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

Its a pale resemblance

From Baner Hill, Looking west.

Biodiversity park. Reforestation planting on Baner hillside. Looking south.

Looking north on Baner Hill

Two things drawing and painting from nature will do for you.

Firstly, instil a sense of humility about nature and hopefully admiration. All the High Dynamic Range processed digital images, graphics, 3D movies, computer games, all pale in comparison.  I cant bring myself to write about it as it seems so silly and obvious and slightly embarrassing. But I am sure there are people who need this reminder. Go stare at a sunset and accompanying skies.  Or an insect in your garden. It's always amazing.

Secondly, it creates an appreciation of the difficulty of drawing and painting from nature.( All representations for that matter, including photography).
As it is, it is hard to do watercolors.  The golden rule, that all great watercolorists follow and excel at, is knowing what to do. With that one brush stroke, lay down a color or shape a form or cast that shadow or perhaps do them all at once! And then to be done with it. No pecking around and fidgeting.  No "do overs".
And its even harder and impossible to capture things you see in nature.  But its always worth the effort however terrible your results may seem. You will LOOK, for once, and see stuff you otherwise miss.

You must attempt it in your life.

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.

The road not taken.

Joshi (?)Bungalow, BCL Lane, Deccan

I go to the British Council Library on some weekends.  My father is a member. It’s near Deccan Gymkhana.   I was early and walked up the lane next to it to see what lay ahead.  Two apartment buildings were undergoing a facelift.  They will become business hotels.  And in one lot was this crumbling bungalow.  Must be from the early 1940’s or maybe even older.   I sat on a concrete pipe and drew it.  Light drizzle of rain. 

Later at the British Council Library I scored.  They were having a booksale.  Books that have now been worn out and are being withdrawn and some “slow movers”. 

Guess what was moving slow? A Three volume set of Cunninghams Oxford press Manual of Practical Human Anatomy!  A very good anatomy reference for my collection.  I have been trying to learn basic human anatomy to draw figures reasonably accurately.  Vastus Medius is an extensor. Really.  An exciting  moment in my life.

What was worn?  “Secret Knowledge”. A very good quality art book by David Hockney. It’s his thesis that a lot of artists just after the 1500’s started using optics to help them draw.  They would use mirrored lenses to create an image on a paper as reference and then use that as basis of human portraits.  Ingres, Vermeer, are amongst the artists he thinks used such aids.   A very controversial book.  Even I was not sure I wanted to hear that those artists were ‘copying’ .   Buts it’s a good read. And has some really good reproductions of many famous art works.
Also purchased: “History of British Art” ( Blah.). And a good book by Metcalfe about Colonial architecture. It’s interesting reading about many of the old British era buildings one sees in India.    All in all a grand total of INR 450. Or About USD 9.  Amitabh’s a winner.  And the sweet librarian lady now thinks I’m a medical doctor.  

Slippery when wet

Across from "Roopali", Fergusson Road

It's monsoon season!  My cars tires were threadbare. As in, you could actually see the steel belts.   I had been postponing changing them. Finally did it this weekend.  Also changed my wipers.  Somehow, felt I have better grip when I left the service station.  I’m sure it’s all in my mind.  Will go out to the hills for a trek this weekend to celebrate this minor event of monsoon maintenance.

After I gave my car in, I walked around and had breakfast.  Drew this bike against the red shutters.  Got about fifteen minutes before they went up.  And cars parked along the sidewalk.  I painted the drawing at home later.  I took a reference photo.  But the red color in the photo seems really different from what I remembered.