Coconut Cruncher

9th November 2013       I approached the coconut seller and asked, "how much for one?" "30 for malai wala and 25 for paani wala" "Patli malai wale ke liye kitna?" "30 memsaab", he said.        I asked for one with the thin malai. It was delicious. The first sip from the straw, and images of coconut trees and paddy fields flashed in my mind. Narrow roads and clear skies, palms swaying in the breeze - it cut back to the straw. The water was over. I looked inside the coconut, hoping for more water. "Kahan se laate ho aap?" I asked. "Mysore se. Yaha toh koi nikaalta nahin hai pedh se. Pakh jaate hain." he said. "Aur aap kaha se ho?" "Main Allahabad se" he said, smiling. "Itni door se? Poori family yaha hai?" "Haan ji. Ek flat tha, lekin usme jagaha nahin thi, toh hum bhaade pe reh rahe hain." he said, "aap kaha se ho?" "Main Goa se hoon" I said. He smiled. "Toh a...

28th Oct 2013 I had a wonderful time in Ahmedabad. The first day we got there, we settled in Athithi hotel. It was such a dirty looking place, but we cleaned it up and made ourselves comfortable. We used to have breakfast at this south indian restaurant called 'Udipi Palace'. It had pretty decent breakfast but it smelled so badly of cockroaches and phinyl that it got really unpleasant. Everyday we started waking up a little later, often talking in the morning or trying to convince the others that it would be a great day. I was busy trying to keep everyone positive - somehow it was upto me to satisfy everyone's wants. When I failed at that, I'd fall into the pit and pull myself out. I told myself there was something more important happening at NID than people's eating preferences or personal problems - I had come here for inspiration and I'd decided to take it under any circumstance. By day 3 everything started getting better, and that's how it had happene...

2nd October 2013 – Nashik It’s the second day of work at Regh animation, and it has been tough. I feel mentally exhausted and overly emotional. The small sign of home, a thought of comparison can bring a huge lump, an uncomfortable swelling in my throat. I feel my heart ache in pain, and my eyes start watering uncontrollably for no reason. I don’t feel weak, but tested, really. My heart gives up, but my mind tells me to fight and be stronger. It’s a new place, with new people. A new language and a new culture. Fitting in has never been easy, but I always end up finding the right people and getting comfortable; that – has been exceptionally difficult here. Marathi is not my forte, and whether I wear a loose Tshirt, or a spaghetti, I still have a few eyes on me. Maybe it’s my fair skin, or my ‘different’ features, but one look, and the locals know that I’m not from this part of town. My roommate Rekha is really nice. She must be about 25 and reminds me an awful lot of my old housekee...

31st August 2013 I hate that technology can do as it pleases to us. I am an artist. I come from a very creative background. My ancestors used only their hands to do the work they do. They used pencils, charcoal, pigment colors, and papers. Today's artist uses the traditional mediums as well; but with the growing demand for digital illustration, and it's advantages of getting work done so much faster and cheaper has forced the artist to learn new techniques of producing their work. The same goes with the animator. Back in the day animators used papers (cells) and ink and paints. They used cameras to capture every frame on a reel, and project it onto the screen. So many hours went into trying to hone their skills without a preview of the animation. Previewing meant developing expensive film, and so the animator made do with flipping the sheets to create persistance of vision. We solely depended on the naked eye, and groomed it, trained it, and honed it to see art in the broade...

17 th August 2012 Today we went to a small place by FC road called Little Italy. I first went there when it had newly opened in Goa; probably in 2000 or 2001. At the time I had never tasted Italian food in my life, and I don’t even remember tasting it.  In 2011 we went to Italy on a family vacation. It was one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever seen. I’d say it’s my favourite amongst all the places I’ve visited.   I had never really enjoyed Italian food before I went to Italy. I found pastas too heavy, fatty and bland, and the pizzas I’d tasted at Dominos (the first and only pizza joint in Goa) were so dry and had such thick bread and less vegies that I had a strong disregard for Italian food.  Of course when I came to Pune for MIT, I tried some delicious Italian pastas at good restaraunts, although I was still not fond of all the pizzas after trying local pizzas as well as the popular pizza brands like Dominos, Pizza hut, Smokin’ Joes and Papa J...

21st July 2013   I had saved Steve Levitan’s writeup here as a word file on my desktop. I’m a seriously moody reader, but today I finally read it, and I felt that it was so awesome to read such fresh juicy stuff! Modern Family is one of my favourite sitcoms, and I had to give it a shot. At the bottom there was a link and t led to this page, so I ended up reading quite a few ‘Why we write’ and I decided ‘Hey, I can do this too. If anyone would give me a read!’  The earliest I remember (there must’ve been earlier instances) being was introduced to writing was in 7 th grade. We had to write comprehensions that we were graded on in English literature. I was decent with grammar, but I was terrible at writing. Atleast that’s what I thought and what my marks told me. They focused too much on spellings and length too, which turned me off from writing whole-heartedly. For obvious reasons, it never occurred to me that I could ever write professionally. Art, on the ot...

28th June 2013 So I've had a terrible 3 days here. I realised my Sc. 5 was accidentally missing from my Film Folder, and when it hit me that my last backup was a March backup that had 2 months of work done after that, I was feeling absolutely broken-hearted. I didn't know if it was worth continuing this film. I was drowning in sorrow at the thought of having to do all that work again. I googled it, got a few recovery softwares that mostly hung and some showed some files I wasn't looking for. I called a good friend who suggested two good data-recovery softwares. 'Wondershare', the best one I'd tried took 12 hours to scan my PC for all the files that were deleted from my Recycle bin. It didn't have it. At 3 am I decided to give up. It was gone. I tried to get over it and move on as quickly as possible. I could not afford to give up now. It would be like dropping out of college in your final year. I was on the verge of finishing the film, and would probabl...