Things I do

For Suttonese People -

Hers and His birthday cards.

Nostalgia

Photo of rare white-haired Suttonese mushroom hunter.

Circa 2014 A.D.

Hand painted pebble by native Suttonese artist 

gifted to Indian explorer.

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 nos·tal·gia noun nostalgia plural noun nostalgias
A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
Something done or presented in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia.

The Werewolf

'It is a cold northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts. A child decides to visit her sick grandmother deep in the forest. She takes her father's hunting knife with her...'

Twenty years ago around this time, I traveled to Australia to study illustration. There I unlearned and relearned everything I ever knew about drawing, literature, language and illustration. Apart from expressing myself in words, I learned to voice my opinions visually. This was akin to learning a new language except that instead of putting down words on paper, I drew images. But then I learned how to draw these images in a way where they would say what I wanted them to say.I remember I drew far more than I had ever done until then and I remember trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t with my drawings. 

The image above was for a story by Angela Carter called The Werewolf which I did as part of my final project work at Queensland College of Art. It is based on the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, but with a chilling twist - The wolf who attacks the girl on her way to her grandmother, turns out to be the alter ego of this grandmother-werewolf. The image denatures Little Red Riding Hood accordingly: the figure of the girl and the hood is traditional. The character of the girl and the setting are Carter.

The reason I put the picture above up on my blog was the similarity of the environment within it to the cold winter forests in Sutton (below) where I was taken for a walk. I am surprised that the environment that I created in my image twenty years ago ended up manifesting itself in real life later, even if only for one seemingly endless blink of an eye.

An Elephant in Sutton

As regular blog readers know by now, the biggest highlight of my stay in Canada was meeting and befriending The Mushroom Hunter and his girlfriend, my very first Quebecoise friend, The Green Tea Drinker. Their lifestyle was unusual and beautiful and I felt blessed to be invited and shown a glimpse of that in real life. Now when I am on the other side of the world, I continue to be charmed by them in their letters and pictures to me and none more so than the last letter showing the creation of a work of art they made for me their Indian visitor. I publish an extract of the letter and photographs with their kind permission here -

Hi Priya,

Here is my long overdue email.

As I had expected, this year is a truly exceptional one for chanterelles. I have already made a provision of frozen bags for the winter, and the chanterelle season still goes on for another month! I am in paradise!

This is a picture of the first bolet of the summer… right in front of my house!

At the end of a usual hunting day in July (these are all chanterelles, also known as giroles) :

After I’ve picked them, I clean them, I slice them…

And then I cook them . the mushroom in the oven are bolets that have been dried in a dehydrator : the last step before putting dried mushrooms in a jar is to shove them in the oven at low temperature for 5 minutes, in order to remove all remaining moisture.

Finally, here is a very nice specimen of a “russule charbonnière”, which we have eaten in an omelette the very next day

Last week, I also picked some delicious black raspberry with my hat

As for “something Indian in the garden”, there where complications. As you will discovered momentarily, this was supposed to be a “living sculpture”. We’ve been growing beans and vine on it for two months now, but… We had several incidents. First, the beans we planted were too old and did not grow. The new ones were growing well, so much so that our groundhog in residence, Lady Gaga, took notice and took a bite… and another… and another. So we took action and put a protective net all around the structure to make it Lady Gaga’s proof. After that, everything seemed to be coming along nicely… until the dreadful Night of the Deer… The beast, coming from nowhere, devoured almost completely all the plants on one side of the structure. So, again, we installed more protective nets in the hope to save whatever remained. And then came the beetles. These little scoundrels ate and are still eating our vine…  So, in a nutshell, the structure which was supposed to be entirely covered with living stuff by now, has been stripped down time and time again, leaving the following result, which I now present to you without further ado-

Can you guess what it is?  No?

OK, here’s a clue : it’s an animal.

Nope?

OK, this animal lives in your country.

Still no idea?

OK, OK, how about this : one of your deities has its face?

Do you see it now?

By god sake, Priya, it’s a bloody elephant! Do you notice the familiar (and huge) silhouette? OK, now, do you see, right in the middle,  the big ear… and next to it, the tusk and the trunk? No? OK then, can we at least agree that it is vaguely reminiscent of an elephant? Yes? Good! Good! That’s what I was going for anyway… The vague is so in vogue nowadays, don’t you think?

Anyway, two things make this sculpture YOUR elephant :

~ the spirals all over its body, in reference to your beautiful post on the concept ofspirals;

~ your walking stick – the one you chose when we went hiking together – which is now part of the sculpture, but also removable, in case anyone needs it for a walking expedition. 

So in a sense, you are still here with us

Becoming Canadian

Experiences of an immigrant to Canada

Coffee and Mushrooms

If I were asked about my happiest moments in Canada so far, I would say that it was outside of Montreal in a charming little village called Sutton. My visits there contained all of my favourite things – coffee, chocolate, mushrooms, forests, autumn leaves, cats, superb food...and my lovely angel-faced Quebecois hosts who always made sure my stay was memorable. The picture above is an illustration inspired by those wonderful moments and below are a glimpse of some of them.

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Present- that part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
~ Ambrose Bierce

Wild Turkey

On my way to Sutton, I saw a flock of birds crossing the road. When I mentioned to my hosts that I saw what I thought were pheasants, they were very impressed. "Those are Wild Turkeys!" they said. I was told that it was a rare sighting and one that visitors like me were privileged to see. Later as we drove around Sutton through winter landscapes, we spied a flock of Wild Turkeys again. This time I managed to get out of the car and actually photograph them with my trusty point and shoot.
After I shot the turkeys with my camera, we shot one of them with a gun and then we took it home and made a meal of it.

I must say that country life is very exciting. First visit I got to hunt and eat wild mushrooms. Second visit, it is Wild Turkey on the table!



Okay,we didn't kill a Wild Turkey. The last picture is a marinated, very delicious turkey served to me from my first ever Thanksgiving meal here in Montreal :-)

The Mushroom Hunter

The thoughtful amongst you might think that this serene picture is one of a poet out for a walk in the woods in search of inspiration, at one with nature, in touch with his inner soul. But think again discerning readers, look again! This picture has a far more chilling undercurrent to it than what seems apparent on its warm, dappled surface; clutch your hearts and hold your breath, this here is a picture of a hunter, the most lethal of them all – A Mushroom Hunter.
Before I detect the slightest smirk on your faces allow me make my point. Hunters of wild beasts saunter around the jungle with large guns and upon sighting prey in the distance, merely lift their guns and pull a trigger, BANG, the prey staggers and dies, the hunter walks up to the bloody carcass, takes a selfie with her foot on the body, drags it over to the jeep and drives away. Yawn. Anybody can do that. It is The Mushroom Hunter who is far more dangerous. One moment he is merrily driving along peaceful country roads chatting about graphic novels and ground coffee and the next moment he screeches the car to a halt much to the surprise and consternation of his passengers, “Good heavens! Is something wrong? Why did he stop?” And that is the instant when you see a Mushroom Hunter in action. He darts across the road to an empty field, unsheaths his sharp, special mushroom dagger, swoops down with a yowl of delight on helpless, quivering little shaggymane mushrooms huddled together, swiftly chops off their heads and places them in his trophy basket. If that isn't chilling enough there’s more mind you! A mere walk in autumn woods is fraught with action. You might have had a meditative stroll in mind, that moment of getting in touch with your Shakti that your Guru so recommended, that you were so eager to experience, you are admiring the colors of the trillion, zillion autumn leaves on the forest floor, you are just about to attain nirvana through peace and happiness when the Mushroom Hunter screeches to a halt before you and plunges his dagger into gazillion leaves on the ground and comes up with a teeny weeny quivering mushroom which he is ecstatic about and which he holds aloft before your bewildered eyes. “See? See!” And then as you sit trembling in recovery at the dining table, these mushrooms are fried in butter and brought before you to be eaten. No blood and gore of animal killers mind you, just swift, lethal, ruthless decapitation and dinner. Takes nerve to be the guest of A Mushroom Hunter I tell you. Phew!

And yes, well, here is the photograph of one of them.

Country

A weekend with friends in Sutton
A constant downpour of nature
An endless overflow of all of life’s good things
How does one process so much beauty?
How can one truly give thanks for this much blessing?
I am not yet ready to know how to make my palette
retell this abundance of new colors and emotions.



A beautiful blog >