I have blocked my calendar!

Temple on Baner hill. Baner road, Pune.

I have been drawing but not posting.  Really. There was a lot of travel in the last four months and interspersed with holidays and lethargy I have not posted for a while.

Recently I have been focusing on watercolors and coloring in general.  I found myself describing my blog as drawings with watercolor coloring.  The medium of watercolors for painting is quite challenging.    One cannot correct mistakes and the rule of “Know what you have to do “just cannot be broken because once you have laid the paint down it’s almost impossible to change it.  So while it’s probably the cheapest and most accessible medium for beginners to painting it’s also the most unforgiving.

I plan on painting the Sahyadri mountain ranges, where I go trekking, as my skill level builds up.  They are incredibly beautiful and it would be great to capture that and reflect it in a simple but elegant watercolor.

You gets what you pays for, my dear.

Woman walking in Pashan, Pune.

Street side vendor

Push starting a three wheeled pickup. Pashan, Pune.

Woman climbing Sinhagad.  Sinhagad, Pune. Man on curb. Pune.

I finally got around  to purchasing a real sable brush.  They are expensive. Made from the hair of the Siberian Kolinsky Sable, ( a type of a weasel), this brush cost me 27 Euros( about 37 USD).  Size 8. A mid sized brush.  Good watercolor brushes are characterized by three things.  Firstly, their "Snap", ie the ability of the loaded brush to regain its pointed shape after applying paint to paper.  So if you dabbed paint on a spot , it should immediately go back to its pointed shape ready to apply paint precisely at another place.
Second, its "Belly".  The ability to hold water or paint so you can paint continuously without recharging it.    The fatter the belly while still holding a point is desirable.  Thirdly, "Point",the ability of the bristles to come to a needle point when you load up the brush with paint. You should be able to paint a hairline and with just some added pressure increase the width to about an inch ( on a Number 8 brush) and  on releasing the pressure spring back to the hairline.   A varied thickness of a brush stroke is very useful while painting.
My new brush does  this all exceptionally well.  I hope I don't screw  it up by being sloppy in its care.

All drawings above from memory.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

Shatabdi Express, Pune Secunderabad. August 25, 2013

Looking north, on a west- east bound train.

I went to Hyderabad (Secunderabad is a sister city) last weekend by train.  Left early Saturday, ran the full, 42.2 km Airtel 2013 Hyderabad marathon on Sunday morning and returned the same day.  Quite exhausting.  I did not do as well as I wanted.  I went too fast initially and had severe cramps in the 29th Km and had to walk/limp the rest of the 13 km to finish in 5 hours 39 minutes. But finished all the same.  The depressing split stats and ranking can be found here. Bib Number is 1289. Male. Category :Overall.

The lines and coloring on the drawing is shaky because of the rocking of the train.  The watercolor landscapes are glimpses of the freshly monsooned countryside sliding past.  Beautiful.

Fire ants in my sandals

Bottle of water and a bag for the pilgrimage

All the women seem to carry their bags on top of their head

He is playing brass cymbals, chanting as he walks barefoot

Flag bearer of his group( possibly all from one village)

Today, while clearing out some undergrowth in a garden, I stepped on a nest of red fire ants.  They really sting. I had forgotten how it felt.  They really put their heart into it when they bite with their pincers.  Their heads separated from their bodies when I tried to get them off.

I have drawn these from reference photographs I took of a pilgrimage that passes through my city of Pune. About 200,000 people walking in a procession.  It usually occurs around end of June/ mid July. Its a particular day of the Hindu Lunar Calendar.
These people belong to a sect called the "Varkaris".  They have a simple belief removed from the orthodoxy of Hinduism and follow the teachings of two main saints of the Bhakti movement( Bhakti = Devotion/faith Vs. rituals and formalized religion), Tukaram and Dhyaneshwar ( pronounced Nya- neshwar :)).

Wikipedia has some more on this movement.

They are predominantly rural people.  I was thinking of drawing people and these are unique and interesting visually.  I have referenced my own photos.  I'll possibly do some groups as well since this pilgrimage is known by its large numbers of people walking hundreds of miles together.
Here are two photographs to show you the scale of the people moving.  This is at an intersection where I took some pictures as they passed.  This procession took about 6 hours to go by.

The Varkaris going past spectators

One group that paused to ease congestion downstream

Waiting

Kera, a very tiny restaurant that specializes in food from the state of Kerala in India.  Fish Thali.

Linger On, a multi cuisine restaurant.  Lemon grass cooler and pasta lunch.

Tsai Shen Yen, Hong Kong Chinese restaurant. Rice and noodles. Veg Wontons. Coriander soup.

I spend time waiting in restaurants.  Waiting for food to be served, friends, take away...  Then, if no one is watching I draw.

Cardamom tea in tiny glasses

Amrutalya tea shop. Dandekar Bridge , Pune

Amrutalya tea shops are an old institution in Pune.  They are small shops that serve tea in tiny glasses like the one next to my pen and notebook.  The tea is milky, sweet and cardamom flavored. The tea is brewed every hour or so depending on the customers. For a quick sip, they also offer a "cutting chai".  It's half of that tiny glass. It was a slow afternoon.  The owner was sitting and staring out into the street.  Laid back fellow.  Cheerful. He saw me drawing. After a bit he sang a Hindi song from an old movie, " Yeh kaun chitrakar hai?..."("Who is this artist?")  The lyrics describe the musing of a farmer as he surveys the glories of nature and rhetorically wonders about the artist( presumably the Good Lord) that rendered them.  This guy just loved singing that lyric over and over.  And then he would grin at me and go back to staring at the road smiling to himself pleased about remembering the song with a reference to an artist.  I grinned back and kept drawing.

I drank three glasses. He crushed the cardamom for his brew in the brass pestle and mortar on the upper shelf.  The brass teapot and the stainless steel milk urn are typical.  When the place is full of customers he sits crosslegged on the brown seat on the platform. The drawer is where he stashes his money and makes change.  He asked me to come back.

It's the Talkies!

Alka Talkies, Lakdi Pul, Pune.

This is one of the older movie theatres in Pune. Perhaps about 60-70 years old.  I'm not sure if it actually screened silent movies in the past but it just might have.  Movie theatres used to have just one screen.  They were also defined  by the size of the film they could project, "70mm" or "35mm".  I have last seen a movie in this theatre perhaps around 1982.  It has a lower section and a more expensive upper house ("Balcony").  It was not air conditioned back then. Now it probably is. Below the red section was the bicycle parking. Hundreds of bicycles would be stacked in a shed under there. They would give you a small coupon to find your bicycle after the show.  Almost all patrons used bicycles and there may have been a couple of cars and a handful of motorcycles/scooters during each show.
These theatres themselves came to be called "Talkies" based on what they screened.    Even now you can tell a autorikshaw taxi driver to take you to "Alka Talkies". ( Its pronounced "taakies", I didnt realize where the word came from until many years later.). In the intermission of the movie you could buy greasy spicy crunchy samosas. At your seat. Then throw the scrunched up wrapper at the screen if you didnt like what was happening in the movie.  This kind of behaviour was the purview of the cheap non balcony seated rascals. Enviable.

Running and street dogs - II

Deccan Gymkhana Post office. Estd. 1923.

What can you do about street dogs?  

This is the follow up. See Part I.    

This is important. It’s all about body language.  Yours and the dogs.

1.       Barking dogs really don’t bite.  They are warning you off.   They may not even look at you.  Do not stare at them.  But this behavior could change to an attacking one. Be alert. 

2.       If a dog lopes towards you quickly and kind of growls in a low tone with hackles raised, this is bad news.  He/she wants a piece of you.   Stop.  Face and look them in the eye.  Make yourself big by raising and waving your arms. Shout. And walk out of their space slowly.  Don’t kick.

3.       To preempt this, pretend to throw a pebble at them.  They have been pelted so often in India that they will run away by conditioning.

4.       Dogs in packs could be serious trouble.  If you are going past an agitated pack, walk or wait for them to pass.   If one chooses to bark at you, all will follow and then they tend to go into a ‘hunting’ mode.  Pick up stones and hurl to hit. 

I have not been bitten yet.  I have been ‘attacked’ quite a few times though.  While scary, it has a bright side.   When you are in a long run your mind tends to drift.  Work, family, and other thoughts take you away from the run.   A dogs growl brings you in the here and now like nothings else!   All your senses are alert and you are completely in the present moment.   

Like most fears in our life, keep an eye out for dogs but don’t obsess about them.  For the most part ignoring them works.    And, once in a while, they will bite you in the behind.

Tasty but not too spicy?

Nunoz, Bavdhan. Pune

Pune is home to a large number of African and Iranian students who attend Pune University. Pune University is close to where I live, about 4 kms.  Students live nearby.  India always had people from Iran and Africa living and visiting for business and higher studies for many years.  In fact, for the last several hundred years if not a few millennia.  In the recent past, post Indian Independence in 1947, Pune has attracted students for higher education in the arts and sciences.   A number of Iranian restaurants called “Irani Hotel/Cafe”s have been serving bun musca( bun and margarine/butter), bun- omelet, baked beans, black tea with lemon, scrambled goat brains ( yes.),  milk tea and a large variety of snacks and foods for very affordable prices.  ( About eight to ten of us with big appetites  go for breakfast and get fed for about  INR 1000 or 20 USD).  Goodluck  Café is favorite.

But now there is a new breed of Iranian restaurants.  These cater to students from Iran.  Mostly meat dishes not easily available in Indian restarunts.   Beef, Mutton based.   Also not as spicy as Indian food. Chelo Ghosht( Rice and beef), Kubideh( skewers of lamb), and many traditional Iranian preparations are served.  Nunoz is down the street from my house.  Good eating!

Rahul.  Seafood. Aundh, Pune.

John Simon Ritchie aka Sid Vicious

Sid Vicious.  Bassist. The Sex Pistols.

Punk.  Never really heard much but always liked the image.  In London around Picadilly Circus I had seen groups of youths with purple mohawks and leather around 2006. I was taking pictures and they ducked and the girls swore at me.  Really mean looking guys, all clutching brown paper bags with liquor bottles inside.  One sweeter and less abusive one told me she would get them to pose for a quid.  I played along and gave her a coin.  And they did! Goddamn it Punk sold out!  And, what a show. Tongue studs, group poses, tattoos, I started laughing at them and they turned out to be just kids making a quick buck .  Not tough at all. Kind of sweet as they sat huddled together sharing cigarettes and chewing gum waiting for tourists to take their picture.  The first girl told me she may go on to “Uni”.  Well, hope she did.  I’m sure they are not all that sweet, but there was really not much aggression compared to the image.   Kids hanging out in Five points, Atlanta seemed more dangerous (and probably are!).  The pickup was in an empty lot near home in Pashan, Pune. 

Baner Pashan Link Road.

Sukhois and religious chants

Riverside Fairgrounds, Deccan, Pune.

Pune Civilian Airport.

In India, I can think of no town or city where the early mornings are quiet.  Blaring religious chants from small and large temples in every neighborhood on crackly amplified sound systems provide a constant backdrop.   One might think that this is an urban phenomenon. It’s not!  It’s equally bad in the countryside.  It’s really depressing when you wake up in the morning on a trek in the mountains and hear these sounds floating up from a village way down below. The religious (Hindu mostly) chants and hymns start around 5 am. They usually stop by about 7:30 to 8:00 am.  I think we fear hearing our own thoughts first thing in the morning and have to snuff them out with the name of the Lord(s).

The sound I really like in the morning is that of Sukhoi fighter planes, in pairs or singly on practice sorties above Pune.  It starts like a distant rumble of thunder and waxes and wanes in the wind. As they get closer the jet engine sound becomes apparent.    You can rarely see them.  Black triangular specks in the sky. They Doppler out going overhead and then go back to being a rumble.    The Indian Airforce has based a couple of squadrons of these Russian war planes, Sukhoi Su-30MKI in Pune.  They have a very nice profile.  They resemble General Electric F-14 Tomcats but are not that large.  Similar swing wing, dual engine/tailplane fighters.

The hills are alive with the sound of jackhammers.

Baner biodiversity park.

The hills around Pune are protected.  Developers would love cover the hillsides with apartments with a "Hilltop view".  However the local environmental activists have been successful in protecting most if not all hills. This one behind my office is also a biodiversity "park".  I dont really know what it means. But there is a lot of tree planting going on and I along with some enthusiastic colleagues go to the top of the hill and water some plants during the dry season.    From the top of the hill the view gets depressing.  As far as the eye can see in almost all directions are large concrete apartment complexes, most of them at least ten stories high.  Who knows where the water for all these people will come from? Power?  Where will all the sewage go?  ( You knew I would wonder that didnt you?).

“Ride my See Saw…”

“…Take my place. Take this seat. It’s for free.” -  Moody Blues

These bikes deliver Dominos pizza. There were about twenty more parked nearby. Eating out has become very common place  for the middle class.  There are many options.  Some pricier than others.  KFC’s, MickeyD’s, Dominos, PizzaHut etc.  are expensive by local standards.  They do maintain a higher level of hygiene.  The other small eateries that have sprung up usually leave a lot to be desired in cleanliness.  But we all know taste kills the germs, right?  

Dominos Pizza, Deccan Gymkhana, Pune.

 The rules for picking a place to eat are pretty universal.  Always pick one with the highest amount of local traffic.  There may be little to no service because the “usuals’ know what they want, so just point to what seems to be most popular and order .  If there are public servants eating there, Off/On duty Police, Municipal bus drivers/conductors, office clerks it is a good sign that the food is consistently safe to eat.  On a recent visit to Bangalore I found a vegetarian restaurant next to my hotel . It mostly served the staff from the Bangalore Police Comissioners offices.  Great tasting cheap South Indian food.  Excellent filter coffee.
Hordes of College students are usually not a good sign.  They fall sick, recover quickly and never seem to draw the connection between what they ate/drank at a street corner and their severe amoebic dysentery.   “But it was tasty and cheap!”. :)

Frangipani and dosas.

This is a popular restaurant called "Vaishali".  It sits across from the  British Library on Fergusson Road.  Close to Deccan Gymkhana area.   College kids spend many an hour there, hanging out, eating crisp Dosas and drinking coffee.

Vaishali, Fergusson Road, Pune.

It's usually crowded and hard to find a spot, especially in the garden section in the back.  Tasty vegetarian "Udupi"( South Indian) food is served fast and hot. The wait staff is polite and efficient.  Alumni of the nearby 150 year old Fergusson college are very fond of this landmark from their youth.  Generations of Fergussonians return to this restaurant when they visit Pune.  Some don't seem to have left.  Go there in the late afternoon to have a relaxed snack before the evening crowds pour in.

Ink and pen and paper

It has been awhile since I went out and drew.  I just inked this tonight to mitigate the guilt.  The old city has some strange structures. This one was bristling antennae for a reason I could not fathom.  They didn't look like the omnipresent mobile phone towers.  And the building was a really acute slice in an angled narrow lane.  And the dark rain stains that dominate all Indian architecture.
Was listening to "Miles runs down the voodoo".  14 minutes of driving bass with Miles trumpet on top. Most excellent.  And then "Jean Pierre".  It was one of those "Essential" music albums that I never thought I would buy but that's what you get in music stores in India currently. Compilations, "Best of's", and other selections " Dance Party XXX".  I also possess "Essential Bruce Springsteen".  You can order stuff on-line now but browsing for music is always nice.

Six Blade Knife, do anything for you.

"..Do anything you want it to. One blade breaking my heart.
One blade tearing me apart."

Today was Ganesh Chaturthi. First day of the Ganesh festival.  Took the day off.  In the afternoon went to the  old city to draw and look at festivities. Found this stone facade that was quite ornate.  "Nagarkar "Dagdi" ( stone) wada".  This doorway encloses a traditional courtyard and homes around it in a contained neighbourhood called a "wada".  The colorful banners line this really narrow street in Budhwar Peth.  Close to Appa balwant Chowk.

Started a new sketchbook.  Also found my "Legend" CD.  And heard my "Dire Straits: Dire Straits" a few times over on my drive to a  trek to Visapur this weekend.  "Six Blade knife".  The whole album is so laid back and great to hear.

Two turntables and a microphone

There is this community of "Lambadi's" near where I live.  They have essentially squatted on land that has now become a large slum/shanty town. They are different from the locals with their own language and customs.  Some say they are the original gypsies ( Romany) who migrated to Europe.
They work as day labor.  The women wear colorful dresses decorated with mirrors.
I have been busy and lazy, alternately, and my blog did not get updated.  Haven't been watching the London Olympics at all.( Almost).
This was a poor digitization effort. It is pencil and watercolor.  And not so garish. The real life colors they wear are quite bright. This green in her blouse was almost fluorescent.

Gym Cycle Generator

In  old Pune city this is an old temple dedicated to Ganapati ( or Ganesh).  Since the city of Pune has so many temples dedicated to Ganesh, the temples are referred to by their location. This one is called Kasaba Peth Ganapati.  This temple is a few hundred years old.
In the back courtyyard I found this stationary excercise bike that has been adapted by the local electrical/electronics  industry as a human powered generator.  Pune has numerous and unpredictable power outages.
As I drew this, a person who worked in the temple, came and looked at my drawing. On his cell phone, he showed me a picture of Ganesh he had painted.  He seemed to feel both sorry for me, and superior, as he asked me if I was limited to my sketch book and one black pen.  All his paintings are large and  in color. Oils. Winsor-Newton (a famous English paint manufacturer).  He then told me he was a "hard" man but his anger and rage issues have been calmed by this Ganesh in particular.    It was very uncomfortable looking into his dark glasses as he shared this.  Big vermillion mark on his forehead framed by long greasy hair.   I said it looked like rain and left hastily.