sLuDge

2010-10-06T23:12:00.004+05:30

'The ultimate in imprecision, to draw a pretty picture and ask for its realization in musical terms - translation from one art to another - an exercise, a skill that has not been invented - like asking someone to jump out of the window and fly, a skill that has not been invented either.'

'... communicate.. not only statistics but.. shades of meaning... expressive intentions from one person to another... although as in love letters, cannot be completely successful.'

mumbaiya buddhist film making

2010-05-29T19:38:00.005+05:30

In mumbai, we tend to formalise our dreams into little blocks of white wood. Because there are so many of us, and so little time, and there is so little money to fund individual thought. There are no grants here to delve into the ancient history of the door knobs in middle eastern india. When you choose to research,an article, an object, a person, you are on your own, .. till someone selling something finds it fitting their classified ad on tv,the internet or in a paper. There are no peope as guides. There is an invisible government.

Following a thought is quite like following the ways of the Buddha..like meditating on this 'thing' that nobody else can see, but in the course of flailing blindly through, you end up finding yourself charged with energy to go on living in a world whose newspapers read like the way they do these days.

Being a film maker, this drill of starting an idea off and then seeing it to its realisation has grown to be a habit..but then there are others, others around me who I have observed, passionate people, striving to join the dots and discovering every time that if in India, in this hopeful, buzzing country, where everything is possible if you just find out who the people are, when you finally see all the dots needed to get a thought from conception to its natural death, you find also that you will need to make those dots yourself. From scratch. And hope not to forget the whole picture in the meantime.

this little doc down here still holds its own against the test of a year. I know how I came down to these very words to talk about what I wanted to do. It was a painful process. But it still holds. It lives. And my earlier selves surprise me still!

Only the phone number has changed since. :)

Open publication - Free publishing - More sustainability

2010-04-16T19:45:00.004+05:30

erm... so here's the story, I had a fantastic time helping in the curation of I.DoT, an exhibition of design at the Italian embassy.

but I got free from there and immediately rushed to Rajashthan for a shoot.

so that story isn't coming out just yet.

I'm plugging you into the Rajasthan visual trip for now here, I will regurgitate my heavier shoot edits of the exhibition as we go along.

in the meantime, I do not know how time is flying

art

2010-02-25T00:43:00.003+05:30

via @dramaqueen82

2010-01-29T21:48:00.007+05:30

i have taken up heavy duty regurgitation of all things offline, I mean the films, art, music,people and books(the ones you can hold in your hand and smell,yes) I am currently scouring through on my other think pad, all this while focussing on my writing for a bunch of projects which have been jumping in the air for my attention for quite some time now..which include a string of almost finished films..
so I'll be there for a bit,on the other page,writing,and doing some pattern making,joining the dots,doing all the stuff that makes the hands grimy,so to speak, and I'd be kicked if you joined in the mad merrymaking if you so feel inclined.
:)

the state of mind shares this

rushing the impressionist to safety

2009-10-28T11:33:00.016+05:30

dramaqueen:
"
Paul Gauguin: All I see when I look at your paintings is just that you paint too fast.
Vincent Van Gogh: You look too fast!

"

sludge:
"

"

intoxicated elephant:
"

..."

Q: "what is animation,again?"
A:.. (while sludge and dramaqueen await the reply from the merry elephant,the howlin' wolf sings in the distance, the speech bubble hovers over the audience patiently.)

gone 'til november

2009-10-19T12:25:00.003+05:30

a precious friend made this little film for tv a long while back.
isn't it lovely how he's spilling his guts.

2009-10-19T10:17:00.001+05:30

2009-10-15T13:30:00.002+05:30

I have often wondered at the resilience of the raw brick and concrete building at my design school at NID..
The electrical wires are all stripped bare and tied together in knots
It has always charged me to see the wiring just so.
It feels raw and waiting and responsible and truthful.
It feels like great things are possible, that things can be cleaned out, that many heads have leaned back against these very brick walls and thought the same.

Prashant Miranda breathed around the same corridors at another time around my institute. And this is where we loop back,..
The electrical wires are all stripped bare and tied together in knots

2009-10-15T01:40:00.011+05:30

The Intoxicated Elephant is an experiment with image,words and sound.
I'm posting there for a couple of fortnights.
duplicating one post here,
thereon we'll be snuggled in there for a bit.
.
.
While reading John Steinbeck's 'East of Eden' which reads quite like this,
and watching Shiva Soundsystem compose for the innards of an auto rickshaw factory in Aurangabad quite clearly for the sound of it,
I work on that feeling of noire which creeps as we explore that particular shade of blue

It then proceeded to melt into all the colours at once and mellowed into sounds from Fever RaY
with

Lucy and
.
.

.
Bart
.
.

.
.
and well,with both of them
.
.

like just so..
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.
.
.

2009-10-14T19:32:00.002+05:30

2009-10-04T12:45:00.003+05:30

Jean Luc Godard making an appearance in his film 'Prénom Carmen',1983.
The place of the young adult in every day living is a thought JLG pulls out into the sunlight for airing now and again, sometimes bang in the middle of a perfectly linear storyline.
Especially in his films after the Maoist period,...why there's the Nouvelle Vague,Forever Mozart, Eloge D'Amour,this after his complete deconstruction of cinema,breaking it down to sound and visuals,putting the two tracks of sound up against each other,dragging them to the other ends of the room till they stayed there stretched,tortured ,reaching once more for their halves.
He made his peace with their inseparability.
He raised them to life through the years till they had reached a peaceful lull in Eloge d'Amour. The critics applauded the madman's return to 'watchable' cinema ,and sat down to nibble at what he offered.
The critics save some are never interested in the ghosts between the frame,the awkward silences,.. what it took for these silences to gather their full throated tone.

Clip

2009-09-30T16:36:00.006+05:30

This is Beats Antique from Istanbul,Mochu shared this nugget with me awhile back,and I thought I'd put it up ,since it's on an infinite loop on my machine anyway..

I would actually download it from Youtube and upload it on Vimeo for the love of a better interface,but here it is till then.

The dancer travels with the troupe,and I think it's a superb way of emphasizing the bands draw between traditional music making and the digital appendages.
In fact,that's why I feel the video fits in well as well,not a bad job done at all,..
I especially love the interspersing of WW stock footage with the treated concert videos,...like this could be happening in a preservation jar in some biology lab with snakes from the other jars looking on or something..
.
.
.
:):)

.

2009-09-30T16:15:00.006+05:30

Just thought I'd FIFO this article I came across, amongst other things I find his breaking down of life between lenses hilarious.
then I like orange.
ahah
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.
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Here's the article: Covering a Dust Storm: Tim Wimborne
an excerpt..
"..6). Multi-task. After making an initial file of 6 pictures, my morning included shooting more in the continuing red gale. I shot more as commuters started pouring into the city by road and foot, capturing television footage for my RTN colleagues, filing more, ducking back across the harbour to take my sick wife to the doctor, texting colleagues so we were both on the same page, dressing my son, packing his lunch, taking him to a friend’s house, eating breakfast, filing video footage and getting more pictures on the wire as the dust began to thin..."

Observation: Is it just me or does the Reuters logo look like a minimalist DoorDarshan logo(of the old watch-the-logo-form-fullscreen type from the 80s)!
.
.
.
Oh and for those who still can't listen to drum and bass from the last post,I've got the perfect track attached to get you to hear a ''golly rhythm''.
maths,it is.

Music Club by Chase & Status
Download now or listen on posterous

02 Music Club.mp3 (8763 KB)

Posted via email from Milann's posterous

Ola.

2009-09-28T12:02:00.003+05:30

Can't Get Enough by Chase & Status
Download now or listen on posterous

01 Can't Get Enough.mp3 (8139 KB)

hello me hearties
something to charge your mornings up with
fooling with music and the visual,you'll know more about it in a bit.
but then you've heard a lot of my 'in a bit's
ahahahhaha
introducing drum and bass
create your entry points into watching my films
I'm shooting like a manic.

This is Chase & Status.

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2009-09-20T23:21:00.006+05:30

We're kicking it off.
We went
and then we went again.
This a clip we cut while traveling,with the animation shot on the nice white washed wall outside our bathroom in Leh.
All fingers and nudges,but yea sometimes the best stuff comes on the go.
Shot on a wee little digicam we bummed offa a friend of mine from engineering.

There's a site
and then there's a reading.
You will be invited.

Welcome to Ladakh.
:)

Rohtang

2009-07-30T15:59:00.001+05:30

In Rohtang...
that’s when I saw them first, the wild horses..
I must learn to keep some things safe in my mind, away from words, away from film. Away.
That's what I thought when I saw them.

.
.
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I walked up to this beautiful brown muscled mare and sat on the ground reaching my hand out.
I sat and kept the hand out.
She was grazing by a little stream.
She stopped and looked at me and stood still too.
She walked up.
She came a foot away from my hand and looked at me, raising her head to my eye level.
We stared for a bit.
She touched my hand with her muzzle, and stepped back. A second later ,she leaned it into my palm. I could feel her weight in the push.
We could have ridden, I know.
We could have ridden.
There will be time soon.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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the Pang bowl

2009-07-30T15:52:00.001+05:30

We reached the Pang bowl today, 40 kms of land stretched out greenish purple in between the watching, immovable,.. almost merciless mountains.
Aditya and I walked far into the open.
There was a strange vacuous feeling in my throat.
I felt like running.
In the middle of these unnamed, opaque entities.
You know those parallel streams of consciousness running at the back of your head? They lurk around in your head a lot here, this land seems to invoke them. Siddhartha and I have developed a method to deal with them..we let them out into the mountains for some air, then we take them back in when we’ve had enough time on our own.
It works.
The mountains seem to be able to take a lot.

It was my grandfather’s death anniversary today,

We’re in the middle of the clouds.
I can feel him around.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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En route to Leh

2009-07-30T15:44:00.001+05:30

We reached Surajtal late in the morning
the air was getting chillier,
lighters find no combustible air to combust, the oxygen levels are very low..

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Manali,Himachal Pradesh

2009-07-30T15:30:00.001+05:30

We stayed at Pachan at the Army transit camp, ten kilometers from Manali(Himachal Pradesh). Pachan is a village by the Beas,the river that strings all the people of this region together.
It has been only a day in the valley and Aditya and Siddhartha want to live here.Siddhartha imagines a studio and Aditya says all he’ll need is a net connection.

Distances seem large. We walk a short distance and are out of breath.After a brief spell of headaches,a little sleep and an ink pen breaking open in Siddhatha’s pen box again, order seems to be restored for the time being.

We stopped at a little tea stall by the river, the little tin roofs are dripping from the rain and huge highway trucks thunder past,the diesel fumes seem unbearable for some reason in this aseptic air. We sat on wooden benches facing each other, Siddhartha got out his sketch book and I set to cleaning his stained pens.
That’s when I saw the carpet weaving looms inside the shop, and got talking to Khila, the lady who ran the tea shop.
Khila sells ski suits to tourists, has a running kitchen and teaches girls from surrounding areas weaving in the evenings. She says it doesn’t earn her much, and there’s no use for rich people to learn how to weave a carpet, but it does become useful for young girls from the surrounding areas who are from struggling families.

We spoke to her about why she wove carpets,and she said it was a way to remember where she is from.She said her sons studied in English medium schools,because it was needed to survive today,to be taken seriously, but culture was ‘something like child birth’. When a child is born, she is attached to the mother by the umbilical cord. It must be cut, … but the memory of it will pull the child back. It must.
If it doesn’t, then no mother can do anything.
The child must remember to remember.

I’ll upload our conversation through a short clip soon.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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2009-07-27T13:24:00.000+05:30

we've got a brand new video up here
the journey til Manali,part of the crew coming together for the recce!!
we need pledges everybody!!

sarchu

2009-07-27T13:17:00.001+05:30

we landed at the army transit camp at sarchu,
that's our hut,far in the distance at the right.

wait till you see the videos of this place.

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blotted

2009-07-27T13:14:00.001+05:30

siddhartha's pens can't handle altitude change.
i seem to be the only one getting my hand stained.
black ink all the time.every time.

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manali

2009-07-27T13:10:00.001+05:30

we reached manali after spending a night with a joint family which somehow managed to focus the whole night on eating.
children were wailing.
uncles were staring
siddhartha amused himself with the blue night lights
Aditya kept seeing his mother.

In Manali,we offloaded 2 very wet rucksacks from the base of the bus.
Sid obviously had wrapped his clothes neatly in plastic.That's him jumping around in the background.with mirth.
BL*$%& $ell.

lesson learnt:
blankets soak lots of water.
don't carry them.ever.

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Siddhartha

2009-07-09T18:42:00.004+05:30

...and this is one of our fugitive artists furiously at work, at his desk at the National Institute of Design,as we speak,..as you read :)
Siddhartha,who's going to help piece together the puzzle in Ladakh...and who has created the caricatures of the team,down below, for a start
gogogo!

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Z

2009-07-09T15:22:00.002+05:30

This is how education used to be in Ladakh
By the side of a hand dug irrigation canal
a mani wall running through the fields...

I'd have loved to be taught how to write a story here..
or even engineering graphics for that matter!

a pity education everywhere is becoming like this.
A school in Ladakh,in 2009,looks like the image above.
from Milann's posterous

elementary

2009-07-09T14:59:00.002+05:30

I believe the one thing that gets me about exploring Ladakh is the absolute evidence of us not being able to get anywhere without the elements
earth
wind
fire
water
ether
imagine a place where you see the people living by the forces
bowing before it
embracing it
writing their songs on the elements
on rocks over which the water can flow and push the song ahead
writing the stories on flags,so the wind can sing it to the mountain sides
it's all about the motion,isn't it?
writing it on the divine circle,the prayer wheels in natural motion singing singing through their natural course
round and round

it's our responsibility to remember the song
to sing it out and let others know
to remember what we are,and what our origins are.

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and hopping :)

2009-07-08T00:28:00.009+05:30

We just went from 5% to 13% in 3 days here :)
We're going to keep the steam! So people really know that if a couple of people really believe in something,it can happen!
Every 5$ counts.

Thank you for all the support!
A big thank you to all the people who've seen me through a lot already over the years and who have joined in here as well :)
and to all the people who don't know me but still believed in the idea,welcome aboard, we will make sure this is worth it!

I'm excited to announce a new addition to our team since this project kickstarted, Siddhartha Tripathi, an animation film maker and fluid illustrator, who has decided to collaborate with our explorations in Ladakh!

AND
with Siddhartha on board, we've decided to get all people interested in a little more detail on board as well.

So for a 100$ Pledge, Siddhartha will tinker to make caricatures of you,something to maybe catch the essence of the person you are!
We plan to couple these sketches with the artwork we will produce in Ladakh, in our showcase event.
Bringing all the faces of the people who made it possible,together :)

Presenting the first set of caricatures in till now, of the team
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stepping it up. 5% and looking.

2009-07-03T01:05:00.002+05:30

I have been absolutely blown away by the number of people coming forward to support . But we still need more pledges!!
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over the last couple of days we've gotten offering to play the guitar for children
from a potter
from film production workers who still wonder at the super lack of a purely 'entertaining' objective in this project and hence want all the more to be a part(!)
from a graphic artist
from an installation artist,a product designer and close accomplice
from an artist who became an animator
a textile artist who's worked with the Indian Army
a songwriter
350.org
from a native who feels the organizations working in Ladakh, work only for themselves
from 2 people who have served in the Indian Army in the region
from a senior from engineering school who might bring forward the film projectors his company makes
from a loaned DSLR
from my favorite resident poet preparing to skip in whenever she wants
to my mother who is the most excited, about us reaching Zoji la Pass

I have no words to communicate my feelings for these who have given of themselves so selflessly.

I read this line today which I found fitting,
'

Everyone who is honest,is interesting

'
So it seems. :)

The problems seem to be how to get the foundations in top shop shape before letting people in or figuring a way of doing this inspite of all those of corporate origins craning their necks to look for the source of these thoughts.
:):)
Some people have not known how to react.
They've called me and have wanted to just talk.
I've been talking.
:)

More in a bit,I'm on the road..

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Dajo

2009-06-23T11:50:00.006+05:30

Thank you all my backers for pitching in your support so soon,we're 3 % funded at Kickstarter !

I'm super excited to let you know that we just got a confirmation from a master shadow artist, Radha Kumud Sharma (fondly called Dajo by people who know him), belonging to Bolpur near Vishwabharati Santiniketan, West Bengal. Priyanka Chhabra,one of the core members of our film collective had shot a documentary with him awhile ago,and his story is humbling.

So,Dajo says he'd love to be a part of our explorations through the region.:):) And if all goes well with the funding, we'll have some super magic coming your way as soon as we get started on our recce!

Dajo, has been touring for the last 40 years through Jammu and Kashmir across Himachal to Gujarat by foot, in India teaching science and narrating stories to the school students in villages and towns across the country. He uses the play of light and his finger movements to create different animals, birds and human beings.

In basic science, he covers subjects such as Geography, Biology, Chemistry; some favorite topics being the solar and lunar eclipse and cell division in plants and animal. And the kids love him :)
Have a look ...

Jaya, you will absolutely love his narrative on the 'Life of Buddha', shadow art with hand cut stencils, waiting for him to come into town so we can start working with him :)

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Hello world :):)

2009-06-22T10:57:00.005+05:30

Come,come be part of the idea.
I pitched it to these guys at Kickstarter.com in the US and they loved it.
Tag.

Project Edza for Ladakh

2009-06-20T16:33:00.003+05:30

just taking you along my visual journey...
digging for the common thread..this will be a series..

I'm writing, and it feels like I'm onto nitro mode already :):)
thank you everybody who's jumped onto the same ship with me,it's only going to happen if these energies are fused.
looking out for more people in the water who'd like to jump on
feel free to share a thread you pick.

Below,The Namgyal Tsemo Gompa above the town of Leh, Ladakh.

Below, a lama puts on a mask before performing at the
Hemis Festival at Hemis Monastery, also called the 'Roof of the world'.

Below,A cow grazes along the shore at Pangong Lake,near Spangmik,
Ladakh.

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immersion in Ladakh soon :):)

2009-06-19T15:09:00.001+05:30

Download now or listen on posterous

02 Nomads Of The Tibetian High Plateau.mp3 (8561 KB)

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how to stitch a boat

2009-06-13T19:56:00.005+05:30

in Kerala..

sometimes your mother's point-and-shoot can make you miss the view finder.

any.all.a.

:):)

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LADAKH

2009-06-09T11:28:00.009+05:30

We're going to Ladakh. :)
Preparations are underway..

Here's what a bunch of us animators, sculptors, textile designers, analysts and film makers plan to do about exploring Ladakh, a part of the Tibetan plateau at the northern tip of India, 3500 metres above sea level. We're talking about a place opened to the general public by the Indian Govt only as recently as 1974,and since then has been documented only by explorers as an object of fascination,an ancient future. In the process the Ladakhi people have started making strong efforts to save their craft,save their tradition from ideas of modernization, save it from well, matchbox living spaces.

So we're going in with an animator who's worked on the content and art direction of Virgin Comics dealing with Indian mythology to come in and interact with the thangka artists of Ladakh, to explore with them and understand where they come from.You can see some of his work here: Abhishek.
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We're going in with a textile designer to figure the original methods adopted by the Ladakhi people in weaving,and the unique design methods of this culture which was on one of the oldest trade routes connecting Central Asia to China centuries ago.
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We're also going to try and capture the completely oral narrative forms and music in Ladakh with a group of film makers and a sound engineer.
And we're going in with analysts to study the sustainable means the Ladakhi people adopt to survive in such climes considering their only natural source of water is glacial meltings!
More on this one in a bit!
People who've been reading this blog,might remember me talking about this part of our country earlier. Well we're going there now :)
If you're interested on staying posted on this project mail me or leave a thought in the comment box.we need all the support we can get!!!

2009-06-05T11:16:00.007+05:30

Today I got a brown paper package tied up with string.
I must be in the only profession where one can still get these regularly:):):)
I think packages from the Indian Postal Service are the most brilliant ever,and the postmen working inside those beaten buildings are the most genuinely good tempered people.They work in a maze of shelves and cupboards surrounded by indigo blue Indian Post bags in the midst of wooden furniture so weathered,the edges were shining..sigh..
..I met a bunch of 5 really old men there,who fussed around my package and asked for all forms of identity proofs before they let me even see anything. I completely enjoyed the bullying,it sounded like my grandfather cribbing about how irresponsible everyone was getting about their belongings(I was 6 days late in collecting the pack),only there were five grandpas here.After fifteen minutes of talking,a cool drink in hand, I was given the package without any legitimate address proof whatsoever, chatting with one of them about how names of people in the south of India work..my name is milann tress john,my brother is jitin abraham john,my father is john abraham,yes he was in the Army,yes ..in the Para regiment,no I've never jumped from a plane..
.
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which DHL employee would you like to have a conversation like that with ,huh?:)

2009-05-18T09:41:00.010+05:30

Just back from a visit to my design school,I'm quite done with the artists griping about that want for the outlet for expression,
you can draw? go out into the street and start that sketching for Chrissake!
you can shoot with that camera? don't think.don't waste tape. shoot exactly when inspiration strikes.nobody is watching. do something.
you can inspire people? find a platform. we need all the inspiration we can get. choose a cause. check its credibility.Be responsible about what you dispense.
Choose your medium,can everybody please start making themselves heard,please?!!

This is What I saw Today ,with Richard, he sketches in from the tube,from the street,from dinner,from all over the place..just sketching every day in..
Thank you Richard,for letting me put up your superb sketches up on my blog.

an ode to joy

2009-05-13T07:19:00.002+05:30

How to draw a cow-II at Vellore,Tamil Nadu,India

2009-04-22T12:29:00.014+05:30

It gives me great pleasure to begin the written documentation of this trip through the western coast of India from Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

For many days over the last 3 years I’d been sitting by the side of a road drinking chai at film school wondering when I’d finally know enough to set out and capture exactly these people, these stories of India and make them seen to the people who’ve forgotten how to see .That day is here. I have 52 tapes of adopted footage.The edit is on..

A group of young Americans and Indian students (Yale graduates,climate change analysts,university students),a solar powered band(the members of the band are nuclear physicists, film makers, lawyers,conservationists), a Czechoslovakian(film maker,conservationist) entered the school premises where the little children happened to be starting their day singing a nursery rhyme, ‘Frère Jacques’ (or ‘Are you sleeping,brother John’ in French). Little Tamilian children singing French somewhere in the middle of nowhere..

The founder,Ramu Manivannan talks about why he set up this school for the rural kids of interior Tamil Nadu, he talks about Gandhi..
(for those who disagree with Gandhi,...he inspires a lot of people,as I proceed with my writing,I'll show you how...he's turning out to be the role model for people who take things in their own hands and help themselves..more on this later.)…

Manivannan talks about how you can’t get anywhere if you don’t learn first
how to take care of yourself, your land, your soil,.
unless you know how to mend your own clothes,
unless you know how to plant that tree you study about,
unless you know how to put bricks together and build a wall..
they're called life skills..
You haven’t learn anything unless you couple all of this with learning language ,geography, science, math.

(that's Solar Punch up there,our band preparing to sing with the kids)
'it's about integrating mainstream curriculum with life skills like farming,weaving and natural building,about non violent conflict resolution,about the energy and teachings of different traditions being a part of the learning...',says Ramu.
They have built their own buildings in this school, they make their own food grown in their fields, they teach these,the children of farmers, organic farming,they have their own vegetable patches. The kids learn while the adults unlearn.

200 years ago, the villagers of the area cut down the tropical forests down to chase the tigers away. Today they’re growing it back inch by inch. The tigers must come back.

This is Matthew from England,who's been working here since last year with his friends.This year he got down more friends they're doing a natural building workshop with 10-12 students from all over the world so they'll get started building a kitchen for the kids with biogas in mind,he's getting into rain water harvesting,organic farming and growing a food forest(a forest that mimics natural forests but supplies food and material for living).
.

I’m attaching pics of them…the videos will follow when I have clearance.
watch this space.

bonobos

2009-04-18T01:03:00.006+05:30

I thought while i'm talking of far flung things I might as well share some far flung reading...take time out to read Ian Parker's article in the New Yorker here...
It's about the Bonobo. It's one of the 4 great apes along with the orangutan,chimpanzee and gorilla...only the least researched...can you believe the species were given their name only in 1954?! And the researchers couldn't work in the field till 1972 because of the war in Congo!

Here are some excerpts from Ian's visit to Congo...this guy can get really funny at times,I wish all my school readers were written like this..(!)..

"Live bonobos had already been seen outside Congo, but they, too, had been misidentified as chimps. At the turn of the century, the Antwerp zoo held at least one. Robert Yerkes, a founder of modern primatology, briefly owned a bonobo. In 1923, he bought two young apes, and called one Chim and the other Panzee. In “Almost Human,” published two years later, he noted that they looked and behaved quite differently. Panzee was timid, dumb, and foul-tempered. “Her resentment and anger were readily aroused and she was quick to give them expression with hands and teeth,” Yerkes wrote. Chim was a joy: equable and eager for new experiences. “Seldom daunted, he treated the mysteries of life as philosophically as any man.” Moreover, he was a “genius.” Yerkes’s description, coupled with later study of Chim’s remains, made it plain that he was Pan paniscus: bonobos had a good reputation even before they had a name. (Panzee was a chimpanzee; but, in defense of that species, her peevishness was probably connected to a tuberculosis infection.) Chim died in 1924, before his species was recognized.

For decades, “pygmy chimpanzee” remained the common term for these apes, even after “bonobo” was first proposed, in a 1954 paper by Eduard Tratz, an Austrian zoologist, and Heinz Heck, the director of the Munich zoo. (They suggested, incorrectly, that “bonobo” was an indigenous word; they may have been led astray by Bolobo, a town on the south bank of the Congo River. In the area where Hohmann works, the species is called edza.) In the thirties, that zoo had three members of Pan paniscus, and Heck and Tratz had studied them. By the time their paper, the first based on detailed observations of bonobo behavior, was published, the specimens were dead, allegedly killed by stress during Allied air raids. (The deaths have been cited as evidence of a bonobo’s innate sensitivity; the zoo’s brute chimpanzees survived.) As Frans de Waal has noted, Heck and Tratz’s pioneering insights—they wrote that bonobos were less violent than chimps, for example—did not become general scientific knowledge, and had to be rediscovered."

"......When a researcher has access to a species about which little is known, and whose every gesture seems to echo a human gesture, and whose eyes meet a human gaze, there is a temptation simply to stare, until you have seen enough to tell a story. That is how Hohmann judged the work of Dian Fossey, who made long-term observations of gorillas in Rwanda, and the work of Jane Goodall, at least at the start of her career. “They lived with the apes and for the apes,” he said. “It was ‘Let’s see what I’m going to get. I enjoy it anyway, so whatever I get is fine.’ ” And this is how Hohmann regarded the Japanese researchers, for all their perseverance. The Wamba site had produced a lot of data on social and sexual relations, and Kano published a book about bonobos, which concluded with the suggestion that bonobos illuminated the evolution of human love. But “what the Japanese produced was not really satisfying,” Hohmann said. “It was narrative and descriptive. They are not setting out with a question. They want to understand bonobos.” Moreover, the Japanese initially lured bonobos with food, as Goodall had lured chimpanzees. This was more than habituation. At Wamba, bonobos ate sugarcane at a field planted for them. The primatological term is “provisioning”; Hohmann calls it opening a restaurant. (As an example of the possibly distorting impact of provisioning, Hohmann noted that the Wamba females had far shorter intervals between births than those at Lomako.)..."....

...while we're here you might want to look up Frans Lanting's(Nat Geo ace photographer) coverage of the Evolution of Life through his photographs here..:), the picture above of the elusive Bonobo is also his...
I now have a new thing to add to my wish list :) : I must hang around bonobos in Congo for awhile.

How to draw a cow

2009-04-15T16:34:00.016+05:30

I've decided to start a process of sharing some of the insanely brilliant insights of the purest citizens of India,the people in the lands far flung,in the middle of nowhere, I came across as I work,something more useful I figured than just sharing my views on the degeneration of IQs in the cities.

I've been working with a bunch of people[the Indian Youth Climate Network(IYCN) to be precise] who went on the road from Chennai to Delhi through villages and small cities in 3 battery charged vehicles,one vegetable oil fuelled buggy and a solar panelled truck recording people's initiatives to battle climate change.
You would be surprised by the absolutely contagious spirit of the super positive people empowering themselves all over the country...from killing their usage of LPG completely,to fully solar electrified establishments,to devicing methods to make their water potable without waiting for any govt to move it's freaking ass!

To give you some context,after Indira Gandhi's great Green Revolution (which you must remember from your geography books)which piled our fields with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the 'green' revolution left the soil completely infertile(just that what we never read about it)...just like a drug abused body which needs rehab quite desperately.
Some people have started the healing process and it has been my pleasure to document the 50 odd hours of footage shot on the road!We don't hear about these people,have you realised? Just like we don't hear about the entire continent of Africa ever in the news till they play cricket there!

I actually woke up to the 72% of our population who have no faces,no voices in our media because of this road trip.

Now,for the people who're still wondering about who funds this kind of a tour in the first place,could I please announce that the air around you is changing because of global warming. Some people are waking up to it and doing something about it,while others who still think it's a cause meant for those activists on the streets are probably going to be in for a rude shock when this recession really kicks in. And well if you're part of the urban ghetto and can't get yourself out of bed and don't feel energised to do quite anything,here's a cause to puzzle over if you're quite done with figuring the meaning of life.

I intend to document the solutions found on this road trip gradually on this blog for those interested in reading more,but let's start with us,the urbane who are just not helping,starting with the Nano.
When I heard about the TATA Nano coming out in the numbers it was claiming to come out in,I felt completely helpless. Here, we were trying to push zero carbon or battery operated cars,and while our budding automobile designers in an Eames' NID were still busy building fuel guzzling hot rods for their chance to go abroad on an exchange program,Ratan Tata was releasing a bunch of cockroaches called Nanos on the streets to increase the average individual's carbon footprint.
so now we'll have more cars on our superb roads
more people letting go of riding buses or trains because they now have cars
more cars bought per household
more petrol being used
more petrol needing to be shipped in
..this list just won't end.

anyway, a couple of days after this thought,I heard about someone already putting a plan into place with a super vision,
this is Shai Agassi,talking on TED....have a look

and this is where you can see instantly how this guy has made govts go for change!

aliens in my pudding

2009-04-14T13:01:00.001+05:30

national anathema

yesterday i went to a multiplex.to see the fast and the furious.
the national anthem was played.
i was on a phone call outside.
i came in to find 6 indians on top of my friend from the abroad.
he speaks very little english.
so he spoke.
and they screamed.
they were screaming because he sat down 5 seconds before the anthem finished.
they yelled, " We have let you into this country!"
what lovely nationalism.
their almost 60 year old father yelled with them.screamed of people disrespecting his age.
in the intermission a young lawyer from the group came forward and with a sickly sweet smile asked only for an apology.
apologise to whom, for what country?

i stand for national anthems.I wait for a film's credits to roll completely.i don't correct american spelling.
god made ten commandments.
we still kill.
we still steal.
we still sleep with our neighbor's wives.

which law?
which canon?
which country?
which colour of skin is everyone yelling about?

the guy with me by the end was so sure they would never get the point,he was ready to maybe apologise for the arising of such a situation.
he told me to stand behind him because he thought these indians would jump me next for defending him.those indians.

must we apologise for created situations now?to ensure peace?
will we still nurture extremists amongst us?
the mob loves to rant.i stand. i know my brother stands.
but that's all i'm sure of anymore.
i know we both stand.
well,that's a number,I guess.
two.

credit roll

2009-03-13T13:02:00.006+05:30

for jitin for towering over me,ready to rap me on the knuckles if my cloud wandered too far out of sight
for jitin who made the cloud break out into rain
for isacco who reminded me what it felt like to take my socks off and feel the grass
for ankur who threw shoes at my cloud and made me laugh with him
for swaati for making me run into the sea
for divya who has always dug into the earth to make space for me to breathe
for priyanka who breaks out of her path every time unquestioningly to wander with me
for tanushri for clutching her life energies in her fist and holding it out to me on call
for tanushri for keeping dinner for me in case I did come in late
for unnati for making my worries hers
for arpit's wooden toy
for karthik for pushing me where it hurts and kicking my very best out
for akash who jumped onto the wagon and laughed with delight at the canvases i spread out.we were no strangers after all.
for amitabh for everything and for nothing
for sibi for leading an intrusion into an embrace
for harsha for keeping check on the good vibrations
for anupam for volunteering services from a hospital bed
for angshuman,because we're young and wild and free and still enjoying the search.

2009-03-13T12:50:00.004+05:30

and then,with a quick hoist,I shot out into the sky after 72 hours of a shoot
:)

2009-02-23T13:21:00.004+05:30

Shawn Barber.
a mix of illustration in oil which just knocked my breath away.fanTastic movement in the frames!there's a delicate focus on the realism that doesn't topple us into a medical study of anatomy.so goddamn inspiring!!!

2009-02-22T14:33:00.003+05:30

This would be Davy Graham,I'd been following him on the podcast,got a hold of a clip which breathes of all that music I loved,love.
If you see what you like,'angi' is up on the podcast.

bees

2009-02-18T00:27:00.006+05:30

this is a page from the pictorial autobiography of a man called bharath murthy,a friend led me on to his superb logging technique.
this thing he mentions about bees is what got me in splits...
see,I come from this Syrian Catholic Indian family.We say the rosary every day.
At the end of the rosary we join our hands and go to all the elders of the family in birth order and say 'Praise be to Jesus Christ'..
when I was a child,I spent 5 years saying 'Praise bees to Jesus Christ'.
I was always mystified by the bees part.too.

the green,the striped and those in between

2009-02-18T00:26:00.013+05:30

Log 2:

I hate that India's map still looks like this every other corner I turn .
I wonder about the absolute idiots huffing about making these lines.
I wonder how people living there feel about their non existence or existence from map to map.
First we get someone from across oceans to draw b*#@y lines for us.Then we argue about how he was an idiot and huff about what we think of the people beyond that line.
What a tamasha.

Observe the map we,Indians believe to be India.
how many people live in the green and the striped?
Do they have pets?
Should I shrug and continue vegetating?

6th of 6th

2009-02-06T13:31:00.005+05:30

Doing as I'm told Tanu,

the rules:
1. pick the 6th picture from your 6th photos folder
2. tell the story around it
3. pass it on to 6 people

the tale:
cold,winter 2007.I was living vicariously,helpless before this cycle that goes every 2 years through my life..
in other words,my time to TOX had arrived and I was doing the time justice! lol...
I spoke to maybe 3 people over the three months of the spin
stayed holed in rooms
did not sleep
did not eat
and blacked out happily :):):)

my people:
divya
arpit
jitin
anupam
ankur
swaati

mail me your posts if you don't have a blog.i'm interested in the photographs!!

2009-01-31T14:25:00.007+05:30

The poster for my film 'Raju bhai ghar pe nahi hain' which has finally started moving around.

Jayakrishnan Subramanium is responsible for the graphic interpretation up there.

I'm excited as hell.Let's see where this boat goes.:):):):)

2009-01-31T13:28:00.001+05:30

for amitabh
this has been too long coming..
but here it is...
what i have to say to what you said in 'To and Fro-III'

2008-11-22T12:14:00.006+05:30

give me a person who has these two books,fills a questionnaire like just so and you know i'll be hooked to the text coming from this channel.
this is mike mills.

he even considers the strange phenomenon a couple of us here have been observing these days in our surroundings:people celebrating non communication.
i guess it feels better now.the universe ruminates with us apparently!

Refraction on a door.To and fro-III

2008-11-14T12:59:00.007+05:30

Another friend chews on To and fro-II

TO:
'
'over time, we close more doors and focus on those which are most important to us, until the inevitable narrowing at the end'... 'the point is not to attach too much meaning to the form of the door'.... quite an intriguing revelation... and i was thinking the other way round...

if it can become "narrowing" there should be an alternate way of broadening also...towards..something..where u no more feel the existence of any doors..closed or open.... does the sky have any opening to enter?...it is all open...and contains the emptyness... within..or without..
'

and

FRO:
'
I have the perfect reply in a CD somewhere,it's something about a fish.
till the evening though,this will have to do :)

'

2008-11-14T10:51:00.005+05:30

i have to fight putting more of tomasz zarachowicz's work up...
the few water colours i've ever done have struck similar chords.
maybe seeing this up here,will make me put those up as well!

'
..The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.
.. '
S. Plath

i trot through the French up there :..
'In the middle of the night,a solitary light is watchful..'

2008-11-13T14:50:00.002+05:30

have i mentioned that hemingway is a superstar?

reflecting on a door.To and fro-II

2008-11-12T14:46:00.007+05:30

TO:
'I was just thinking that our lives are a set of doors ..When you're young, all doors are potentially open. We try to identify our talents and interests, make educational and professional choices, find our ways into our emotional and sexual maturity — in this process we open some doors and close off others.
At some point, if we a bit lucky and a bit successful, we reach a place in our life where those choices are largely in place and we are doing what we wanted to do, with whomever we want to do it with. Over time, we close more doors and focus on those which are most important to us, until the inevitable narrowing at the end of...
Is there another way of looking @ this ?'

FRO:
'I believe your door analogy could work.
but for me,i think what one starts with is very few doors.doors one
isnt really aware of.we realise their form as we grow when we've
blundered through life enough to realise that some have closed.
their not being open is what gives them a form.
the lack of the opening gives it a shape.
but you go on then and if you're lucky and start trusting your
instinct,sort of surrender to it,then you have the guts to knock on
doors you're not even sure exist.they take form because you believe
they do!
after a little more of walking you forget about doors,about opening or
shutting them,you're free...you take what you will,there is nothing
that can be lost.the analogy of the doors is no longer
required.everything is permeable.
the point is not to attach too much meaning to the form of the door.'

2008-11-08T13:47:00.006+05:30

I am reworking the structure of this blog.
give me a month.
or lesser!

em,and if anyone is wondering,that's belmondo on the ground.godard in the coat and glasses,facing us.last scene of 'A bout de souffle'.
notice:no crowd control.just Coutard and a camera.
I'd like to meet the guy who took this picture.How did he know I'd have liked to see this picture!?!lol..
ffffff.

2008-10-13T16:17:00.001+05:30

2008-09-30T11:18:00.002+05:30

tamacun's up on the podcast.
:) go listen.
and hey stay till the end,do?

2008-09-24T18:14:00.001+05:30

Sit
Vikram Seth

'Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.

The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.'

Nice one,
1010.

peas in the Pod

2008-09-20T10:40:00.008+05:30

my music is playing on that there player on the side everybody.videos and general fooling around will hopefully follow.usual podcast format here.i guess i'll be also more comfortable screening the trailers of my films here,rather than on youtube.
i write what i feel about the music on the page sometimes,and couple them with images,so you might like to have a look at the mother page.
like so...
.
.

posting for 'how is your life today?'
super band i chanced upon. wanted to kick myself when i found out they've been up for some time now.anyway better now than in another year!
...i love the dark floating images of harlequins the piano playing in this song always manages to evoke in my head.
that,and memories of simon and garfunkel.

2008-09-19T12:52:00.003+05:30

been getting mails about the podcast.
lol...
it's quite barren right now,i know.working on it working on it.
not really putting up artist detail on it yet,coz then i'd probably get into trouble for making the music so freely available.
what you can do,is mail me if you want more of a sort of music,i'll make more available,or give you the source.
some of these artists haven't released officially.
so.

2008-09-18T11:17:00.007+05:30

people who know me.you're right,i've flown.
for the time being,this is lowe,on the selby..
.
.
.

i wanted to be a gymnast.lowe wants to be a drummer.
:)

2008-09-14T12:08:00.004+05:30

just in case i didn't make my trajectory of research clear in the last post....
i'm drawing analogies between the film language of 3 of jean luc godard's films with a narrative technique of poetry called vakrokti developed by kuntaka,an indian scholar writing in at around 1012 AD.

the parallels leave me speechless.
lol...

2008-09-12T13:21:00.005+05:30

purely academic work,but i figured it'd be interesting to feature bits of my dissertation writing here...atleast the cuckoo,non theoretical part
.
.
...part of the brief is to analyse the works of a film director of our choice,and highlight our observations on the mere construction or map out our views on the different trajectories we observe springing from the pieces of work.
lol...

an excerpt:

'if all the subjects in the world are discussed philosophically,there is no wonder at all.'
Kuntaka,'Vakrokti-jivita',1012 AD.

a poet catches the ghosts in the spaces between frames,catches the vacant moments we are all familiar with, but had no idea we shared with so many others.few find means of articulating the precise form of these phantoms.
for me,jean luc godard's films read out poetically.i have respect for the manner in which he wields the craft to identify these ghosts and his success in being able to translate the poetry onto the screen.a film maker's journey from the recognition of a feeling,to articulation through the voice or hand,to a plan for bringing these visuals to light via film,on through the edit and sound design,usually causing the end product to be quite a different from what it was at conception.
almost like a human who goes through so much with the passage of time that he loses his identity momentarily when he reaches a point when a thought must be concluded,when the debate must be drawn for the moment to a close.

he is left with what seem to be his values at present and he holds them to the light to compare them with the values he had started out with in the beginning.

has he started believing in a conjured image of himself?(all in an effort to be able to define what he is at the present moment to himself.)the film maker is left with what he has on hand now,and what he remembers of the subject he had considered to make a film on,in the beginning.he is left to wonder which version is closer to the truth.the film is the film maker.the poetry becomes the poet.

2008-09-12T12:54:00.008+05:30

i've not been around...caved into the living quarters,working, working ...and hell enjoying every bit of it: ).the outcome will be screened here by the 23rd of the month.
.
.
.
i can't wait. :):):):):)
so i've been watching the other guys working around me,and the guys pretending to work around me..and it's such a pleasure to come across some superbly tortured through work....featuring sachin george,you could watch him torture himself here...look what he's done with the ten rupee note..

.....sachin's majoring in graphic design.i think it's going to be fun watching him grow.
you might want to toss a line into his space.

2008-09-05T11:14:00.004+05:30

chewing cud.multitasking.
mood boarding.colour creeping out of the grayscale.

.
.
.

the show must begin.

2008-08-30T21:03:00.004+05:30

"unpoemed, unpictured, the potato
bunches its knobby browns on a vastly
superior page..."

S. Plath

2008-08-29T15:40:00.002+05:30

my grandfather's sketch of liz taylor from that time we like long ago.

2008-08-28T19:23:00.005+05:30

ilya kabakov explains how to meet an angel.

.
.
this one below's insane it's called 'the man who flew into space',ilya made it under the watchful eyes of a wary soviet government.sometimes he'd convert his own living quarters into an installation space..

.
.
«The pyrotechnics of the harshly lit Man Who Flew into Space drew the most attention, in part because it looked so Soviet. This man had papered his walls with Soviet propaganda posters and built a makeshift catapult with which he had apparently launched himself through the ceiling, into the beyond. All that remained in the room were the bed, the table scattered with drawings, the catapult and an impressive hole in the ceiling from which light poured in. The room had been boarded up by the authorities, as a text panel informed us in the most bureaucratic of languages.»
-from Ilya Kabakov Flies into His Picture, Amei Wallach Art in America, Nov, 2000.
i like noticing the guy left his shoes behind...lol..

Kabakov insisted that "the very essence of Russian life is communal." He often recounted the dehumanizing effects of communal living, but for him the experience also contained a germ of hope: "It is only when you are lying on the floor of a boarding house of the lowest degree that you begin to look up at the sky: the man who lies in the dust looks upward."

:):):)
a salute to mr.kabakov.

2008-08-28T19:04:00.005+05:30

anon writes in often,he/she put me on to this site.chronic street artist here.
as in this here piece...i have been cursed with interpreting the simplest things as articles of immense complexity.of course it helps conversely to break down the complex too though.lol..
tipping the hat to anon.

2008-08-28T18:58:00.005+05:30

the links on this blog seem to be updating as we speak...
lol...
the selby proliferates .watch watch!

2008-08-27T23:56:00.003+05:30

tagging blog posts is turning out to be like homework.
paperwork.so i have to make efforts.
lol.

2008-08-27T23:39:00.003+05:30

i don't like RSS feeds.i will never have them attached.i will type addresses in the navigation bar.and press enter.

2008-08-22T13:42:00.004+05:30

my friend jay can draw.

you can see his work here

2008-08-22T13:24:00.002+05:30

ok ok can't help it,...this guy's bloody funny!

2008-08-22T10:38:00.010+05:30

'the perfect human',jørgen leth,1967

.
.
i've put the google video link also up there,just in case youtube malfunctions,also it's a longer version.
i'm trying to get my hands on all the parts of the film 'the 5 obstructions',by lars von trier (2003),which came as a play on the film 'the perfect human'.in the film,lars creates obstructions in the film making process for his mentor jørgen,the assignments being an attempt to wean his mentor off of his self imposed isolation.
to me,parts of the film incorporate very colonialist thoughts,...the white man's nightmare could be and should be laughed at.
but it's an interesting look at what i keep fighting with myself, when i place myself as the director ,the observer and direct my actors to move.
here's the trailer of 'the 5 obstructions'..

2008-08-22T10:10:00.001+05:30

*
*

.dreka.

2008-08-21T19:31:00.007+05:30

rodrgio and gabriela, courtesy the tiger.made my day :).
.
.

the track 'ixtapa' over here should be the theme music for this site!
soul wrenching guitaring.ixtapa,i hear is a sweet town in mexico.sweet.more writing later.

2008-08-21T12:24:00.003+05:30

david shrigley is cuckoo.please see his artwork.

2008-08-20T18:03:00.011+05:30

hello.i believe you must get your hands on this book,i chanced upon it the first week i entered design school and since, have considered him to be a genius,it's on amazon here

paul smith.
(P.S.:that cosmic connection thing is happening again,i put this post up a coupla days back,and suddenly the bloody paul smith book in the library is changing tables like a mad man all over the place.people are even hiding it.a close friend came up and looked me in the eye and asked if i knew about paul smith.gak! eeep?...741.6 everyone,the book's there!)
.
.
so.:):).
paul smith's got a gremlin of a creative bug.good god.what freaking brilliant energy levels.
like alan fletcher,the fabulous, once said,"what distinguishes designer sheep from designer goats is the ability to stroke a cliché until it purrs like a metaphor." : )
paul smith is on ketchup bottles.and his stores proliferate his germ.down below's a pic of his store at westbourne.
.
.

i mean this skirt now,just shakes the place for me...the bloody detailing,the way he carries forward a motif(he's been using his striped mini cooper all over.on everything.) on the front
.
.

.
.
back
.
.

.
.
and in between: )
.
.

what a beautiful mind,makes me fuzzy all over when people take the pains to get their hands slimy with detail.ffff.

2008-08-20T17:13:00.003+05:30

2008-08-20T17:09:00.004+05:30

scrumptious coffee table,this.
uff.

2008-08-20T12:18:00.005+05:30

this is jillian ditner,an artist from toronto,
the one below is called 'corner',i like the trajectory of thought,so obviously visible from piece to another.like frames of thought.
.
.

she shares a site with drew khan another artist from canada,an interestingly similar tone of wistfulness in their cumulative work..

.
.
the one above is called 'detached' : )

.
.
the one above is called 'missed'.
like someone who saw my film once commented,'i think you have interesting concerns.'
i like the concerns here.

2008-08-04T14:48:00.007+05:30

so,this is a site i've started nurturing an addiction to,it's by this guy todd selby,who's taken to documenting slightly oblique people in their living environs.so many stories,the one that got me the most was of grace and kenyan...seemed like a fairytale.they actually live here.this is actually their home.if it adds any to the effect,these pics were taken 5 days back.
.
.

.
.
..maybe together we can get somewhere,you've got a fast car..

2008-08-04T13:38:00.005+05:30

what i've been doing,where i've been at.

2008-08-04T12:58:00.006+05:30

itchy and scratchy again.
damn.
the image just below is of the plains of mongolia.the dream theatre for too long now.

i've got the itch again.planning to set off.
have a look at this photography blog by dan eckstein, documenting his travels as a profession.

2008-08-04T12:56:00.002+05:30

2008-08-04T12:44:00.002+05:30

meryl smith's sludge.

2008-08-04T10:57:00.002+05:30

please keep a track of the music you love by signing up on last.fm.
i could cry with the amount of music i rediscover there.

2008-08-04T10:41:00.002+05:30

belmondo needs to live again.
because milann believes again.lol..

2008-08-04T10:20:00.006+05:30

for the guy who brought me back to life today.
hello world.
listening to music here,you could tap in by the hour.
i'll see you around.

to and fro.with no permission.

2008-07-05T15:40:00.006+05:30

TO :

"
.
.
June 30,2008.
I always believed in serpendity and coincindences ...some of my senstive moments in my life have been great coincidences I think these episodes have been happening to all of us and we always used to feel "It couldn't be just coincidence."

I was wondering are these events sheer coincidence or because of our mental telepathy or psychic stirrings?

Rational
I feel there are two features of coincidences not well known among us.First,we tend to overlook the powerful reinforcement of coincidences, both waking and in dreams, in our memories. Non-coincidental events do not register in our memories with nearly the same intensity.
Second, we fail to realize the extent to which highly improbable events occur daily to everyone. It is not possible to estimate all the probabilities of many paired events that occur in our daily lives.We often tend to assign coincidences a lesser probability than they deserve.

Reason
Our brains are fantastic pattern recognition engines, a characteristic which is highly useful for learning, but it does cause the brain to lend excessive importance to unremarkable events. Considering how many words, names,people and ideas a person is exposed to in any given day and we sometimes encounter the same information again within a short time. When that occasional intersection occurs, the brain promotes the information because the two instances make up the beginnings of a sequence. What we fail to notice is the hundreds or thousands of pieces of information which aren't repeated, because they do not conform to an interesting pattern.

Coincidences themselves are usually just an artifact of perception. We tend to underestimate the probability of coinciding events, so our expectations are at odds with reality. And non-coincidental events do not grab our attention with anywhere near the same intensity, because coincidences are patterns, and the brain actually stimulates us for successfully detecting patterns… hence their inflated value. In short, patterns are habit-forming.

Logical

Proablity says in a random selection of twenty-three persons there is a 50 percent chance that at least two of them celebrate the same birthdate.
The calculation is straightforward. First find the probability that everyone in a group of people have different birthdates (X) and then subtract this fraction from one to obtain the probability of at least one common birthdate in the group (P), P = 1 - X. Probabilities range from 0 to 1, or may be expressed as 0 to 100%. For no coincident birthdates a second person has a choice of 364 days, a third person 363 days, and the nth person 366 - n days. So the probability for all different birthdates becomes
365!
--------------------- = Xn
(365-n)!*(365^n)

With its factorials the last equality is not especially useful unless one possesses the capability of handling very large numbers.When n = 23, one finds X = 0.493 and P = 0.507. This shows that the probability of at least two people sharing a common birthdate rises slowly, at first passing just less than 12% probability with ten people, rising through 50% probability corresponding to twenty-three people,reaching 90% probability in a group of forty-one people. This means that on the average, out of ten random groups of forty-one persons, in nine of them at least two persons will celebrate identical birthdates. No mysterious forces are needed to explain this coincidence.

Experimental

In a experiment of asking people what was more likely from a lotto draw (6 numbers 'randomly' drawn from 40):
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
or
4, 13, 18, 23, 31, 37 (or any arbitrary non-sequential set)

Invariably they went for the second option (unless they already understood the concept or were second guessing their 'answer')
A summation of the reasoning was along the lines of "I'd remember if those numbers came out, but they never have"
how often do you look at strangers who were same dress or same car as yours on the road? You always notice it.

More to write.

"

FRO:
.
..

"
July 1,2008.
your articulation is impressive.
possibly that is what i struggle with as well...i mean the fight
always seems to be building the language which can allow me to
communicate what i can sense.
i have ended up building multiple vocabularies to only a little beyond
the natal stage unfortunately.hell,but the effort is on,and is
sometimes so deceptive it feels like I'm actally doing nothing at all.
lol...
anyway,yes, i believe we choose to give importance to only the
coincidences that appeal to our present state of mind.part of what i
found vexing earlier because i knew there was a lot happening,many
signs,many entry points open which i could not see because i possibly
hadn't reached a conclusion of thought on some other subject.
this is what some film makers do while making films as well...
as in for example if the indian music composers like an a r rehman did
not copy from western classical music,or an anu malik from popular
western music,then there would very be very few chances that an
indian public would be able to get an entry to tthe new sound. you
can't just give them the concentrated sound and expect them to give it
a listening.you get it to sound like from their context and then they
can start digesting it.some might even take it ahead and trace the
particular sound to its source. most just wait for more from their
identified sources of kitsch.
but all of this bridge making is important.we have one life,and not
many people have the luxury of exposing themselves to other
contexts.so cheers to anu malik!

so with co incidence,i think we actually pile in a lot of data
floating in the intertext and when it falls into our direct context we
draw personal connections and claim for example that we are haunted by
a word we happened to come across just the other day,we see it on
billboards,in ads,on TV,everywhere. truth is it's always been there.
like the tao idea that all the solutions are as clear as the problem
and as available.

this isn't complete,will write soon.
"

2008-07-05T15:29:00.001+05:30

i try pegging down ghosts in this land of the dead.
that is all.

2008-07-05T12:35:00.005+05:30

because i believe i was meant to be 25 in the sixties....here's where i found a chronology through pictures of richard avedon and interviews by doon arbus,while the portraits were being taken of the icons of the sixties...showcasing one here..

'JANIS JOPLIN,
blues/rock singer
Port Arthur, Texas
September 3, 1969

I have like what anyone would call like, say, a loneliness, a loneliness of my own. But it's just a private trip and probably shouldn't be forced on other people that much, you know what I mean? God, fuck it. Who cares how lonely you feel. You just have to learn to deal with it like everybody else does. Everybody has that, I think. Everybody. Even Christians.

I remember I used to think, goddamn it, it's because I'm a chick or it's because I haven't figured it out yet. It's because I'm not twenty-one. It's because I haven't read this or I haven't tried that.... Well, I've done every fucking thing and now I know better. There is no "because." And it's not going to get any better.

My father.... See, my father is a very intelligent man and I used to talk to him a lot because he reads and he's pretty sensitive and I was a mixed-up kid and too smart for my age-right? Anyway, so when I was eighteen, I ran away. Well,...went to California. One day this thing comes along and I learned something. It went pfshutt right in the side of my head and I sat up...and realized something. I ran up and wrote a long, long letter to my father all about how I'd felt growing up was like climbing a hill and that sooner or later you'd figure it out and it'd all come together and you'd level out and it wouldn't be such a fucking struggle every day, you know?... But then I realized there wasn't any leveling out, you know? You have the same fucking problem- or more-when you get old. I mean, you got more to deal with. It isn't gonna turn that corner, man. It just keeps going right on straight uphill.

So I wrote my father and explained this whole thing. Well, the next time I came home-my father has this friend, another man who's also very intelligent-and my father had evidently let him read my letter. You know, "Look what Janis is going through." They were proud of me because I was a thinker and they liked that because they were thinkers. So when I got home, this guy comes up to me and he says, "Well, I hear you learned about the Great Saturday Night Swindle." That's what he called it.

The realization that there isn't going to be any turning point.... There isn't going to be any next-month-it'll-be-better, next fucking year, next fucking life. You don't have any time to wait for. You just got to look around you and say, So this is it. This is really all there is to it. This little thing. Everybody needing such little things and they can't get them. Everybody needing just a little...confidence from somebody else and they can't get it. Everybody, everybody fighting to protect their little feelings. Everybody, you know, like reaching out tentatively but drawing back. It's so shallow and seems so...fucking...it seems like such a shame. It's so close to being like really right and good and open and amorphous and giving and everything. But it's not. And it ain't gonna be.'

if you haven't heard the lady sing yet,you might want to watch her here...

or listen to the song 'try' here please.

2008-07-05T11:53:00.007+05:30

this is work by hanna wieslander.
.
.
.
..
what i like about her work are the strokes,her hands are free.she has fluid thought.i admire the punctuation.i envy the delivery.
you might want to see some of her work. i love it when people's personal style shows brilliantly in even the commercial work they do.i respect that. it usually draws a lot of blood from me.and i'm not into the angst these days.

2008-07-04T16:50:00.010+05:30

this is the age i belong to !

i toast to vintage dressing.
..........vinnnntaejj.
this is it.i found the name they'd given it.

we will meet,you and i.
.
.

i am.

2008-07-04T13:31:00.006+05:30

if youtube starts misbehaving on this page,you could see this

un cut

2008-07-03T17:02:00.006+05:30

tiger:play it loud ,ok!

sludge:
that song you sent me from the almodovar film...
delicately spurious.
the mind can carry you off if you don't watch out.
.
.
..it can also settle.
funny.
from one tune.

2008-07-03T16:43:00.000+05:30

they say a person transcends to being a poet only after one has attained the equals of being a sage.
kuntaka feels it would be inappropriate to be able to expect poetry from a single word.so he demands poetry from every two words.