Art Imitating Life
art that imitates Life..or is it the other way round?
What's a good blog without space for the writer to blow his own trumpet? And blowing one's own gilded trumpet being the sole reason that blogs exist for, this here are some of my scribbles and doodles and my attempts at watercolors that i am told are presentable to the world. Do let me know what you think.
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Here are some the latest ones, results of hours spent at coffee shops over endless cups of hot chocolate.
The start of good beginnings. Ganesha here, is the scribe assisting Vyasa in writing down the Mahabharat. Ganesha is said to have agreed to write it only on the condition that Vyasa never pause in his recitation. Vyasa agreed, provided Ganesha took the time to understand what was said before writing it down.
This one was created in the leafy environs of the Krishna temple in Indiranagar, Bangalore. Glory be to our religion that allows for such varied representation of our gods and other myriad heavenly denizens?
Originally concieved as a representation of Krishna washing Sudama's feet, something made me erase the other hand, the one away from the viewer, as a result of which this now show Krishna bending down to touch someone's feet and invoke the blessings thereforth. As i see it, there's no greater expression of obvious humility and acceptance than this one gesture.
As one of my more favorite subjects, Krishna in his myriad avatars and incarnations, offers himself to interpretations that are limited in their scope and imagination only by the artist. Here the blue wonder is depicted in his all his baroque glory from his days as a cowherd in vrindavan. More on Krishna in the sketches to follow.
As with most of my drawings, i started this one with no clear idea on what i was going to end up with. As it turned out, it came out looking like this. One way of looking at this could be the earth holding up the skies or gently lowering it to the soil.
An attempt to depict the third eye of Shiva. The eye being in the middle of the storm created by its unrestrained anger. A very nebula like atmosphere here. Somehow didn't find watercolors conducive to what i wanted to portray. 
Taking inspiration from the lives of some of our most talented yet unappreciated artists of our times, i have attempted to portray the phenomenon of genius gone mad. Those having read masterpieces like 'Lust for Life' by Irving Stone would agree that an inhuman amount of blessed genius does come along with its own set of baggage. Unanswerable loneliness, smothering insecurities, the need for love and affection and constant appreciation to the extent of being labelled self indulgent and self obsessed, all propped up with a feeling of general dissatisfaction with the world, accompany the creative process of most of our gods of human . As i like to believe, " One man's inspiration is another man's madness ". Cocooned and unquestioningly conforming to all that they have been taught to believe and obey, from the time of the womb till the day of death, its hard for society to understand what drives a man. Especially one whose thought processes aren't confined to the physical limits of his existence, and extend far above what it has been conventionally taught to believe as right and final.
A humble clay pot housing a feeble stem of a rose plant. Even in its simplicty, this is my favorite piece of art, done as it was during a time of great personal turmoil and angst. Which probably is reflected in the theme of the above watercolor, where my attempt was to depict growth and regeneration, the flowering of new life. 
As one more from the same time as mentioned above, this here is a depiction of the angst and longing struggling in an atmosphere of self inflicted pain. A similar theme being depicted in the watercolor below.
As an image that's mostly confined to the Buddha, i have shown Ganesha here in his more mature years, shorn of adornments and all that is coventional is our godly depictions. Here he is a sanyasi, a mystic rather, which considering his illustrous lineage, is quite apt for him.
And continuing with the elephant headed one, here's him in all his youthful glory. Young and restless and proud of it. Or at least that's what i tried to show here.
As one of the most enigmatic and under analyzed mythological characters, Ravan, the King of Lanka offers the most varied of depictions to any one with an love of abstract and an unrestrained imagination. A scion of an illustrous line of saints, a connoisseur of classical music, shiv bhakt and a warrior to boot. Here is Ravan, the brahmin, the king and as the epics have taught us to believe, the demon.
Continuing my fascination with mythology, here's parashuram with a trident instead of his cutomary axe. So this may not be parasuram at all, maybe one of the many siva bhakt's, especially of the variety that one gets to see in the kumbh mela.
Kalpavriksha. Looks more like a anglo-saxomic version of it. What's that little castle turrent doing in the back ?
One of my more favorite creations. And i would like to point out that this one was created and executed long long before dasavatharam was even a gleam in Kamal hasan's eye. The central character i.e. the one in the middle beside the young brahmin is yours truly. And by tweaking my big nosed face a little here and there, the result is a veritable gallery of personalities. if this isn't megalomania, then i don't know what is. Not that i am complaining.
The background is the standard Microsoft wallpaper. The one with the smooth green. These characters must be quite familiar for me to expound any further on them.
I superimposed my vision of hell's gatekeeper over and image of michaelangelo's sistine chapel. The result to my eyes, is an renaissance view of lucifer;s kingdom. The bats came later. What;s life without stereotypes?
My fascination with really ancient history continues. "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,That host with their banners at sunset were seen:Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay withered and strown."
A scene i once saw in the cold dewy hilltops of Ooty a few minutes before the advent of the new year. FThe trees swaying along with the cold wind and this single streak of light blazing its way across the skies, welcoming the new year. a omen of things to come?
Twitter birdie in her(twitter bird is a female?) new avatars...
These were meant to be part of a twitter based application being developed at my company. Somehow these character sketches didn't make the cut (too cute, the feedback was), and thus they ended up here.
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Second Iteration.. this is the twitter bird, in a more not-so-cute avatar(or that's
what i thought)
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This is what i do during offical meetings
Guess this will be an interesting artifact to kept in the garden at the back. Gigantic hand made of white granite smothered by large leafed flora and kept company by tiny multi legged fauna. The hand the sketch is based on belongs to a very beautiful person.
A vision of how Bahubali, the mythological character on which the giant statue at gomateshwara in southern karnataka is based on, might have looked in his prime.
The woods are dark and deep...and i keep thinking if the english poet who wrote that was referring to the Sunderbans. This was drawn as an impromptu reaction to The Hungry Tide
by Amitav Ghosh, a book that falls inches short of being a classic yet manages to portray the sunderbans and its inhabitants as never before.
This could be kind of person who would be the royal palace guardian for a god fearing monarch. Probably Ravan could use some like him. Looks like he could be moonlighting as a part time priest.
Influenced from the literary compositions of Leon Uris and James Michener's The Source, my reaction to their outpourings on Israel and judaism. A hebrew warrior of yore. Defending the kingdom of god against the romans.
One of my personal favorites. As was customary in the days of yore, young princes were sent to live and study the arts and sciences under the tutelage of renowed sages. Here is one of those young apprentices.
Yet another depiction of Ravan, this time in his pleasure. Standing behind him is his favorite son, Indrajeet.
If i could find some representation of how the matter inside the space between my ears must look like, here's a close approximation of the same. I guess a further description of the same won't be necessary.
Yet another depiction of Krishna, this time as the King of Dwarka. In all his royal finery.
And that's how i think my knuckles will end up looking like when i am this age. Though i don't think i will have this much of my hair remaining.
A futuristic vison of Mumbai with newer constructions over reclaimed land. Reclaimed land. A phrase that for some reason implies that we as humans have a right over the land that wasn't given to us in the first place. We have for our own needs, driven back the sea, levelled and gouged mountains and punched holes in the ozone layer, thus creating more space for our greed to take shape on. A process that continues. Where does this end?
Stylised version of a foot soldier from the babylonic empires.
From being the most feared warrior king of his times, from one who had no place for god in his woprld, plumbing the depths of his soul and humanity and eventually emerging as a believer in the one true god, here is Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of Babylon.
21,000 leagues under the sea is where the sealife gathers to rock and party!!
A very quick and dirty sketch of the eternal city from the viewpoint of three tired travellers from faraway lands. The third being me, my compatriots being very much visible here. Was banaras always like this? Religion and decadence exisiting side by side? Does it give us pride to visualise this holy city as one where corpses float in the ganga, and where crows and jackals openly pick at the flesh of the deceased. Is this how i want to remember this holiest of cities?
As one learned gent one once remarked - India is a rich and ancient civilization in an advanced state of decay. A statement i like to comfort myself with.
Me Drunk. You Drunk. Who's Sober?
From sunil dutt to dilip kumar to vinod khanna to sanjay dutt and sunny deol, here's to all our cinema dakus.
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Cheers!!!
farhan.