Willfully

Here's something my awesome friendandhousemate Kanika Kaul does on her gorgeous blog, http://stone-paper-scissor.blogspot.in/ to keep her followers inspired and believing in the creative gene that lies rusting in all of us. We were better off as cavemen, with the spontaneity to paint on walls when we felt the urge. Now we'd get spontaneously arrested for the same deal.

Bu-ut. Here's what spontaneously came to me when I saw the picture she posted for Joyous June, a blogathon where followers respond to an image that she posts for (and wow) every day of the month. The image for the day is..

My Post : 

You can lead the child to venom

But you can't make her drink.

You can bind her hair in tight braids

But you can't make her think

That braids are any better

Than the loose tangles that kiss her brow

And the surf mumbles to her toes,

The child knows

That even if her paint box has

Broken crayons,

She can sprinkle them on her desk

And transform them to stars,

That hand-me-downs will be vintage one day

Even if a little charred,

That there will always be colours in candy

More fun to swallow than your pill

The child is not yours to call

yours or to call ill,

That her anchors are suspended by

The yarn hair of dolls that stretches from

This planet to that,

That the things you see with open eyes

Aren't entitled to be facts.

You can draw a pail to drown her

Everyday in bone-chilling shame,

But she refuses to blink,

She'll force the taste of lemon pops

After every shock of zinc,

You can lead the child to water,

She refuses to sink...

Except, willfully, in 4000 years of ink. 

Thanks for the opportunity Kan. All the best, Joyous Junebugs!

The Anytime Sandwich

It's past 2:30 and I'm hungry and I'm lucky that our PG fridge is well stocked.
So I will whip up (more like clumsily assemble) myself a sandwich.

Here's a list of my top 5 anytime sandwiches:


Egg salad (usually over-salted, with ketchup and chunks of cold butter. Eggs slices-cold and hard boiled)


Cucumber and cheese spread. ( Black pepper is the trick.Also, I don't get why some people grill their cucumber sandwiches. It loses the crunch and gets soggy. And anything with such high water content when grilled like that will stay hot for long and keep you waiting/burn the tongue.)


Haldiram's Sev Bhujia. (I mostly over-ketchup it. Always better with cheese. Like most things.)


PBJ (chunky, grape/strawberry/mixed fruit, with milk)


Tomato Onion and Cheese (My mum's usual midnight snack, I dunno why she abstains from onion and cheese?)

And if you go to Baroda, the Grilled Chicken and Cheese at Goodies' Cafeteria in Fatehgunj is what you should try out because it's made by Gods, is shaped in semicircles, NEVER seems microwaved and oozes with generous awesomeness. There're vegetarian alternatives and it comes with chips. I crave it quite often.

I also remember an amazing open face mushroom sandwich I ate quite long ago at The Tea Centre, Mumbai. It's such a wonderful place to sit in even if one isn't a tea drinker. Lots of great information on the walls.

Now, my top 10 reasons to eat a sandwich:

1. They cover most food groups.
2. They're messy and fun and require no cutlery (If I had it my way, no plates either)
3. There's very little or no cooking involved so almost anyone can make one.
4. There's so much room to experiment. And so many condiments to combine.
5. They can be stacked or stuffed as high as one wants. It's great exercise for the jaw.
6. They're a good way to make someone eat their crusts because they tend to ooze.
   
   (making sandwich)
7. Some like it hot, some like it cold. There're ways to make them taste amazing either way.
8. They're  a very easy way to disguise ingredients like leftover veggies, healthy greens, split chillies.
9. They're the right size for a snack box, specially the snug, flat, squarish tupperware.
10. Sandwiches can be split with friends. And in any number with no consequential loss of ingredients in any given part.

And late night hunger is reason enough and there're things waiting in cupboards and refrigerators to be consumed before sunrise. I decided to make a Bhujia sandwich. I had just what I needed!

With the exception of cheese spread. 

But it was delightful! Here's what we need:

Haldiram's Sev Bhujia. Haldiram's. Nothing else. 

Amul Butter (the butter was so soft right now, I could use it for icing! However, cold chunks are serendipitous fun)

Bread of choice.

Ketchup. Loads.

Sliced Onion  (optional, recommended)

Take two slices, butter one, spread cheese on the other. Mound first the onions, then the bhujia. Squirt ketchup. Slice into triangles and munch. Ta-da!

This sandwich has a joyful crunchiness to it and is very filling. It was something my mum would make for my brother very often for breakfast and like most tastes that I acquire as a hand-me-down, I developed one for these, I didn't think I had room for one and I just had two. 

Now that I'm fed.

I think I'll go to bed.

BUT...only after I watch this Dexter's Lab short: 

Always cracks me up.

save your breath

Ok, here's something very cool in the blogging world that Kanika, a very close friend and housemate (I could practically hi-five her without moving from my desk) is doing on http://stone-paper-scissor.blogspot.in/ this February. It's called the Fantabulous February with one inspirational post a day.
Click the link and behold. Here's the Wednesday,15th of Feb post,

And here's what I have to say about this picture..

It made me think of all the times I fought for the last row of seats in the school bus, which was always a privilege for the seniors, and how all of a sudden there were no seniors left to fight with because everyone leaves school someday, and whether you can or not becomes obsolete. And Route No. 4 and 5 become strips of yellow that you visit every year when you go back to school with a visitor's pass and wear something carefully chosen because you've lost the right to wear that uniform of the best twelve years. And also because your school shirt reads things you can't make public written with markers on the last day of XIIth. The faces in the buses look older of course, and trying very hard to be. And there are faces of seniors from so long ago that the kid on the last row wouldn't even know that his isn't the only face peering out the window in all of the history of Route 4 and 5. But you remember those faces of long ago, even the worst of the bullies. And you forget that some of these kids who don't know how lucky they are to not shave/wax/thread yet, know you as a forgotten face. Before long, only the window will stand witness to your having conquered the last row....but such are school legacies.

And this picture reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you know when Jim Carrey comes from that place and meets you know who. Do watch it if you weren't nodding along!



And now, for something I'd been thinking of. A periodic ponder.

Do you find it easy to believe? How often do you find a thing worth pouring your faith in. Something strange and complex that falls in that murky half-understood world between like, love and fear.

Would you give a part of yourself to something above, below, outside, inside of you ? Something so large it makes it binocularly impossible for you to fathom, with presence you cannot deny. Is it so microscopic that you would let yourself wander in tireless search? Is it heavy, so heavy sitting on your shoulders and weighing down and all you can do is submit to it without once seeing its face? Or light and slippery, gliding with you from stone to stone, obliging you with its presence? Sight, if not the most deceptive and overwhelming, is the most useless sense when it comes to the comprehension of faith. It is mostly a more subtle bodily exchange with the very ordinary or the extraordinary that makes you humble. Like the touch of freshly washed floors. Or the sound of rustling lace.

God. BlunderGod. Underdog. Spirit. Jinx. Force. Cusswords. Crystals. Celestial bodies. The Animal world. Sacrifice. Plants and their byproducts. Food. Heroes. Family. Childhood. Morals. Alter egos. Guitars. Winning at arcades. Peace. Sleeping over troubles. What is it that you call your belief to tell me that it exists ? Would it matter if I name it differently?

In cinnamon sticks, in choking swirls of incense, in faint remembrance of something floral and green that is now a crowded building with uric odour, in the visceral smell of fear in prayers, in the oily vapours of potato chips that always sit in boxes of board games, in the heady whiff of thick candles, in the calming smell of the bath products of the people you miss. In smells, you lock a belief.

Noses have rich memories that need no comprehension and are impossible to ignore. Don't care to explain how, who in and why you believe, I could trace the arc of your eyelids as you allow yourself to inhale to see
what makes you strong and vulnerable at the same time. That is explanation enough. The effort you take in heaving your chest to infuse a moment of your life, will tell me what you follow.

For those who ask you why you believe..let them know it a matter too personal for them to question. It is no one's right to know.They may be the sort who are looking for something that they can believe in that wouldn't betray them.
Do not look for reasons, if you say them aloud, they might dissolve.
Do not explain that you are forced to believe in something that is greater than you to the degree that you can be enslaved. There is nothing that could enslave you but you.You make your day and nights. You run yourself in a way that is bio-chemically beautiful and unbelievable. And it is a miracle. But it is you you believe in least.

Let your nose guide you, not a finger you can't question, that points in a direction that defies the gravity that keeps you ground bound and makes walking with your favourite wig on impossible. Let your nose guide you and you'll find a belief. Hold your tongue, it may try to reason with what is illegal, infantile, illogical and immediate. No, don't reason with tongues when you find something to believe in.
Save your breath.

First attempt at animating with Aftereffects

The last course held in second year was Animation, wherein I learnt to animate using Adobe Aftereffects, a pretty cool and easy to use software. I spent a huge amount of time designing my characters and graphics, since I process hand-drawn images, but that was the fun part. Animating was stressful since I'm kinda slow. And whoa, the possibilities on this software are endless! Also, I have a bunch of geniuses for classmates, and i'm glad some of them continue to produce amazing animations.The soundtrack I picked was the first verse of Man of The Hour by Norah Jones.
Here's what went into My Cannibal Romance:

The Lady

The Man of The Hour or The One Who Eats Meat

cookie jars and skull candy

things suggestive of magic

tubs

kinives

food that didn't really make it to the animation

cooking pot with something green

octopie

Here's the final clip that I produced:

Or you can watch it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA1aQr-Kn0U

the tall tails of tomorrow - part 2

Once we spent a good amount of time at Devanahalli and spoke to people from the many backgrounds that make up its puzzling lanes, we got down to creating a way to document these conversations and observations.  The book The Tall Tails of Tomorrow looks at the possibility of animals in folklore and becoming a fictional element for young readers as the urban kid finds himself becoming more and more remote from a life with animal husbandry and interaction with animals. It plays with small excerpts from animals in folklore and their modern juxtaposition. Scroll down to check out some illustrations that went into the book that I used to record the stories I found in Devanahalli-

(or click here for the book- http://issuu.com/malvikatewari/docs/thetalltailsoftomorrow?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222)

this gecko didn't make it to the book but it's kinda fun
hoping it'll shoot out a tongue someday

Figuring out how to draw monkeys took me a while..
it was the upward turn of the nostril.
 Then I realized that's the thing about certain people
that makes them monkeylike.

this dude here didn't make it either

nor did he, but i could use more of the
exaggerated limbs

nope. wha-at..?

those hands spell mischief to me

the old wise monkey 

and the stealthy little one

Then there were cows,

ek guy

do guy

short-of-space-in-the-metro-guy

bored-take-its-time-to-cross-the-road-guy

the warning look wali guy

sabhya, bechaari bharatiya village belle guy

little brass bell guy

give-up-and-take-a-snack-guy

and funny camels

and a tortoise

and a fortune teller !

Click below to view the book:

                                                 Open publication - Free publishing - More animals

Or you can visit this link:

http://issuu.com/malvikatewari/docs/thetalltailsoftomorrow?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

(Note: The date on the last page is written incorrectly, it's supposed to be 3rd March 2011)

Thank you for reading. No animals were harmed in the making of this book. 

                                    Though a lot were shamelessly stared at and disgracefully drawn.