Writing n painting: A rough draft

Do two different arts relate to each other? Sure they do. Why, there are any number of literary texts that deal directly with paintings, while there are many more portraits of authors. Why, the inviting cover page itself can be a painting!  While it is easier to explore the relationship between  music and literature, the bond between painting and literature could be explored a little more, may be! 

Let us begin with the most banal observation. Both painting and writing need paper! Of course, these days both have promoted themselves to the newer canvas called the computer/mobile screen, not to mention the ready-made mode imposed on both by the  new fangled AI schema, right? 

Yet NOTHING like the paper itself, inviting you to de-sign a new universe out of a plain canvas, whether it be writing or painting, right? Next, both require the background to add a unique texture. While writing quotes it with words, painting coats it with mostly the base white or black. 

Both begin with a rough sketch. Yet often the strokes, the patterns, the images, the symbols that thus emerge create their own story, and most colourfully. 

Often they say that a few lines of a painting can present what hundreds of lines and thousands of words may not. Let me disagree completely. Let me give you an example to prove my point. Look at that famous painting "Mona Lisa." 

Many say that despite its world wide fame, an actual look at it in the Louvre is almost disappointing, especially because the small little frame is almost dwarfed by the grandeur of the other masterpieces.

Let an author describe it though, even without having seen it in person in that Parisian museum. Indeed, the painting would not only come alive. Many more meanings, may be, not even intended by the artist, would make even Mona Lisa smile, and openly! In brief, long live writing as it enriches existence itself!

Pratima@ Writing is not merely creative. It, moreover, is analytical by nature. No wonder, unlike other arts, it can critique all these arts, and itself. A mode of be(com)ing, in short!

Quote of the day:                                                      Has to be by who else but Shakespeare! The quote is rather well-known but most apt in this context. Asserts the author of authors,             "The poet's eye,/in a fine frenzy rolling,/   doth glance from heaven to Earth,/from Earth to heaven;/and as imagination bodies forth/ the forms of things unknown,/ the poet's pen turns them to shape,/ and gives to airy nothing/ a local habitation and a name." 

Word of the day: spontaneous                              Spontaneous means performed or occurring as a result of a sudden impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus.                       That is what writing alone can be! Let there be an author, and miracles happen, and out of nowhere!

 

The War

 The Middle East is on fire yet again, as it has been since the October 7 Hamas attack. All sorts of causes beginning with the Wahabi history to the ancient Crusades between Christians and Muslims have been quoted. 

Is it the case that the war is between the Sunni's and the Shia's who appear to be supporting the terrorists? Very many are the (conspiracy) theories ranging from crude oil to cruder Epstein files, and all are equally true, not to forget the much oppressed Iranians' fate!

It is quite obvious, however, that the weapons industry, what with weapons like cluster bombs being used as if it were a festival or a party, must be laughing its way to bank accounts overflowing with the mollah, right?

At times, I do feel that even at the (inter)national level, it is just better to plain ignore the silly screaming of rabid fools replete with nuisance value. Honestly, it saves you a lot of headache, and the foolish creeps completely expose themselves, anyway!

This morning, for example, in our lane, bang beyond our fence, some crazy hoodlums were screaming their brainless nonsense for hours on end. No use asking them to keep quiet because such weirdos are absolutely aware of their "democratic" rights, however much may they constantly trample others' peace because of their brainless chatter!

Most probably, those stooges were paid to thus yak away. So they absolutely appeared. No knowing if they belonged to the "peaceful" community as, every Friday, at the recently built dargah/mosque tops two hundred feet behind my home, there is a huge rush of the faithful who terribly inconvenience by parking their vehicles right opposite the gate! 

If I were to get in to the Israel mode and question those creeps, how to prove that they were paid to thus bother? One needs huge contacts in the upper echelons of the police and/or administration to get sick sadists behind bars, where they belong beyond doubt!

If one does not reap such benefits, what does a law abiding citizen leading a good clean life do? Follow, I suppose, the advice by Winston Churchil; namely, ''Never wrestle with a pig. You get mired in the gutter, dirty and slushy. The pig anyways loves it"!

Wish Israel and America were equally prudent n wise! The world would have been spared a huge n brutal spectacle because the crooks are like the tail of a piglet. Try anything, it would never straighten. Crooked never change, rather like the spots on the skin of a swine. Creeps they were, cheap they will continue to be!

Pratima@ Hoodlums, local or (inter)national, need to be taught a lesson, but without getting down to the level of their viciousness. Otherwise, who is afraid of downright ignoble ignoramus?

Quote of the day:                                                       "If you do not learn lessons at the right time, life will teach you the same lessons at the wrong time, and in the worst way." 

Word of the day: offender                                       An offender, most often such criminals are repeat offenders, is a person who causes problems, does something surely wrong, commits an illegal act.

If the bottle be new, why the old wine?

 Yesterday, on a group was shared a video about robots. You bet, tough it was to believe that they were robots. They were absolutely life like. Their skin looked soft as a petal. Their faces were fabulous and youthful. Their waists slim n trim, in great shape were their bodies. 

They could perform very many activities, too. They exchanged pleasantries, they hugged n kissed, they spoke faultless English, they exercised! Nattily dressed they were. The tag line was, "within five years, one of these could out-perform you as your companion." 

So far so good! Then why such a title to/for our blog? Well, their surface look was feminine, and they were treated as female! They were effective, undoubtedly. They were not presented as efficient though! 

Made by men, male fantasies they were essentially. All of them were sexy. They were dressed provocatively. To open them up, to check some robotic functions, all the switches were near their breasts or below the belt!

In other words, be it the rock/stone (st)age or the robotic age, women are eye candy. Who cares about their intelligence, their minds or their souls? In the most vulgar way, stupidly they are assigned one and only one function in the male imaging. And such beasts are called men!

Pratima@Men, who have vulgar thoughts/words about women, and reflect these in their eyes and 'activities', should never forget that they were born of a woman, and are so-called fathers to daughters! Their deeds would sure sooner be reciprocated on to their daughters, and hundred-fold! That is the law of nature!

Quote of the day:                                                        "Lust is satanic " Anonymous but universal!

Word of the day: gender                                         Gender refers to identities with reference to social and cultural considerations rather than biological ones.

Wild Life

 To most, especially if they belong to the currently potent Gen Z, or the counter-culture gang of the sixties, wild life might mean the "vida loca", the "high" life in every sense of the term, right? 

To me, too, wild life has a huge appeal. For me, however, it refers to the ferocious forests where the footprints belong to  majestic lions, terror-fic tigers,  intelligent elephants, elusive snow leopards, bears of all types, sprinting deer and zippy hares n rabbits running races with the wind on ancient trails known only to gnarled trees and twisting creepers. 

Yes, forests of all types, however much mankind might manage to destroy them, flourish and in all their truly wild beauty. Wild life, too, survives there, living proof of the adaptability beyond all possible Darwin's. Hence the importance of the World Wild Life Day. 

Want proof? Yes, the jungle safaris! The lions' mesmerizing yet amused look captures the camera, rather than the other way round! Or the tigers with their famous "fearful symmetry"! Trapped they might feel by the gypsies on both sides, overloaded with the descendants of monkeys chattering, shrieking, and what not. Yet they quietly twist their way out.

My brother, Sanju, sent his son, nine year old Kunal, for a children's camp in a tiger reserve. Kunal came back with fabulous photos. How? "Oh, they are coolly moving about," was the kid's response!

Thus, in brief, big cats to smallest animals have learnt to adapt. Even when human beings have encroached their habitat, patiently and yet proudly they continue to lead their natural ways. 

Beastly indeed we are. Poaching, international trade in animal parts, constant encroachment in to and destruction of deep forests, felling of trees in the name of development, wild life tourism, scarce funds, many are causes affecting the wild life.

Undoubtedly heart warming are the efforts at conservation, too. Though I do not exactly appreciate throwing food at them as if they were strays in a dirty lane, the Kevinson's of the animal world-mankind interface prove how responsive they are, and responsibly!

Luckily, circuses cannot ill-treat them any longer. Imaginative movies like "The Lion King" romanticise them almost in an anthropomorphic way.  "Vantara" type of rescue and rehabilitation centers proliferate, despite the controversies. In other words, the wild jungles called metros and cities have  taught human being to respect forests, wild life and the tribes co-habiting with them!

Pratima@Yes, wild life in all its forms is visually appealing. I find the sounds and silences of the wild life fascinating, too. The rustle of the leaves, the babble of the brooks, the swish n whoosh of the wind, the very many calls of animals "talking" to each other, and the unique profound silence, the soundscape is simply fabulous. Long live wild life, however many species might have been rendered extinct unfortunately. 

Quote of the day:                                                         "Wild animals never kill for sport, " says J.A.Froude. Unlike so-called human beings!

Word of the day: savage                                            Savage refers to an animal (or force of nature) fierce, violent, ferocious and uncontrolled. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an interesting take on the "savage" though. More about it some other time. 

Respecting Authors!

 These days, does anybody write? Why, most people prefer to orally send even their WhatsApp messages. Typing a message is considered either bothersome or boring! No, it is not merely due to the human tendency to laze around. 

Why, every recent most technology, be it the simple WhatsApp or the latest ChatGPT version or some such recent most, and never nascent, AI avataar, it assures you that you have to speak the message, and it would get converted in to the written form, if you so wish at all! 

Dictators hence most people are! Do remember that such habits enter the human psyche, and start twisting it accordingly.  When you speak, for instance, you hardly think. Rather you shoot ( n scoot!)

 When you write, irresponsible you are not allowed to be. You tend to think through. Automatically you get to to correct yourself. Such a self-check, both literally and metaphorically, is absent when you choose to speak! 

If this is the condition of the daily, banal exchanges which, moreover, are invaded by that modern hieroglyphic called the emojis, imagine the condition of any serious writing.

 As it is, most readers (a quite rare tribe, given the yen for browsing!) anyways read the DIY, the "useful" kind of books. Given the information explosion, coupled with the summarising, re-presenting, editing technologies, forget students, even most lecturers refuse to touch serious tomes reference material with a barge pole! .

In such a scenario, how about literature? Well, given the curtailed attention span,  everyone explores not even short stories, well, even editors glorify, "flash fiction"! May be, payment might be the consideration, too, given the tough times most publication houses face! These two/three hundred words, moreover, might be machine made!

If such such are the times, great need there is to respect authors who are still ready to spend their time, intellectual energy and innate creativity to craft a book, be it literary or be it on a knowledge-able(d) reference material types. Hence the relevance of March 3, the international writers day instituted by the international P.E.N. Association! The 3/3 is indeed auspicious!

Pratima@Authors, whether they attempt discursive, journalistic or creative writing, are using both intellectual and imaginative resources to creatively craft an alternative world through words. Thus authors open up the existing world, too. Hence are inequalities, inequities, injustices lesson-ed n lessen-ed! Long live authors! The writerly space is indeed sacrosanct!

Quote of the day:                                                         Says Susan Sontang, "A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world." 

Expression of the day: attention deficit                  Attention deficit refers to inattention and not being able to keep focus which may result in impulsive hyper activity, especially among children.

Holi

  In English, there is this expression, "Holy of the holies." In the Indian context, too, Holi is indeed the holiest! And for a number of reasons! Shall we analyse a few? 

Let us begin with the mythological. As per the Bhakt Prahlad myth, Holika is weaponised by the daitya/demon king, Hiranyakashyapu, to get rid of his son, Prahlad, who loves, worships, idolises Vishnu. The spiritual meaning of the festival hence would be Holi as the ego which can burn off a devotee who is pushed in to that fire due to evil tendencies such as anger, desire, greed, hate, gloom, et al. 

Yet another way to look at Holi would be agrarian. Most all festivals are literally rooted in the fields and the soil, as our economy has essentially been agrarian. Seasonally, around this time, the kharip and rabbi rotations would be over. Before the next cycle begins, the fields must lie fallow. 

If the land were to be thus roasted a little before the fiery summer season begins, may be, the yield in the next crop cycle would be better. Hence this festival which, moreover, as the offerings to the holy fire involved would prove, taught gratitude to nature 

Yet another reason could be that the season would be shifting around this time. Heat would start chasing cold. Hence the splashing of water and colours, right?

 Earlier, moreover, the sexes could not mingle openly in the public space. Hence the need for letting go of all the bottled up passions, desires, fancies, tensions through the splashing of colours and letting loose of all inhibitions on this occasion of dhooli vandan/rang panchami, the sister festival of holika dahan.

In brief, the festival suggests burning up, finishing, letting go of all that is negative so that joy, happiness, creativity would yet again bloom!

Pratima@For me, my brothers and her maternal family, the festival has a very personal feel. Aai was born on the Holi day. Like the holy Holi fire, she, too, was good at burning up all sorts of negativities. She hardly held grudges, for instance, however much she was  provoked. Nor was she, a happy-go-lucky person,  forever gloomy. 

Quote of the day:                                                         Says the Indian Express, "May God gift you all the colours of life, colours of joy, colours of happiness, colours of friendship, colours of love, and all the other colours you want to paint your life with." 

Word of the day: gloom                                            Gloom means a physical state of darkness, dimness, or obscurity, but often it refers to the psychological feeling of deep sadness, melancholy, or depression, often accompanied by a lack of hope, creating a somber mood or atmosphere,  winter feel before the summer sets in.

What a day!

 Actually, I had thought of writing a blog on the possibility of  the world being in the throes of the third world war, what with almost the whole of the Middle East 'weaponizing' (literally!) against each other, that, too, in the Holy Month. 

Well, not only has Baba Venga predicted it, but M/S Trump seems hell-bent on actualising it, and in the partnership of  Netanyahu and Associates. Afganistan, moreover, is teaching the next door neighbour some real tough lessons, too. 

What a world we are living in! This feel becomes real strong when we remember the day today. Yes, today is the "Zero Discrimination Day"! A noble idea indeed! True, inclusion is ideal. Yes, prejudice of any sort is far more horrible than even pride. 

Yet something seems to be corroding this idea, gnawing at its roots. While breaking down barriers, while building a society that must enjoy the different, why is the so-called normal (heavy duty word actually, given the 'norm' involved in it!) being badly tarnished? 

To make your line longer, you do not have to cut or wipe out someone else's line, just because the person happens to be, oh, yes, 'different' from you, your socio-economic background, your political opinions! That precisely, however, is happening right now in the public sphere as well as in private spaces today.

Okay, a few examples to prove the point! A senior government officer in Madhya Pradesh openly states that Brahmin girls be 'available'. What a statement to make against women, whatever be their caste! It was later clarified that he apparently wants Brahmin brides. How about the "inclusion" of  the girls' choice? Such diversity must matter, too! 

Every alternate day, there is a threat to finish off Brahmins, to send them to Eurasia, and the so-called 'intellectuals', who beat themselves blue in the name of all possible inclusions, never dare to utter a single word against such gross injustice!

In the private space, too, being "bindaas" is much celebrated. It is the done thing to be as badass as is possible. That is okay, too. But just as you have the choice/right to laze around doing nothing for decades, to be drowned deep in debt while maintaining a hip lifestyle, to wear revealing clothes, to drink, to smoke cigarettes or weed, to sleep around, the society has to be "inclusive" enough to honour those who want to be "different" from such set patterns. Your wokist 'norm'al cannot decide/define others', just because they refuse  to abide by your so-called 'modern' lifestyle!  The moment we call out such hypocritical chicanery, the day would truly honour inclusion and difference!

Pratima@ Such an ideological war hidden behind gooey words and slippery stances, however convenient, is the real threat to all sorts of inclusion and diversity!

 Quote of the day:                                                      "Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not," asserts Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Word of the day: complacency                               Complacency means a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself.