The Pursuit of Happyness

Pursuit is not the same as 'having'. pursuit is to 'be together with' or 'engage' with something.
Possibly means a 50% yes, 50% no, but it would mean more negative
Probably too means a 50% yes, 50% no, but it would mean more positive
Happy is an adjective, and not a noun. Happiness is a noun.
You can have nouns and you can only be adjectives.
Thus you can only pursue happyness, you can not have it.

-"the pursuit of happyness"

I think one understands some films only at specific age. As I mature with my knowledge, I am able to appreciate things with more care. Today when I saw The Pursuit of Happyness for the 4th time, I understood the nuances in its dialogues, and more importantly its message, which is stated above.

Similarly, when there was only the Doordarshan, I saw Umrao Jaan (old one) for perhaps so many times, and never understood it. Later, when I grew up, it only took the re-make of the film to understand it. I then  understood that the old one was a fairly well constructed and a much better film than the latter. I understood the cynicism of "Jaane bhi do yaaron" only when I became cynical, rather when I faced the world all by myself. When I saw "Zakhm" for the first time, I could not sleep for the next two days.

Anyway, I am happy that these things dawned to me. And I am sure there is so much more in store, which I can only realize on aging.

Some definitions

Borrowed from Vertical studio:

delta: created when river water enters in the sea, eg: Ganga
estuary: created when sea water tries to enter land, eg. Mumbai
mangroves: salt friendly plants.
planning: tool to allocate the finite amount of resources through principles of efficiency and equity.
maps: tools for strategic planning

more

i think i have to write so many things that i have no idea where to begin with. of anish kapoor - and the multiple experiences around it! the vertical studio and the same old questions. the independent research and connecting to new people, the progress with archive and another talk with mr. correa!!

no mood, no mood...

subtitle

"My blog is my archive"

Bollywood top xx year fundas

And I thought about how

1. It has become fashionable to have a profane word in a film title or a film song

eg: Kaminey, Pappu cant dance saala, man lafange, Lafange Parinde, etc

2. How diseases have been explored in last 5 years for film scripts

eg.: Khamoshi, Black, My name is Khan, Taare Zameen Par, Guzaarish, Lafange Parinde, etc.

3. How names have become important to songs. (no comments on what they do to their namesakes)

eg.: Kabhi Kabhi Aditi, Munni Badnaam, Sheila ki jawani, aisha, blah blah

4. How Hindi language is gaining momentum again through songs...

eg.: many egs but can't write the whole songs, but many of vishal bharadwaj, gulzar, prasoon doshi songs...

(if i have 6 more, i can send it to a magazine! you are invited to contribute)

The examination

Supervising the examinations was another experience. However, not elaborating on this, I just want to mention that it was only during their exams that I first met 'my' current class.
Mobiles!
Late comers!
Forgetting timings!
Forgetting documents/ids!
all possible misdemeanours encountered here!

And i tried to focus on more beautiful things around: the silence of winter was one, and the other was the soft light:

Archive as Play

Lined up 21 files tracing Correa's history in newspapers and magazines since 1962...
and more to be added to it soon.

Yeah, I wanted to mention here that how working on this project is so playful. I used to love solving puzzles when I was young - what comes first, what comes in the end, find the missing number, arrange in order, match the figures, find the differences...all that. That is exactly what I am doing here. Putting things in place, neatly, taking prints of matter, scanning and organizing into a system...guessing out page nos. from "continued at" and "continued from" - all that.

More than that, how it makes me delicate towards the material. That's fascinating. I love handling old paper - the yellowness due to its age,  its smell, eroded surface, old signs/logos of newspapers, old typeface, sometimes a random advertisement along side an article makes you wonder what that time was and how people lived - it's interesting in all its dimensions for me to understand the historical aspect of archiving.

And in the end, the colourful tags that I remove from unwanted places make my table very colourful against the old furniture and the old papers. At the end of every day, I put back my stationery in that big round pencil holder created from some stupid unwanted empty spindle of rolled paper... it's interesting to see all pens and pencils self-organize themselves into its curvature.

More interesting things are when Correa talks about them - like he mentioned today about a newspaper called "Daily Telegrams" which used to be published only in Andaman. The reason why it was called a "Telegram" was because during those days, all news could only be sent to Andaman via a telegram. So the publishers would receive a couple of telegrams which would be published into a newspaper, daily. On the other hand, while I was just sorting out all the VHS tapes containing his interviews, etc, it's funny to have no more tapes after 1997, and it makes you realize the overtaking of computerised (digital technology) over TV - since then, one finds only CDs and later only DVDs...


(and on my way back, I thought of another idea, rather ideas, to be written upon, drawn about or recorded {audio/video}...where shall I get the people of my temperament to accomplish it? Lots of work to be done - if the curved line on the palm is the measure of the life, then I want to scratch it right till my arm...hush...)

Serigraphy

I did a screen printing workshop today - one of my many fantasies to learn these things. And i learnt that it is far too tedious to pursue it for personal happiness. there is a lot of effort in preparing the screen. However, if the image is simpler, it's a lot of fun to do it. We worked with very basic technique, very basic material. Nijeena was conducting this workshop on behalf of an art teacher of a school. What I learnt was that such techniques were towards coming up with a solution of reproduction of things into multiple copies quickly. Similarly, the wood cut method, or the block printing, metal plate method...so many of them...Man and machine.

(I want to elaborate on the school the workshop was held in and the traditional PAT-BGT matrix i saw on the blackboard - it is too nostalgic to remember of a time when I used to make that box on the board...)

And at the workshop I met Jyoti - an artist from JJ school of art, a friend of Nijeena and Shubha, who was quite fascinated by the exercises we have conducted at college. Actually Shubhalakshmi told her about these...and she was even more interested in what I did with my research at KRVIA. Interesting. New connect!

Anyway, as I left the place, I was out in Byculla a the footstep of the JJ flyover. And i felt so obscure in that space. byculla as a place made me feel so alone, as if I was in some other land. Different people, different landscape, I shall bring out this contrast further in my subsequent mails if i get time.
Here was an attempt trying to capture the 'aloneness' or the 'obscurity' of this place:

 (no people, no life)



But I couldnot take more pictures! I don't know why. I just took a cab, and rushed to Bombay Central station. That cab driver thought i was new in Bombay and tried fooling me taking in another direction. I then embarrassed him telling him the way to go, and he had almost no words to explain.
I wanted to prick him more and so i asked him why he turned his cab in exactly the opposite direction we had to go. He fumbled some shit, which he knew too, was to hide his mischief.

Nevertheless, I will have to visit Byculla to understand why it made me feel so alone...and simultaneously I shall explore it in my space here...

Jain Cosmology

tantra - mantra - yantra - transcendence - cosmograph

OK, i have read about 120 pages in flat 4 hours yesterday and it would require me some time and my personal diagrammatic observations to be able to talk about the above.
Nevertheless, the post could be a review of the book "The Art of Tantra" by Philip Rawson. I shall post some things from the book too later.

So here:

yantra: A diagram / diagrammatic pattern created through the mantra.
mantra: the words containing the sounds that create a vibration and help in focus the 'right' energy.
tantra: the description of the way in which 'mantra' is to be said/performed.

The above is the simple relationship between tantra - mantra and yantra.

Basically the book tries to explain the Jain philosophy behind the emergence of the universe which it says is a result of 'cosmic sexuality'. The book puts light on interesting aspects of the symbols that we follow today in our daily rituals - what they signify and how are they manifested into the physical world. It interestingly connects many ideas, symbols and images and gives a new reading into the meaning of forms around us through symbology.

Some word patterns, which I shall assist with diagrams later:

Play - Leela - Kama - Krishna
Garbha Griha - Womb - Egg - Vulva - Phallus
Hrim - Hridaya - Heart - All - Life
Vibration -Resonance - Sound - Snake
Sound - Shape - Design

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