The Girl at the Hospital

I kind of became obsessed with clicking pictures of this pretty young lady when I was waiting for my appointment at the hospital last to last week. She started posing for me once she realised I was slyly clicking her pictures. These are just 10% of the pictures I clicked. Once I was done she smiled at me, I smiled back and then she ran and buried her head in her pregnant mother's lap. 

(Bad picture quality, courtesy, HTC phone camera)

A chance encounter with Quimet Sabaté

                                                                                                                                                                              
My friend Sowmyatta and I had a lovely chance encounter with this great artist Quimet Sabaté in Barcelona. We saw a poster titled 'FREE Dali Exhibition' and obviously concluded that it is an exhibition of Salvador Dali's work, something that I was trying to see during my entire trip to Paris. There is infact a Dali Museum in Paris but it charges some 10 Euros for entry and considering the tight budget that I was on, I decided to give it a miss.

Anyhow, when we went up the spiral staircase, we were surprised to find that the exhibition was actually a homage to Dali by his friend and artist Quimet Sabate. We met the Mr Sabate and his twin brother, two pleasantly charming old men. Sabate sat by this little balcony and just got up to show us a collage where he was with Dali. He also asked us (in Spanish) how old were we since most of us work is nudist. We convinced him we were old enough to look at nude pictures. He showed us the picture of his other muse, Laura, with whom he had a relationship with for years. It was a really fun experience to go through his entire art space and discover interesting pieces. And he was kind enough to pose with us for a picture which now serves as a pleasant memory.  

"Half a love never appealed to me"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iALyrLFJjlE

Picture from tumblr.com

Recommendation of the Week

I have a lot of things to recommend this week but right now I will just share a moderate chunk of my excitement. This week’s recommendation is Richard Linklater’s satiric dark comedy ‘Bernie’ featuring Jack Black. And here’s why:

New Yorker recently called Jon Hamm the most watchable man on screen (Mad Men’s Don Draper- and you are definitely living in a parallel ugly universe if you don’t know who Jon Hamm is!). Despite of my enormous admiration for Mr Draper, for me, the most watchable man on screen is Jack Black. To say he is a rockstar would be a gross understatement and it might confuse you with his musical talents.

If ‘School of Rock’ was probably a quintessential Jack Black film, ‘Bernie’ has the JB you have not seen before. He is simply outstanding in the movie. Bernie is based on a real story of an apparently simple but in reality a highly complex man involved in a completely “out-of-character” incident. Till the end, JB’s character Bernie Tiede will keep you spellbound and confused as to what the truth is. Linklater takes you so close to the psyche of funeral director Bernie and his intentions but the moment you think you are close enough to get any answers, he pulls you right out. That’s where the beauty of Bernie lies.  

Oh and did I already mention that Jack Black is outstanding in the movie, a fountain of brilliance. An absolute must watch.       

     

Happy Birthday Sweetheart

'Mid-life crisis'

Today is the birthday of one of my most favorite people in the world.
This is the first illustration he ever made.

Status Update

Currently completely and blindly in love with the owner of this skeleton!

Father and daughter

Acapulco, 2008.
Photograph by Martin Parr.

Though my father and I never have gone to a beach together and took a blissful nap like this per se, but this picture reminds me of him.

I absolutely am in love with this series of "relaxing photos from Mexico", published on New Yorker. The 5th and 8th one are my favorites too!

Things I learnt over the last weekend

-Spanish men have the potential to be rude when they are drunk.
-You can trip and fall and have a nose bleed, all within the confines of a tiny studio apartment.
-Liz Lemon is right. Always right. About everything.
-I am not good at consoling people. I never have the right things to say.
-You can learn a lot about the world when out grocery shopping. I met an old man who said something really poetic and beautiful "paidal chalte chalte duniya dekhne ko milti hai" (You get to see so many things in the world just by being out for a casual stroll). I also overheard the conversation of this guy who is extremely poor, has two wives and one child. One wife is in his village. And one stays with him in Mumbai. Also, my vegetable grocer, this really cute little woman, is also from Delhi (my hometown). Yup. Learnt all this from one veggie shopping trip.
-"Home" is just a concept and is pretty overrated.
-Right now, you can get a pack of Oreo biscuits free with a pack of Tang.
-If there is a bandaid on your nose, most people on the streets look at you in a highly strange way. Probably, some of the creative ones also come up with some possible wacky stories in their heads.

Work and Love

It is not like I have not been passionate about work before. God, devil and all my ex-bosses (hopefully) know that I have. Experimented a lot, I have. 'This field is very fluid and I love floating from one part of the sea to the other' has often been my bumper sticker. More often than not, work has more or less been fun. However, that void and that continuous voice that 'This is not exactly what I want to do' persisted. It is not like there would be anything I would want to do for the rest of my life, except for drinking wine. Okay I will finally put a thread around my vague outpourings.

I am really happy with what I am doing right now. Even though they make me work on two Saturdays and report to work at 9 freaking 30. On some mornings, I even exaggerate and tell myself that this job is probably why so many things conspired, juggled up, zig-zagged and led me to this. And this is what I am really meant to do. Like I said, I have always tried to love what I do but this was the perfect marriage. Checking out creative work all day long. Talking to graphic novelists. One of them through a skype chat between India and Berlin. Talking to designers, to photographers, to illustrators. Looking through people's sketchbooks. Doing stories for the dotcom which are not "news". No numbers. No stupid data. Open field. More often than not, Open Minds.

Right now, I am completely in love with my work. Never thought I would say it out aloud. But you know me. I am the kinds who shout from the rooftops when they are in love!

BTW, those who don't know, I currently work for this design magazine 'Kyoorius'!