At The Edge

When the colorful Holi Came sailing with a sweet Rapturous motion; when it threw Away the veil from its face And put forth before the eye The splendor of her face All shimmering with bright ornaments; Then merrily She set  her foot And the anklets showered a spray Of sweet and charming music From her eyes flashed A succession of coquettish winks And some passionate sighs Vibrated in her breast. - Nazir Akbarabadi Translation Rafiq Zakaria

Bo!

The image comes with every book from Sahitya Akademi and always has the note: The sculpture reproduced on the endpaper depicts a scene where three soothsayers are interpreting to King Suddhodana the dream of Queen Maya, mother of Lord Buddha. Below them is seated a scribe recording the interpretation. This is perhaps the earliest available pictorial record of the art of writing in India. From Nagarjunakonda, 2nd Century A.D. Courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi.

The line about 'Foreign Traveling in disturb' and 'Jadu-Tona relief from Satutan Cheating' almost made me reach out for the phone. And who gives 101% performance guarantee these days. Jai Baba!

Moved into this room, looked around, and in a corner found this old color TV. BPL. Solid IC. 12 Channel. Modified to 200 channel. Year 1989. This was the first colour TV that I ever saw. It was the pride procession of an Uncle. Every Sunday, I will go over to my cousin's place to watch Ramayan followed by He-Man; all in color on a Tv of this very model. Ah, the Sunday's spent screaming 'I have the power' while holding a stick.

Found this beautifully carved and selectively mutilated stone slab sitting under a tree somewhere in Gurgaon, right next to a yellow, dusty, empty plot.

 A couple of weeks ago got an email from a journo with Indian Express. A story about vintage ads. Just came across the story: Nostalgia is most definitely a seductive liar. It places a rose-tinted glass over your eyes, and then coaxes you to view past without hard feelings. The result — we end up feeling wistful things that we weren’t so crazy about the first time around. But when 27-year-old, Vinayak Razdan chanced upon a tattered copy of a 1972 edition of the Reader’s Digest at his relatives place, the word nostalgia acquired a new meaning for him. “I flipped through its pages and found myself staring at a very young kohl eyed Zeenat Aman endorsing Taj Mahal tea in a purple salwar-suit, her hair - a pair of pigtails. It was a discovery. I stashed away the magazine,” says Razdan. Thanks to all these vintage ads, my blog got mentioned in this piece by Prem ankur Biswas for Indian Express .  -0- And this week, some of my Kashmir photographs (can be found at my oth...