right-to-walk-women-in-public-spaces/" target="_blank">here </a></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-69207584432780324962016-08-29T15:11:00.000+04:002016-08-29T17:51:44.529+04:00Collaboration Part 2: A Valley of Mountains Which Are the Sum of All Colors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-66WE6zJX2ps/V7BaV6FCO8I/AAAAAAAADEs/ENtGoDNOgJsqRUc2Gn542bW0HV2dzGCmgCLcB/s1600/WP_20160814_9241.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-66WE6zJX2ps/V7BaV6FCO8I/AAAAAAAADEs/ENtGoDNOgJsqRUc2Gn542bW0HV2dzGCmgCLcB/s400/WP_20160814_9241.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
There she sat, perched upon the boulder bordering the river, slumbering awake beneath the clear, blue skin of a sky. Headphones plugged into her ears, eyes fastened shut, the music pouring into her very being - and she was suddenly swimming in a river, the river snaking up and around and through mountains that were the sum of all colors. She was both inside them and outside them. They were the blue of a newly born river, the lime of a budding seedling, jade of a rain-washed tree, and the mauve of a decaying mogra. She did not know where these mountains were; perhaps, they existed only in the planet of her imagination, whose terrain she knew only so little of and still had so much to explore. She kept her eyes shut, knowing that the moment she opened them, the mountains would evanescence, the river would dry up, and she would be left with the indomitable gray bedrock of reality from which there would be no escape, no escape at all. And how could she let that happen?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
**</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is the second part of my collaboration with my<a href="https://www.instagram.com/spink_bottle/" target="_blank"> painter friend, Vidya</a>; <a href="http://iamjustavisualperson.blogspot.in/2016/06/of-collaboration-rose-gold-skies.html" target="_blank">in the first part</a>, she had beautifully interpreted one of my images and accompanying text through her art while here, I seek to give words to a musical dreamscape she magically evokes in this painting. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I hope you enjoyed partaking of our collaboration as much as we enjoyed participating in it!</div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-85158940664626527392016-07-28T14:26:00.001+04:002016-07-28T14:26:24.015+04:00July<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So when did July arrive and when did it decide to disappear so quickly? For the longest time in my life, July was synonymous with holiday or at the very least, anticipating some sort of travel. I can only think of two or three Julys which I entirely spent in one place (usually, Oman), going about my daily life while simultaneously wishing every day that I was on a plane or train or car and heading <i>somewhere.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hGhiVnOBTA0/V5nYR5fXcsI/AAAAAAAADDc/KiGtH8YL2WgOe68ZhZ3mTl2DKX9_L9NtACEw/s1600/IMG_3032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hGhiVnOBTA0/V5nYR5fXcsI/AAAAAAAADDc/KiGtH8YL2WgOe68ZhZ3mTl2DKX9_L9NtACEw/s320/IMG_3032.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fCT40eO5NMc/V5nY7wjPM8I/AAAAAAAADDs/kGBvrMgOgDUEBNs35JrnGi8cfccWdI1XACLcB/s1600/IMG_3091.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fCT40eO5NMc/V5nY7wjPM8I/AAAAAAAADDs/kGBvrMgOgDUEBNs35JrnGi8cfccWdI1XACLcB/s320/IMG_3091.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This July was fortunately no exception though; I have just returned from a hectic five day trip to Bangalore, where I joyously glimpsed numerous gorgeous trees (Bangalore trees, you have my heart), colonial mansions turned into hip contemporary spots, beautiful fresh rangoli decorating the thresholds of homes everymorning, winding roads, overdressed sari shop window displays, the famous Bangalore weather, and finally, consumed a lot of goodies from Bangalore bakeries and an authentic <a href="http://www.chefandherkitchen.com/2011/05/davanagere-benne-dosadbd-from.html" target="_blank">bene dosa </a>from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Tiffin_Room_Bangalore" target="_blank">CTR </a>in Malleshwaram. It was such a good dosa that I doubt that I will be eating one for a while in Delhi without remembering its Bangalore counterpart's finger-licking buttery, goldeny goodness!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PIpKd81j0XM/V5nZQ32pjcI/AAAAAAAADD0/bY-fhvDJ1-cfNL0jPqk8o_9RwOSxKJJ9ACLcB/s1600/IMG_3112.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PIpKd81j0XM/V5nZQ32pjcI/AAAAAAAADD0/bY-fhvDJ1-cfNL0jPqk8o_9RwOSxKJJ9ACLcB/s400/IMG_3112.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, my two most favorite memories involved visiting <a href="http://www.ngmaindia.gov.in/ngma_bangaluru.asp" target="_blank">National Gallery of Modern Art</a> and spending a very happy three hours discussing everything under the sun and its beautiful, beautiful spreading, giving, warm trees with <a href="https://www.instagram.com/spink_bottle/" target="_blank">Vidya</a>, turning our so far virtual friendship into a face to face one. I also spent a peaceful twenty minutes wandering around the gardens of the gallery before she arrived; it was especially such bliss to be in the proximity to this enormous, spreading, long-limbed rain-tree, whose formidable presence dominantly permeated the whole garden and yet, there was such serenity to be found standing beneath it. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5PyXSB5k4Pc/V5nYGQgYyGI/AAAAAAAADDY/zkMUV28-8Is0jhRptbkEOvcReSDAdlIBQCLcB/s1600/IMG_3082.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5PyXSB5k4Pc/V5nYGQgYyGI/AAAAAAAADDY/zkMUV28-8Is0jhRptbkEOvcReSDAdlIBQCLcB/s320/IMG_3082.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The other memory involved visiting a quaint little second-hand bookshop, <a href="http://www.caravanmagazine.in/lede/shelved-away" target="_blank">The Select Bookshop</a> at Brigade road; my husband used to buy a lot of books from there when he was growing up in Bangalore and I was charmed by how the book-shop owner greeted him, asking where he had been all this time. Having either shopped from chain-store bookstores or ordering books online lately, I had only heard of such bookshops, where the owners knew your name, thoughtfully recommended books, and took the trouble to find them for you from the depths of the crammed bookshelves. Vidya had also recommended the bookstore to me when I had mentioned wanting to visit another famous Bangalore bookshop, Blossom. It was so calming to stand there and browse through the books whilst soaking in in the wistful-making smell of old books and thinking of the journeys they had travelled when espying years-old inscriptions written in them. I even spotted a book edited by one of the first persons I had followed on Instagram many years ago! Needless to say, I left the bookshop, armed with several new old books that I cannot wait to read.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wgjG20MRy3g/V5nYy6Kd5OI/AAAAAAAADDk/wmpZCMkOgEYR273RfxGmsoj1XvazZC2AgCLcB/s1600/IMG_3059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wgjG20MRy3g/V5nYy6Kd5OI/AAAAAAAADDk/wmpZCMkOgEYR273RfxGmsoj1XvazZC2AgCLcB/s400/IMG_3059.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
July has also seen me making my <a href="http://www.guardiannews.com/" target="_blank">Guardian </a>debut. I am happy to share about my first piece for the Guardian; it is an insider's guide to Jodhpur, where I wrote about its architecture, music, food, green initiatives, art, and more. Writing about cities and that too one of my most favorite cities in the world? I couldn't be more glad! Have a read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/25/an-insiders-guide-to-jodhpur-blue-buildings-and-green-energy" target="_blank">here</a>!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
My other published writing this month was about how <a href="http://booksbywomen.org/how-collaging-and-scrapbooking-helps-me-write-better/" target="_blank">collaging and scrapbooking has helped me write better</a>; there is something so orderly about assembling your otherwise scattered thoughts into a jigsaw of collage and watercolor before proceeding to sit down and write.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The rains have poured down this year, walls of rains sheeting down throughout the night until dawn, accompanied by sauna-like humidity, which I am not too terribly fond of. However, all is forgiven when you glimpse how incredibly green everything is! The trees have shed their summer skin of dust to reveal a brand new green being beneath. I have reveled in clicking the green, the rain-drop jeweled flowers, the redness, the greenness, the pinkness of it all. What I especially loved chancing upon was how I found a beautiful, intact, yellow-hued white plumeria bloom only to see that someone had made an arrangement out of few upturned plumeria flowers. Those serendipitious discoveries make my day, honestly speaking!</div>
<br />
So this has been my July so far. How has yours been?</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-22431924241208670302016-07-16T08:58:00.002+04:002016-07-16T08:59:35.685+04:00Poetry: My Week in a Triptych<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Es_7rLcUOY/V4m-Y_J-PRI/AAAAAAAADCc/MklV_8IqMmAQ7J8ZeFDGNbTf9_IqnT1oACLcB/s1600/IMG_2855.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Es_7rLcUOY/V4m-Y_J-PRI/AAAAAAAADCc/MklV_8IqMmAQ7J8ZeFDGNbTf9_IqnT1oACLcB/s400/IMG_2855.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>When You Were Away</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I made bread out of bananas, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
scented the room with memories</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
of nocturnal moonlight,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and wrote poetry that I was</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
never going to read again.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2uxbNhV-tMg/V4m-blI3FKI/AAAAAAAADCg/9WyAeILS4yE4en1C8fbg4bKdAiQmE_8QQCEw/s1600/IMG_2846.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2uxbNhV-tMg/V4m-blI3FKI/AAAAAAAADCg/9WyAeILS4yE4en1C8fbg4bKdAiQmE_8QQCEw/s400/IMG_2846.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Buying Carnations </b><br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
They inhabit a damp black cave,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
primly veiled in jute purdah.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The pink is sharp and loving to the eye.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
They will die soon</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
but I will buy them anyway.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5M7LLD1OpaY/V4m-jIuQOiI/AAAAAAAADCk/6r_GKjR1BCUd1Y_3tIOz5f4EIi_tAhRugCEw/s1600/IMG_2819.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5M7LLD1OpaY/V4m-jIuQOiI/AAAAAAAADCk/6r_GKjR1BCUd1Y_3tIOz5f4EIi_tAhRugCEw/s400/IMG_2819.JPG" width="320" /></a></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Part of Mine</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Everyone told me that</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Delhi was the most ornate palimpsest:</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
rococo layers upon layers upon layers.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When I tried to peel them away,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
they refused to be pried off -</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and without me knowing it,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I had become one of its layers too</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and Delhi a part of mine.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-4212254894710767812016-07-07T18:06:00.001+04:002016-07-08T07:37:40.895+04:00Friday Poetry: Monsoon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fTSxGmrYrwA/V35gQ8Q3cLI/AAAAAAAADA8/qCsn_qmBJC0ufrsIv_GBboQdKmVzQe_FQCLcB/s1600/IMG_2259.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fTSxGmrYrwA/V35gQ8Q3cLI/AAAAAAAADA8/qCsn_qmBJC0ufrsIv_GBboQdKmVzQe_FQCLcB/s400/IMG_2259.JPG" width="320" /></a></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Monsoon</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
is an artist's thickly-laden paint-brush,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
dabbing this</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and that</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
shade of green,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a sea of green green green</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
until eyes yearn</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
for an island of iridescence to</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
be marooned upon.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
is memory of rain ghosting up</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
from moist tarmac, defying gravity:
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
redolent of crushed, damp</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
leaves, flowers, fruit,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
happily percolating your dreams,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
pillows smelling of petri-chor,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
its fragrance migrating into your hair.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
is a bare gray prarie landscape,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
where nothing and everything grows,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
where rains root in a parallel
universe,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
birthing the beginning of forests,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a novel which will never end,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
which will keep on growing</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and growing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-88150620253955378452016-06-26T20:08:00.002+04:002016-06-27T07:37:02.829+04:00Of Nature's Stories, Land Art, and Morning Altars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RiXPKO7FZkE/V2_zuYq0eWI/AAAAAAAAC_o/4HyaAg-W8N8NCTyoj0yzE4B_OC8mL7AlgCKgB/s1600/IMG_2118.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RiXPKO7FZkE/V2_zuYq0eWI/AAAAAAAAC_o/4HyaAg-W8N8NCTyoj0yzE4B_OC8mL7AlgCKgB/s320/IMG_2118.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The first time I chanced upon the idea of nature/land/earth art was when I glimpsed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy" target="_blank">sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist, Andy Goldsworthy's </a>work in <a href="http://www.aclotheshorse.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Clothes Horse'</a>s blog. I was simply enchanted by the notion of abstracting stunning site-specific art from natural surroundings, putting together fallen leaves, branches, twigs, flowers, seeds, and fruit, rocks, pebbles, and feathers into art that entirely and literally emerges from and connects to the earth, seamlessly integrating itself into the environment. I have been lately been pinning a ton of land art on my Pinterest and have discovered examples which left me breathless and marvelling at the artists' ingenuity and creativity, such as swirling twig waters around a boulder, stone paths in forests, and stone sculptures silhouetted against the sky. Here's a gorgeous Andy Goldsworthy in which he arranges numerous stones in graduated shades of gray to form an existential black hole of sorts in the vast universe that is nature.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fU4lL3_GUho/V2_qKDquPCI/AAAAAAAAC-Y/aoKFF7UNIdYLcrs6BAzAKIJEL54b9uS9QCLcB/s1600/Land%2Bart%2B-%2Bandy%2Bgoldsworthy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="357" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fU4lL3_GUho/V2_qKDquPCI/AAAAAAAAC-Y/aoKFF7UNIdYLcrs6BAzAKIJEL54b9uS9QCLcB/s400/Land%2Bart%2B-%2Bandy%2Bgoldsworthy.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After seeing scores and scores of incredible <a href="http://www.theartstory.org/movement-earth-art.htm" target="_blank">land art </a>works, I wondered if I too could create miniature examples myself; <a href="https://diy.org/skills/salvager/challenges/67/make-land-art" target="_blank">a little bit of researching</a> led me to realise that I had been partially doing it with the fallen flowers, seeds, seed-pods, and fruit I found during my morning walks. Having photographed the trees and plants, I found myself engaging with the gifts that they left for the earth - and for us to discover. I sometimes arranged what I found in a simple pattern or grid format, displaying the diversity of what I had found; it reflected both the species growing in my immediate environment as being season-specific, such as summer displaying a great deal of gulmohur and laburnum, for example. This earth art below below depicts the various stages of a gulmohur bloom that I found in one of my favorite neighborhood parks: bud, budding, blooming, bloom, and flower itself.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M4g57TQsUfU/V2_qnwjtqWI/AAAAAAAAC-g/O0X35E-EGjokR5Vmxww-s9Sky3f66nV7wCLcB/s1600/IMG_1988.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M4g57TQsUfU/V2_qnwjtqWI/AAAAAAAAC-g/O0X35E-EGjokR5Vmxww-s9Sky3f66nV7wCLcB/s400/IMG_1988.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yesterday, after posting a picture of my walk finds: a peepal tree leaf, bougainvillea, gulmohur petals, and a branch of lime green neem fruit on Instagram, Day Schildkret of<a href="http://www.morningaltars.com/about/" target="_blank"> Morning Altars </a>liked it and which fortuitously led me to explore more of his work. I was intrigued by what he is doing: creating gorgeous, intricate morning altars, foraging from his surroundings to create the most exquisitely detailed works<span style="font-size: small;">. It celebrates</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"> the ephemeral and the deeply rooted, nature with all of its
bountiful glories and its cycles of death, rebirth, and growth. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;">Here's one of his morning altars dedicated to spring below:</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eRwakwHQsls/V2_r9_K647I/AAAAAAAAC-4/vOzjzXAftZIgeHrA3cpkR8Cq4u12eQ4qQCLcB/s1600/the%252Bambassador%252BFINAL%252BWM-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eRwakwHQsls/V2_r9_K647I/AAAAAAAAC-4/vOzjzXAftZIgeHrA3cpkR8Cq4u12eQ4qQCLcB/s400/the%252Bambassador%252BFINAL%252BWM-.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Inspired by his morning altars, I <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited">decided to create one of my own today morning. In the park, it was quiet except for the birds twittering and
the sound of plum yellow neem fruit plopping on the ground; this was
the background to which I created my first altar wrought from
bougainvillea, laburnum, and gulmohur flowers and champak and
bougainvilleas leaves. It celebrates the joy these nature's morning
colors gives me and to brighten my day ahead, the little joys that I derive from these nature gifts and
compensating for potential challenges and disappointments that may lie ahead in the day. Of course, I do wonder what will become of them once I leave...will nature find a way to make its own unique installation out of them?</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mgzFpXT5Xgc/V2_rDRk2oFI/AAAAAAAAC-s/Ek4XZ48PRB0W8PeLp3yDF-clfOUiC2mFgCLcB/s1600/IMG_2236.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mgzFpXT5Xgc/V2_rDRk2oFI/AAAAAAAAC-s/Ek4XZ48PRB0W8PeLp3yDF-clfOUiC2mFgCLcB/s400/IMG_2236.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited">I enjoyed the process so much that I ended up creating two more earth art works later today from found champak flowers, leaves, and neem fruit:</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RiBBVs5YmJM/V2_z8u-iyWI/AAAAAAAAC_Y/Z6M6Z5KvQ4cKhEbAlqFujOxZkv9_2JlmgCKgB/s1600/IMG_2242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RiBBVs5YmJM/V2_z8u-iyWI/AAAAAAAAC_Y/Z6M6Z5KvQ4cKhEbAlqFujOxZkv9_2JlmgCKgB/s320/IMG_2242.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OCq8eyonhR4/V2_0Gjof16I/AAAAAAAAC_g/v4WQibilWeYfmtHmBbh1M9cAXUpOx9jcACKgB/s1600/IMG_2244.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OCq8eyonhR4/V2_0Gjof16I/AAAAAAAAC_g/v4WQibilWeYfmtHmBbh1M9cAXUpOx9jcACKgB/s400/IMG_2244.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Suu8g6yPRIc/V3Cebk1DeyI/AAAAAAAAC_0/grkUUQMijSAKE3vlAWrD7zy5kOXk7ZV9gCLcB/s1600/IMG_2250.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Suu8g6yPRIc/V3Cebk1DeyI/AAAAAAAAC_0/grkUUQMijSAKE3vlAWrD7zy5kOXk7ZV9gCLcB/s320/IMG_2250.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited">This activity gives me much peace as well as making me aware of the healing, restorative, and creative powers of nature; I find myself contemplating and appreciating nature's diverse manifestations much more closely. In this age, when we are battling climate change, habitat destruction, species' extinction, and many other depressing stories of environmental degradation, it powerfully drives home the message that we can no longer take nature and stories for granted for it may potentially disappear one day; let us hear its stories and more importantly, strive to conserve and preserve them.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited">Have you ever made impermanent art? I would love to hear! </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span title="Edited"><br /></span></span></span>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-11492263639543155662016-06-22T15:10:00.001+04:002016-06-24T15:43:45.330+04:00Friday Poetry: My Yellow Is Your Green<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-59yAU9zZfgY/V2pwnk9YnUI/AAAAAAAAC98/0m-v7ePS8xkuNAVzFK_YHg-OJxkRoHTfQCLcB/s1600/IMG_1916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-59yAU9zZfgY/V2pwnk9YnUI/AAAAAAAAC98/0m-v7ePS8xkuNAVzFK_YHg-OJxkRoHTfQCLcB/s640/IMG_1916.JPG" width="512" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />My yellow is your green,<br />
my room your house.<br />
And my mind,<br />
my mind is a palace<br />
whose inhabitants<br />
have long deserted it,<br />
refusing to return.<br />
And only memories haunt the rooms,<br />
Sunlight a distant dream away.<br />
<br />
<i>Written in response to Farideh Lashai's oil-painting, Circa 1960s; seen in Harper Bazaar Art Arabia's edition</i><br />
<br />
<i>**</i><br />
<br />
When I was younger, I constantly used to write poems inspired by paintings or photographs or any other source of visual inspiration; I wrote about Japanese pagodas after having glimpsed them in a calendar hanging in my uncle's home or a poem called Chimera in response to a painting I had seen in a magazine. To see and to write were almost synonymous for me and it most strongly manifested in my poetry. Once I stopped writing poetry, I began to manufacture images instead and stopped writing in response to visual stimuli. However, thanks to Instagram, I began writing in response to my own images and it soon spilled over into my poetry. Hope to have more of these art-poetry juxtapositions over here!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-72352225017418692582016-06-21T09:31:00.001+04:002016-06-21T09:31:03.838+04:00Of A Collaboration: Rose Gold Skies, Jacaranda Trees, and Dreams - Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I have always loved the idea of collaborations: multitude of ideas mashing and meshing together, divergent skills and perspectives merging into a hugely textured confluence. Even though I don't know that much about Hindustani classical music, what I <i>am </i>familiar with is the notion of<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugalbandi" target="_blank"> jugalbandi</a>. I had always sought to perform an artistic jugalbandi of my own, what with my writing and someone's art. I was curious to see how someone would respond to my work and vice versa and what new doors of thought and looking would the jugal-bandi open into my work and hopefully, their own too.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When I initially started following Vidya Gopal's Instagram account, she was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/spink_bottle/" target="_blank">@spink_bottle </a>for me for the longest time; however, we soon began exchanging comments, notes on IG, and emails, seguing into food for thought conversations about creativity, productivity, what we were reading, and whatnot and - it all recently and happily reached a 'shall we collaborate?' moment. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But first, a word about Vidya's truly beautiful water-color and ink illustrations; if you cast even a mere glimpse, you will find yourself swimming through thoughtful, whimsical, colorful painting studies about flowering fuchsia bougainvilleas, dreaming, eccentric women, budding Tendulkars, coffee drinkers in a cafe, gulmohar petals migrating from hand to paper and so much more. These paintings collectively could form a lovely painting novel of sorts, as we encounter a brilliant school of characters and their environments, becoming familiar and fond of their quirks and foibles, all expressed through the medium of illustration. For so long, I must confess that visual art had been purely about the dramatics and technique of aesthetics for me; however, Vidya's story paintings have compelled me to much more strongly consider the sheer story-telling element as well.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Our collaboration therefore resulted in us responding to each other's work through our respective modes of expression. This is the first part of our collaboration and Vidya chose to depict a jacaranda tree I had photographed few months ago silhouetted against a rose gold sunset sky, interpreting both the photograph and the text which I wrote to accompany it. I will leave for you to think what you will of this superlative work of hers below; as for me, it simply made me very happy to look at a painting which gorgeously captured in essence both the sky and the jacaranda tree as well as the addition of the dreaming, langurous girl (me?!), which so powerfully marries my words and image. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i> My image and words</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qpyprZtAMjs/V2jOtuo66zI/AAAAAAAAC9s/gF_DXHkmLYcptwf9VwWq_Tr8RtYdF-qmACLcB/s1600/IMG_0490.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qpyprZtAMjs/V2jOtuo66zI/AAAAAAAAC9s/gF_DXHkmLYcptwf9VwWq_Tr8RtYdF-qmACLcB/s400/IMG_0490.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>I dreamt of a jacaranda tee last night; it was blooming in a planet galaxies away, in a world where the color of the night was the palest, softest rose-gold. I stood on my tip-toes to touch the velvety mauve blooms but before I could do it, the dream evanescenced and I was left with nothing but the memory of a sky and purple on my finger-tips. </i></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Vidya's response </i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--gVjh_mIGzY/V2jOq9OGnLI/AAAAAAAAC9k/a906uBqiWys7AjbYX4uizMysUQYZKnyUwCLcB/s1600/WP_20160617_8695.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--gVjh_mIGzY/V2jOq9OGnLI/AAAAAAAAC9k/a906uBqiWys7AjbYX4uizMysUQYZKnyUwCLcB/s400/WP_20160617_8695.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thank you so so much, Vidya and in the meantime, here's hoping that I will do justice to your lovely paintings!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Watch this space for the second part of our collaboration:)</div>
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-87747484335611412862016-06-17T15:56:00.000+04:002016-06-18T08:34:17.612+04:00 Mandatory 'Where has the year gone by' musings + glimpses into my published writing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Where </i>has this year gone by? Seriously, I had just started to become familiar with 2016, its quirks, its flavors, its textures and yet, before I knew it, it was inching towards its middle. And I too have been away from here more than a month: visited Oman in the interim, picked a ton of mogras, ate snacks which I specifically associate with home and communed with the sea, desert, and the mountains before returning to hot, humid, green Delhi with barely a bloom in sight. However, the good news is that the monsoon is due on June 29th so I am looking forward to the rain. I was too unwell last year to really notice either the terrible yearning for the rain or the rain itself but this year, if El Nina doesn't insist on having her way, I am anticipating sitting at my window and watching the water gush down from the heavens and sluice away the inertia, lethargy, and the omnipresent 'this is the hottest summer ever'. Of course, rain will also gift us the return of mutant, giant mosquitoes, more mugginess, and gray rivers flowing down the street but we won't think of that now!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
My weather report over, I just wanted to give brief glimpses into the writing that I have published lately; I am veering towards the personal memoir (especially relating to nature), the surreal (the mannequins), and nostalgia, such as these musings about Muttrah. I would like to continue to do a wide range of textured work this year, migrating from one genre to another, as that a) that keeps me much more engaged and b) it definitely results in much more lively writing. Or so I think.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mpXuS0Tgtho/V2PiFo_Q4FI/AAAAAAAAC80/tWReP1kiGSk3T61cUAoUeaYRmt6uDyo2QCLcB/s1600/IMG_0253.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mpXuS0Tgtho/V2PiFo_Q4FI/AAAAAAAAC80/tWReP1kiGSk3T61cUAoUeaYRmt6uDyo2QCLcB/s400/IMG_0253.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>I read in the newspaper the other day that our neighborhood is the
greenest one in New Delhi, and I must agree as I observe the sheer
wealth of the flora surrounding me. There is a massive peepal tree
behind my house, which simultaneously functions as a pop-up shrine; seen
from my study window, the first tree to bloom during spring, the
appearance of the silk cotton tree’s fat monstrously beautiful crimson
or orange flowers herald winter’s end. The gulmohar tree’s bare branches
which had otherwise sported earrings of long chocolate brown seed pods
(incidentally, they also make excellent <a href="http://%3cblockquote%20class=%22instagram-media%22%20data-instgrm-captioned%20data-instgrm-version=%227%22%20style=%22%20background/#FFF;%20border:0;%20border-radius:3px;%20box-shadow:0%200%201px%200%20rgba%280,0,0,0.5%29,0%201px%2010px%200%20rgba%280,0,0,0.15%29;%20margin:%201px;%20max-width:658px;%20padding:0;%20width:99.375%;%20width:-webkit-calc%28100%%20-%202px%29;%20width:calc%28100%%20-%202px%29;%22%3E%3Cdiv%20style=%22padding:8px;%22%3E%20%3Cdiv%20style=%22%20background:#F8F8F8;%20line-height:0;%20margin-top:40px;%20padding:62.421875%%200;%20text-align:center;%20width:100%;%22%3E%20%3Cdiv%20style=%22%20background:url%28data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wOHiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GPT6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90GSy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC%29;%20display:block;%20height:44px;%20margin:0%20auto%20-44px;%20position:relative;%20top:-22px;%20width:44px;%22%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%20%3Cp%20style=%22%20margin:8px%200%200%200;%20padding:0%204px;%22%3E%20%3Ca%20href=%22https://www.instagram.com/p/BDrk-bfInBw/%22%20style=%22%20color:#000;%20font-family:Arial,sans-serif;%20font-size:14px;%20font-style:normal;%20font-weight:normal;%20line-height:17px;%20text-decoration:none;%20word-wrap:break-word;%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3EThe%20Kinetic%20Seed%20Pod%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%20%3Cp%20style=%22%20color:#c9c8cd;%20font-family:Arial,sans-serif;%20font-size:14px;%20line-height:17px;%20margin-bottom:0;%20margin-top:8px;%20overflow:hidden;%20padding:8px%200%207px;%20text-align:center;%20text-overflow:ellipsis;%20white-space:nowrap;%22%3EA%20video%20posted%20by%20Priyanka%20Sacheti%20Mehta%20%28@iamjustavisualperson%29%20on%20%3Ctime%20style=%22%20font-family:Arial,sans-serif;%20font-size:14px;%20line-height:17px;%22%20datetime=%222016-04-02T02:20:52+00:00%22%3EApr%201,%202016%20at%207:20pm%20PDT%3C/time%3E%3C/p%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/blockquote%3E%20%3Cscript%20async%20defer%20src=%22//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js%22%3E%3C/script%3E">rattles</a>) are currently ablaze with crimson blooms.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i> If you stroll through adjoining by-lanes, you will encounter baby green
mango-laden trees, creamy white neem bloom, laburnum dripping with
chandeliers of gloriously yellow flowers, and a garden earlier violently
violet with blooming jacaranda trees. Even though trees may send away
bits of themselves to the world through their fallen leaves, flowers,
and seeds, they are ultimately rooted to where they are, their one and
only home. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Read the full piece<a href="http://theaerogram.com/what-nature-taught-me-about-making-homes-wherever-you-go/" target="_blank"> here</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v7Ef3HjhZN8/V2PjZyF7HiI/AAAAAAAAC9A/TNvStFreinsVnDzwIdBT37ZaaWlUNcAlwCLcB/s1600/Mannequin%2B-%2BAl%2BKhod%2B7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v7Ef3HjhZN8/V2PjZyF7HiI/AAAAAAAAC9A/TNvStFreinsVnDzwIdBT37ZaaWlUNcAlwCLcB/s400/Mannequin%2B-%2BAl%2BKhod%2B7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Arabic, Indian or cross-culture – one
question remains about these shops, their clothing wares and the
mannequins who showcase them. Who is the consumer? Western tourists and
visitors? Arabic-speaking customers? Omanis? Emiratis? Local Indian
immigrants? The mannequins, coloured as they are in an unmistakably fair
skin colour, perhaps tries to address them all. What the mannequins’
appearance nonetheless communicate to us is how Western looks/aesthetics
and bodies are perceived as the norm across the world, even in
non-Western countries, where they are costumed in local clothing. Or
perhaps, they are arguably protean creatures, changing character
depending upon who perceives them.</span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Read the full piece<a href="http://www.mashallahnews.com/mannequins-light-skin/" target="_blank"> here </a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rqXvd342nwA/V2Pj0cIRhXI/AAAAAAAAC9I/P2Dz6-lJ-egxW5lL7wKH3klkLWSN80rAwCLcB/s1600/Evening%2Bscene%2Boutside%2Bthe%2Bsouq.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rqXvd342nwA/V2Pj0cIRhXI/AAAAAAAAC9I/P2Dz6-lJ-egxW5lL7wKH3klkLWSN80rAwCLcB/s640/Evening%2Bscene%2Boutside%2Bthe%2Bsouq.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>It is a space where local and
expatriate communities' lives and paths have intersected for years.
As you cross a glut of tailoring shops, briefly pausing at one, Arjun
of Bangladesh reveals that he has been living here for for twenty
eight years. The hunger-making smell of frying pakoras and freshly
baked bread imbues the air as vividly as sound. Peeking inside a
non-descript looking bakery, Mohammed and Aslam vigorously pound
dough before rolling out and baking bread in a tandoor. “Our shop
is 38 years old. Omanis, Indian, Pakistanis, and Arabs all buy bread
from us; in fact, people from as far as Sohar and Barka come to buy
it,” Mohammed says. </i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Yet, walking through the gullies, you
can still content yourself thinking that you are still experiencing
one of the multiple cities that constitute Muscat.</i></div>
<i>
</i><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Read the full piece <a href="https://issuu.com/alefmagazine/docs/alef_magazine__15/1" target="_blank">here</a></span></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-87619524667774544122016-05-15T21:54:00.000+04:002016-05-15T21:54:11.600+04:00What Writing Nature Diaries Have Taught Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X-aH_Jck_nA/Vzi1-p_RXvI/AAAAAAAAC7Q/xzYXPUZQza84_sB__hpQvp_xxJQJQDpuACLcB/s1600/IMG_1338.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X-aH_Jck_nA/Vzi1-p_RXvI/AAAAAAAAC7Q/xzYXPUZQza84_sB__hpQvp_xxJQJQDpuACLcB/s400/IMG_1338.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The other day, I read <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/28/down-came-a-blackbird-her-nest-to-compose" target="_blank">this piece </a>in which the writer describes the lively antics of a blackbird seeking to make a nest in the English countryside; it was featured in a column entitled, 'Country Diary' and the title made me think how many of my daily entries in my own journal have lately been largely dedicated to nature and observations about nature. All through spring, I wrote about <a href="http://www.womensweb.in/2016/04/bloom-april-2016-muse-month-winning-entry-priyanka-sacheti/" target="_blank">the trees, which bloomed, which stopped blooming, the new ones that bloomed</a>. I described <a href="http://iamjustavisualperson.blogspot.in/2011/04/of-gardens-and-blogs.html" target="_blank">my blog as a garden of sorts </a>in the debut post and my journal too has became a figurative garden in which I write about physical gardens.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8Jk5BZk00uI/Vzi2tmxx0SI/AAAAAAAAC7Y/BwcLV70Ous8JsWJ0c9UIITS6Xh_k1VmIwCKgB/s1600/IMG_1166.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8Jk5BZk00uI/Vzi2tmxx0SI/AAAAAAAAC7Y/BwcLV70Ous8JsWJ0c9UIITS6Xh_k1VmIwCKgB/s400/IMG_1166.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://iamjustavisualperson.blogspot.in/2016/04/friday-poetry-birds-whose-music.html" target="_blank">I also wrote about the birds that I saw</a>: jade-sheened black humming birds drinking from kachnar orchids, an orange-mohawk bird contemplating the trees from our window sills, a tiny black bird which could have fit inside my palm nibbling on peepal fruit, palm doves performing trapeze-artist theatre on the parabolas of wires strung between buildings. I wrote about the sparrow that flies from our window as soon as I open it towards the opposite end; it was the World Sparrow Day sometime ago and I was sorry to hear that these humble birds have become an endangered species. I wrote about the marauding ants navigating the undulating terrain of visible tree roots, turquoise and black butterflies dancing on concrete, and of course, the street dogs, some extroverted and tame enough to proffer their handsome tapered heads for a pat while others skitter away at the sight of you, burying themselves in a damp sand hole.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FM2Ik3goHz0/Vzi2925aWZI/AAAAAAAAC7c/f9fMEtjJFXodTLuI-Udv5upDAQ2Z5Df0wCKgB/s1600/IMG_1099.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FM2Ik3goHz0/Vzi2925aWZI/AAAAAAAAC7c/f9fMEtjJFXodTLuI-Udv5upDAQ2Z5Df0wCKgB/s400/IMG_1099.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today, as I leaned out of my window, I noticed that a spider has built two webs in between the grilles and that the kachnar tree is leafing in sporadic spurts, unlike the enthusiastically blooming gulmohar or the silk cotton tree with their exploding seed-pods, cotton spheres floating in the wind before resting upon the ground, like unmelting snow. It's all a matter of looking and looking carefully; for all these years, I was looking but I never really saw. I was ignorant of the flowers blooming, birds building nests, termites constructing homes, dragon-flies shimmying in the air, and invisible armies of ants. I only became aware when I had to be, when my world collided with that of the natural one, when I once saw a dead dragon-fly flutter down at my feet or the blooming mogras' gorgeous scent called out to me. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now that I have begun to see, really begun to see, what will I get to discover?</div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-29103818477556294082016-05-06T07:28:00.000+04:002016-05-06T18:42:32.590+04:00Friday Poetry: The Poetry of Silent Trees<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mDuCDTFfYf4/VyiU1OLv-WI/AAAAAAAAC6g/Q9wbXPcBz9o6VUR5ecaXrPz5OjWmbdRCQCLcB/s1600/IMG_1065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mDuCDTFfYf4/VyiU1OLv-WI/AAAAAAAAC6g/Q9wbXPcBz9o6VUR5ecaXrPz5OjWmbdRCQCLcB/s400/IMG_1065.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Trees</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
which had been silent</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
all this while</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
have now decided to speak:</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9Jo6CbhZzt0/VyiVVwsdVTI/AAAAAAAAC6o/H6mLbztz-R0t36FnfUYqLPRZ7FIMyhdrgCLcB/s1600/IMG_1044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9Jo6CbhZzt0/VyiVVwsdVTI/AAAAAAAAC6o/H6mLbztz-R0t36FnfUYqLPRZ7FIMyhdrgCLcB/s400/IMG_1044.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
their poetry blooms under my feet,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and I listen carefully,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
not wishing to miss</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
a single</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
syllable.</div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-16852006369782927982016-05-02T10:11:00.002+04:002016-05-02T10:11:22.306+04:00Of 'The Girl Who Ate Books,' Bookstores, and Browsing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pl1t0T89HvA/VybgNNCCAKI/AAAAAAAAC6M/dBTQmxwqZv4CImFY1SesqON1hZIkK4VdgCLcB/s1600/IMG_1267.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pl1t0T89HvA/VybgNNCCAKI/AAAAAAAAC6M/dBTQmxwqZv4CImFY1SesqON1hZIkK4VdgCLcB/s400/IMG_1267.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Last week, I finally got around to ordering a bunch of books I had been wanting to read for a long while; one of them happened to be the acclaimed journalist, author, and columnist, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilanjana_Roy" target="_blank">Nilanjana Roy</a>'s book, <i><a href="https://harpercollins.co.in/book/the-girl-who-ate-books-adventures-in-reading/" target="_blank">The Girl Who Ate Books</a>.</i> I had heard a great deal about Ms. Roy and had even seen her in person, moderating a panel which included Taslima Nasreen among other authors at the Times Literature Festival held in Delhi last December. Yet, it was one thing to hear of and read an author in a column and another to read their <i>book</i>, which happens to be a series of superlative, elegantly written essays about being a bibliophagist (and quite literally so!), house of books (in her case, her grandmother's ancestral Calcutta home, where books were scattered, stacked, and shelved in every possible space), reading, encounters with authors and poets, her own writing, sensitive, thoughtful notes on plagiarism and more. The last time I had read such a nuanced treatise and musings on reading was when I read Anne Fadiman's<a href="http://us.macmillan.com/exlibris/annefadiman" target="_blank"> <i>Ex Libris</i></a>, which incidentally is a book that Ms. Roy also refers to in her own.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It made me deeply think about reading: how and why I read - and of course, books which have played a central role in my life. Reading about Ms. Roy's childhood reading experiences and bookshops she frequented over the years, I journeyed back into my own childhood in Oman and how I acquired my books and satiated my voracious reading appetite. I read a lot and there were only so many outlets from where I could replenish the constantly diminishing stack of books I consumed. There being not much of a reading culture in Oman, there was only one local bookshop chain, <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/oman/muscat/shopping/books/family-bookshop" target="_blank">Family Bookshop</a>, where the limited range of books in the few branches gleamed shiny, new-smelling, and very expensive, as everything imported in Oman was. While I borrowed a huge number of books from our school library (one year, the librarian informed me, I was the student who had borrowed the highest number of books that year: 333, to be precise!), we also had the option of ordering books through publishers' catalogues such as a British children's imprint of Penguin, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffin_Books" target="_blank">Puffin</a> and an American children publishing house, <a href="http://scholastic.co.in/" target="_blank">Scholastic</a>. The books arrived by sea-mail and took months to arrive and I almost forgot that I had ordered them until a huge box would turn up in our class room - and you remembered all those books, awaiting to be read. I would devour the books within hours of acquiring them before immediately re-reading them, a habit that still persists till this day with many of the books I read. They would finally be given a precious place of honor in my shrine of books, the book-shelf - and indeed, many of the books I read as a child still remain in my bookshelves at my parents' home.<br />
<br />
Other than that, I bought a lot of books at school fests or book sales or especially when we traveled to India or abroad, where I literally had to be pried away from the bookstores; for example, when I was thirteen and a
cousin of mine took me to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Group" target="_blank">Borders</a> bookshop in a suburban New Jersey mall, it took me a long time to delightedly comprehend that there was a store where you could
sit down and read books - and no one would be around to shake their
head or ask you to stop reading. It was probably my most favorite store that I encountered during that trip.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What always pierced through me while browsing at the bookshops was the dizzying incredible realisation that there were <i>so</i> many books
waiting to be read and I had gotten around to reading just a few. There is a scene in Vikram Seth's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Suitable_Boy" target="_blank"><i>A Suitable Boy</i></a> where the two protagonists, Lata and Kabir meet in a bookstore and Lata and Kabir's eye collide when Lata, who normally gravitates towards poetry, particularly Tennyson, is lost in the mysteries of mathematics; Seth particularly emphasizes her awe at the multiple continents of knowledge waiting to be discovered and explored. As I grow older, I have to admit that I have a disappointing habit of stubbornly remaining within my reading comfort zones; however, once I do venture out of them, I happily lose myself into a novel which delights in playing with toys of language or transplants me in a meticulously re-created historical era and ethos. A few years ago, when I was still living in Oman, a group of neighborhood ladies and I would meet for monthly book-club evenings, where we would bring our favorite books and exchange them with the others; given the paucity of bookshops in Oman, it was a god-send to discover authors and books that I would never have otherwise heard of.<br />
<br />
I have to confess that it was not until recently when I was reading about the demise of some much-loved bookstores in Delhi that I realised I had both forgotten the act of browsing as well as the joy I derived from them, thanks to so much online book-shopping I now indulge in and which is my primary mode of purchasing books nowadays. When I lived in Pittsburgh and greedily ransacked the<a href="http://www.clpgh.org/" target="_blank"> Carnegie Library</a> every week to borrow books, I would still browse but didn't linger too much, always eager to rush home and start reading the books I had borrowed, knowing that I would have to return them soon. However, when I found myself in bookshops, knowing that I was going to actually invest in a book, knowing that it would be mine and which would decorate my shelves or bedside table for years to come, I would deliciously linger over the browsing, taking my time to leaf through the books. And so, when I had some time to myself weeks ago, I slipped into a bookstore and took my time walking around the store, pulling out a book or two, flipping through the pages, allowing an eloquently written passage to brand my memory. I had taken this luxury for granted, unknowing it was a luxury until it became one.</div>
<br />
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-83257801669320183172016-04-29T09:24:00.003+04:002016-04-29T09:24:45.901+04:00Friday Poetry: Beauties Sleeping<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jit2aPoDC0Y/VyLvNjgr2GI/AAAAAAAAC5w/f3RmHZ0csNMpM591W6nWuBT05pLjul_bACLcB/s1600/FullSizeRender%252810%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jit2aPoDC0Y/VyLvNjgr2GI/AAAAAAAAC5w/f3RmHZ0csNMpM591W6nWuBT05pLjul_bACLcB/s400/FullSizeRender%252810%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>BEAUTIES SLEEPING</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Beauties sleeping,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
dreaming of pink bloom, </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
unaware that they are ghosts of</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
what they once were,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
what they will never be again. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-42086084738044118972016-04-27T07:24:00.003+04:002016-04-27T07:24:29.056+04:00Five Thoughts About April<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-28M6T78XDKI/Vx9jC5vm5BI/AAAAAAAAC4w/QyoSgnv4fz8k8DsaY4XhM67-KYqygpKlgCLcB/s1600/IMG_1101.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-28M6T78XDKI/Vx9jC5vm5BI/AAAAAAAAC4w/QyoSgnv4fz8k8DsaY4XhM67-KYqygpKlgCLcB/s400/IMG_1101.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
1. I began a collaging-scrap book which is becoming a novel of my thoughts. I also painted a bit more this month, specifically expanding on my love for dots; I don't know where it has sprung up from, this inclination towards embedding the page with dots but it is a very calm, meditative process and imbues the painting with a strange, structured quality. Here is a third such chapter from my book: The Art of Cloud-Making. </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-05JxPYEX-Tc/Vx9jawLIvJI/AAAAAAAAC40/KdwqOuFULGoEUjzVQtF8H8IZ-4LUTKgxgCLcB/s1600/IMG_1189.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-05JxPYEX-Tc/Vx9jawLIvJI/AAAAAAAAC40/KdwqOuFULGoEUjzVQtF8H8IZ-4LUTKgxgCLcB/s400/IMG_1189.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
2. I attended my first art event in ages and surprisingly, only my second one in Delhi after all this time living here, what with its uber-packed art and culture calendar. It was the closing ceremony of multi-media and disciplinary artist, <a href="http://www.satishgupta.com/" target="_blank">Satish Gupta</a>'s <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/after-a-break-sculptor-satish-guptas-work-on-exhibit-in-delhi-after-a-gap-of-25-years/" target="_blank"><i>At The Feet of Buddha,</i></a> where he presented ten sculptures, eight paintings and seventy two haikus. We heard Buddhist monks in orange robes chant, renowned Indologist, a venerable looking Professor Chandra in a crisp white kurta and dhoti talk about Buddhism, saying something which particularly resonated me that Buddha saw the entire universe in a leaf, and finally, the artist himself reciting his haikus. The giant contemplative Buddha was the focus of everyone's attention, mogras buds scenting the air all around him. We briefly chatted to the artist and he told us that it took him two years to wrought it. I have to say though that my favorite part of the evening was hearing his wonderful haikus; read them <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BEptFrTonE1/?taken-by=iamjustavisualperson" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BEpsD0AInDb/?taken-by=iamjustavisualperson" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<br />
3. Time to blow my trumpet a bit! I wrote a piece about my love for the trees in spring-time on a whim inspired by a beautiful writing cue, participating in a writing competition for the first time in years (another first!). To my pleasant surprise, my entry was among the five winning entries for this month. You can read the piece <a href="http://www.womensweb.in/2016/04/bloom-april-2016-muse-month-winning-entry-priyanka-sacheti/" target="_blank">here</a>:)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_CHeGhtgwBQ/Vx9pQuZ2iQI/AAAAAAAAC5M/x8TZR3U9oVcoYArfcPcbdiufH1IspV5ywCLcB/s1600/IMG_1161.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_CHeGhtgwBQ/Vx9pQuZ2iQI/AAAAAAAAC5M/x8TZR3U9oVcoYArfcPcbdiufH1IspV5ywCLcB/s400/IMG_1161.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
4. <a href="http://iamjustavisualperson.blogspot.in/2014/04/taking-notes-while-trailing-abandoned.html" target="_blank">My abandoned sofa trail </a>saw me spotting one in Mehrauli after almost a year since my last sighting in Delhi; it was unobtrusively hidden in a tangle of forest and scrub, its extremely dilapidated state indicating that it had been there for a while, almost becoming a part of the forest itself. It looked so at home in the spot, if one could say, that I wasn't tempted to extricate its back-story.<i> This </i>was its story.<br />
<br />
5. It's the season of mogras once again. I bought a string or two from my local flower-seller and wrote about a<a href="http://iamjustavisualperson.blogspot.in/2016/04/friday-poetry-seasons-first-mogras.html" target="_blank"> poem </a>about it, kickstarting my Friday poetry posts. The other evening, sitting inside the car and waiting for the traffic light to turn green, a man swung an entire bunch in front of us and offered to sell them for a bargain. "I need to go home and get rid of them," he succinctly told us. I had been planning to buy a couple of strings and so immediately leaped at the chance to buy a bunch of gorgeous-smelling mogra. Since then, they swayed on the rearview mirror, scented my living and bedrooms, and are now slumbering in the cold, protected confines of the fridge.<br />
<br />
How was<i> your </i>April? I would love to hear! </div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-52496325241824582142016-04-22T08:09:00.002+04:002016-04-22T08:09:27.119+04:00Friday Poetry: A Country Where Many Reside<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BjH8nFFzu7I/VxmjYLdQ2dI/AAAAAAAAC4c/_NH6XEnYk84pTTbov7f-jL91mxT4zeCxgCLcB/s1600/IMG_0518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BjH8nFFzu7I/VxmjYLdQ2dI/AAAAAAAAC4c/_NH6XEnYk84pTTbov7f-jL91mxT4zeCxgCLcB/s400/IMG_0518.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>A COUNTRY WHERE MANY
RESIDE</b></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The octopus tentacles
of tree roots</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
lie flat upon the
leaf-strewn soil,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
exuding tiny ink-spots of an
ant-army:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
crawling, scurrying,
cargo-bearing</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
before disappearing inside</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
their cool, black holes </div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of
subterranean palaces.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Watching them reminds me
that</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a tree just does not exist
for itself:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
actually, it cannot.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
That would be far too self
indulgent, a selfish act.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It is a country, after all,
where numerous citizens reside</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and which they call home.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-17739616340974256732016-04-15T07:40:00.001+04:002016-04-15T07:46:27.513+04:00Friday Poetry: The Birds Whose Music Invisibly Perfumes The Spring Air<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6_7LMM2x8Eo/VxBiCedjDiI/AAAAAAAAC4E/jGM9TEEMp58M0tVNgf8QZKdpqAk9rK4JgCLcB/s1600/IMG_0234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6_7LMM2x8Eo/VxBiCedjDiI/AAAAAAAAC4E/jGM9TEEMp58M0tVNgf8QZKdpqAk9rK4JgCLcB/s400/IMG_0234.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>THE BIRDS WHOSE MUSIC </b></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>INVISIBLY PERFUMES THE SPRING AIR </b>
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
I discover today that the birds
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
whose concerts richly, invisibly perfume</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the
still, warm spring morning air</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
are called Indian treepies.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
They flit from the kachnar tree</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
to the neighboring gulmohar,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
a kinetic, musical long-tailed blur of
tan, white, and brown</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
from a muddy green universe</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
to a bright green one.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The jade-sheened glossy black humming
bird no longer sups</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
from the kachnar orchids,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
which became pod earrings when no one
was looking -</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
and the crows have found elsewhere to
feast upon</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
now that the flamboyant, plump
blood-red
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
monstrously beautiful silk cotton
flowers are fat green pods</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
of future flowers, leaves, roots, and
branches.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Only the sparrow traverses</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the invisible trapeze-rope in the air,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
metal grill to metal grill,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
its clay water bowl empty and parched</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
like a summer desert.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-7966712311625211772016-04-07T12:36:00.000+04:002016-04-07T12:43:15.098+04:00Friday Poetry: The Season's First Mogras<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b> </b></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IPtAfCKrve8/VwYZ8XYxsmI/AAAAAAAAC3c/6bN87Spr2FMO_L7weTY3rbXaegUW8lLqw/s1600/IMG_0564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IPtAfCKrve8/VwYZ8XYxsmI/AAAAAAAAC3c/6bN87Spr2FMO_L7weTY3rbXaegUW8lLqw/s400/IMG_0564.JPG" width="400" /></a></b></div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>THE SEASON'S FIRST
MOGRAS</b></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The season's first mogras
cost twenty rupees:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the boy takes them out of
their plastic home,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
pouring them into the bowl
of my palm.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the new moon light, they
are phosphorescent,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the half-open buds gradually
emerging,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
like teeth in a baby's shy
smile.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
They slumber overnight,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
luxuriously curled up</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
in a bowl full of written water.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
When I wake up,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
they have already made
themselves home.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I journal about the poetry of their fragrance,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
which seeps into my words,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the texture of my thoughts. </div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The next morning,
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
they are already gone,<br />
their fragrance a distant, bittersweet memory:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
crumpled tea-brown white petals</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
fall apart in my palms,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
like a ransacked city,</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
the ghost of what it once
was. </div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
**<i> I have started writing poetry again after a very long time - and so, every Friday, I will be featuring a poem of mine accompanied by a photograph. Sometimes, the photograph will inspire the birth of a poem or vice versa. Let us see where this journey of poetry will take me. I will look forward to your thoughts about these tentative re-explorations of mine into the world of poetry</i>!**</div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1785634276813975510.post-22520516324329104052016-04-01T15:33:00.007+04:002016-04-01T15:45:10.527+04:00Jacaranda Journeys<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2IFWjnuYeg8/Vv4iOA5x4rI/AAAAAAAAC2k/NOkscJe2xagCzvZ3uS6b6d9YO8az7tQhQ/s1600/IMG_0240.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2IFWjnuYeg8/Vv4iOA5x4rI/AAAAAAAAC2k/NOkscJe2xagCzvZ3uS6b6d9YO8az7tQhQ/s400/IMG_0240.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Entwined </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
First of all, isn't jacaranda such a beautiful sounding name for an undoubtedly beautiful flowering tree? Actually, I have to be a little bit honest: I don't find the individual mauve jacaranda flower as lovely as glimpsing them collectively blooming upon the trees, the bloom-laden branches silhouetted against the clear sky or scattered en masse upon the grass below. <br />
<br />
We are fortunate to live in a neighborhood dotted with lots of gardens, consisting of both large, sprawling and cosy, miniature ones; I discovered one such latter garden during a spontaneous afternoon stroll on a moody, cloudy, cool Delhi day. I had seen the jacaranda blooming there from the distance but I didn't realise it was more than one tree that was blooming; it was only when I explored the garden that day that I observed it was a triad of trees in various stages of bloom, one already having considerably leafed. Being the only jacaranda trees in my immediate vicinity, I was thoroughly enchanted to be caught in a quiet drizzle of jacaranda flowers as they joined the sea of flowers splashing the emerald green grass below.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mczHlmN-kYs/Vv4o8MvdU2I/AAAAAAAAC3I/o367XfwAVwYjUJyTVJT0VLynKzAV3zWgQ/s1600/FullSizeRender%25289%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mczHlmN-kYs/Vv4o8MvdU2I/AAAAAAAAC3I/o367XfwAVwYjUJyTVJT0VLynKzAV3zWgQ/s400/FullSizeRender%25289%2529.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sea of Purple and Green</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Ever since I have discovered that garden, it has become one of my little pleasures to stop by there during my morning walks and sit beneath these trees; it's invariably deserted when I arrive so I have the satisfaction of having the garden to myself, rendering it in my eyes a secret garden. Even if it's just for five minutes, I quietly sit on a flower-speckled stone bench below the jacaranda trees, glimpsing the flowers fluttering here and there in the air before gently coming to rest upon the ground. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6nLx5-dcnd0/Vv4imJZ4E7I/AAAAAAAAC2s/dvQJjRHhEy8LvqqTaJV5eHmlg7wVks4Cw/s1600/IMG_0243.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6nLx5-dcnd0/Vv4imJZ4E7I/AAAAAAAAC2s/dvQJjRHhEy8LvqqTaJV5eHmlg7wVks4Cw/s400/IMG_0243.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Radiating</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
I have lately been taking great pleasure in making <a href="http://iamjustavisualperson.blogspot.in/2016/03/creativity-consumed.html" target="_blank">flower-dot paintings</a> and so while I was sitting below the tree one morning, I scooped up a few jacaranda flowers, deciding to abstract something out of them too. I had called it the 'Journey of the Jacaranda Flowers' on Instagram, the flowers migrating from the tree to my palm to my sketchbook. There is something so calming and indeed, meditative arranging these flowers upon the stark white desert of my sketchbook, making it bloom before inserting the bindis of dots (perhaps, you could say that I am inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharti_Kher" target="_blank">Bharti Kher's bindi explorations</a> to a certain extent). Once I have painted, photographed, and Instagrammed the painting, I leave it upon my desk and when I return the following day, I find that the flowers have become dessicated yet certainly not diminished in any which way beauties. And so completes the circle of spring.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Priyanka Sachetihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16441771925898001386noreply@blogger.com0