Over the Wall

Fierce Creature

She paralyses her prey with a mere glance.

And then she unleashes her knives...

Pink Snowflakes

 Tabubia trees in my part of town have a wild party every summer. All the roads are pretty much covered with pink snowflakes during this time. 
The picture of the spectacular tree above was taken from the car while on my way home and the giant pink candy floss in the picture below is mine, right inside my garden, greeting me with gentle confetti whenever I stand outside.

This is what I see when I look up.

And this, when I look down.

This is the huge pile of pink snowflakes ready to be cleaned up again and again, pretty much like how they shovel snow in that other city where I used to live.

One Glorious Spring Summer Morning

Since a meeting with new Banglurean blog friend and avid instagrammer Priyanka Sacheti Mehta was long overdue, I invited her for a walk at Lalbagh which she happily accepted. I remembered how gracious my Kochi and Kolkata hosts had been to me and tried to emulate them. I remembered that the first great Bangalore experience usually always consists of the walk in Lalbagh and the meal at MTR afterwards. If you haven't done this, you haven't seen namdu Bengluru.

Here is what we saw during a glorious Springsummer morning today. Isn't it utterly gorgeous? Every visit to Lalbagh always has new surprises in store.

This new creepsome element below right next to the rose garden gorden - Snow White's cottage no less! And with the requisite dwarves and Bambi flitting around as well! So much imagination I tell you!

 Then MTR. When people I meet with say things like, "Oooh, I've eaten and come off, I'm not hungry". And, "Let's share just one plate of Idli", I usually delete them from my list. I was satisfied to note that Priyanka enjoyed food with enthusiasm. We ate a 15 course meal at MTR. They kept bringing course after course and dessert after dessert. They kept saying things like, "Just try a leeetle bit to taste, now go on, try some more..." and then, "Wait, it's not over yet! Other things are coming!" How much more bozz, we've eaten so much already? "Arrey madam, still several more are lined up!"

So here are the pictures that I managed from that orgy. I've managed to photograph the start of the meal with the pooris and the colorful end - the famous candy colored MTR ice cream with the saccharine sweet cherry on top. The entire meal was pretty much the food equivalent of the glorious Silk Cotton tree that I've posted as the first picture.

This was one very satisfying day :)

Sigh...

Burp

Strange and Beautiful

Some time ago, a friend wrote a very thoughtful letter to me on what beauty means to him and why it was important to his existence. In the letter, along with his words were included pictures of things and surroundings from his everyday life that he finds beautiful. In order to reply to his letter, I have been compelled to confront and examine what beauty means to me and why it is so important to my existence. When I partake of my friend’s beautifully worded letter with its pictures, I try to think of my own sentiments towards this subject. I realize that when I am drawn towards beauty, it is because of what it makes me feel and that feeling is an instinctive attraction towards the object I find beautiful causing in me a desire to possess it as mine and look at from every facet and consume it with my eyes so that I don’t miss out on anything of this that I find so beautiful. I do that by drawing and other times I use my camera. It is an attempt to make something ephemeral last forever. 

I found this flower during a walk. The house was empty and some helpful boys jumped over the wall at my request to get it for me. It is a gorgeous flower and this is the first time I have seen anything like it. As I carried it home, I almost felt like a hunter taking home an exotic animal. This is not the best analogy to use perhaps but the sense of triumph and disbelief that washed over me when I possessed this beautiful flower was enormous. 

I might have inadvertently found the words to express my sentiments towards objects of beauty while writing this blog post, but to articulate why beauty is so important to me in my life seems to be as skilled a task as finding the right kind of line to express what I want to in a drawing. It will take some practice, but I’ll get there.

Aristolochia