The new Metro - Rapid sketches of mass rapid transport

On 30th June 2015, the new Metro line in our city was inaugurated. It was, quite literally the talk of the town. The Metro has been under construction for 6 years and last week only a short stretch - a tiny sampling - was thrown open to the public. All the major dailies carried stories and first hand reports for several days, so on Sunday a tiny group of us - 3 sketchers - decided to go on a joyride and sketch the experience.

 I wasn't sure if there would be resistance from the staff to sketching. In many heritage sites across India photography is allowed but sketching is banned! In the Delhi Metro photography itself is not allowed. So I took a really small sketch pad and resolved to keep each sketch under five minutes in duration. The platforms are high up at the top and after feeding money into the automatic ticket vending machines we took some really long escalator rides up to the platform.

The vaulted roof is open down the middle at Alandur station where we boarded the train and the whole station is bright and clean - at least for now.

On the train to Koyambedu there are only six stops. The same distance which in rush hour will take you over an hour can be done in under fifteen minutes. On Sunday morning the train was not crowded but there weren't too many empty spots on the benches either. Many families looked like they had come just for a joyride.... like us! 

More than the parents the kids were really thrilled. Though the ride is short you get a great view of the city from above.

When we reached Koyambedu station we had to climb up a level and cross over the platform before descending again to exit. The level up brought us right up to the base of the arch trusses that held up the station roof. Another quick stop to dash off another sketch. Peering down from the parapet the platforms and trains were laid out below us.

From that level the trusses and space frames were a real visual jungle. Someone reminded us that the ticket token is timed (not sure if it's true) and that we should use it to get out soon.

The Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) has bought automatic ticket/gate machines from Japan. The token is kept against a sensor on our way in and the gate opens.On the way out you deposit the same token into a slot so that it allows your exit. Quite simple but for the ever increasing crowds it was all wondrous and baffling. By the time we came out the crowds had swelled considerably and flustered staff were trying to get people to queue up and wait till the machine reset itself for the next person. Queues themselves are a near impossible challenge in our country, and when you add automation to that the novelty is too high!

I really hope it stays clean, disciplined and the rest of the green and blue lines open soon.

Sketches make a place look better!

Over the years I've noticed that while sketching on location the eye and the hand conspire in their own way, omitting certain details and more often than not... dirt.  Garbage which is often strewn allover the foreground of many of my subjects don't get into my sketches. Like this one for instance is a group of fishing boats - trawlers - at Kasimedu harbour. The water is slick with oil.

And this one...

Done two weeks ago. Looks like the sleepy Gaulish village of Asterix and Obelix (well, except for the minaret). In truth, this sketch was done on the banks of the Cooum. The stench was not too bad that morning but the river was a dark stagnant grey. Basically sludge. The huts are hovels, patched together with whatever people have. The foreground and the edge where the water meets the land is not really earth but built up rubbish debris!  Its quite crazy how my hand refuses to draw the refuse!

Father's Day

This morning I sat  on the pavement outside the North gate of the Madras High Court and decided to sketch Anderson Church. I've passed by it so many times and never sat down to do a sketch until now. I love the proportion of it's spire.

The really interesting thing is this Church sits bang on Broadway and is crowded in on all sides by hectic business activity jostling for space. Although it was a Sunday morning I wanted to try and bring that in somehow.

Some of the other sketchers in our group were attending a heritage walk inside that I had been to and sketched over a year ago. My father decided to sketch the same church too and we found ourselves side by side on the pavement. Me on the ground and him on a stool.

It was really amazing that for over an hour an endless stream of people, mostly the security guards of the high court, would come up and talk to me and look at the work, ask questions. But no one disturbed my father at all!!

As I finished up my sketch I realised its father's day! I don't as a rule follow valentines and father's and mother's day. Can't wrap my head around assigning days to random things, but found the coincidence surprising. So I wrapped up with a quick sketch of my dad to remember the day better.

His sketch turned out really well too!

Not quite Demonte Colony

Last Sunday I joined the CWA group to sketch at Demonte colony. Due to litigation the two residential streets have been abandoned for may years and wears a somewhat haunted, deserted look. We thought we would see plenty of old crumbling buildings and abandoned vehicles, but unfortunately our luck was out.

Recently there was a movie released by the same name, a horror flick, and some scenes were shot here. Droves of tourists have apparently been stopping by and neighbours have complained resulting in the place being sealed off.

We were only allowed into a corporation park next to which stood an abandoned jeep. Further down the pavement was a lady selling idlis in a make-shift food stall. I managed to try out my water soluble graphite pencils a little more in both these sketches. After that I switched to my trusty Pigma graphic-1. A quick capture of a sleeping man on a park bench.

After that the group converged at the park and started doing portrait studies. They got a young boy to pose and several sketchers attempted to capture him. I tried to capture the sketchers.

Young boys playing cricket kept drifting in and out of my frame. They ended up looking ghostly in my sketches.

Francis sketched away rapidly with the sketchbook propped up against his waist. And finally it was time to lay down all our sketchbooks on the paved pathway but not before getting in a last impression of the group huddling together.

Exposed on the roof

This is the terrace at the top of my office building. It's funny how we architects try our level best to conceal the vital innards of our buildings. The water supply pipes, the rain water drains, the electrical, telephone and TV cables but finally up on the terrace all these things burst forth and cry "Here we are!!"

Sometimes you try to go that extra mile to be extra neat even up on the roof but then your neighbour's cable TV line will somehow snake past your terrace to the next building.

This sketch is also my first try with water soluble graphite pencils. Earlier this week I went into my favourite art supply store to by a gift for someone else and ended up as usual like a kid in a candy store! Can't wait to try these out some more this weekend.

Children's Garden School

The Children's Garden School is just a short hop from my house. It was started in 1937 by Mr V.N Sharma and his wife Ellen, with just seven children as students. It was one of the early schools that tried to change regular mainstream education from a classroom format to a play-and-learn kindergarten format.

Over the years, just like everything else it has grown . There are over 3000 students now, its a girls' school with a separate creche, a junior school and a senior school. All available land has been built over to make space for more classrooms and facilities but this old building where the Prinicipal lives is the original building. It reads "1919-20"  at the very top.

In the early fifties my mother too went to this school, to the junior section. I've heard many stories from her  reminiscing about the classes under the trees and in this building.

I sat on the pavement opposite the main gate on Sunday evening and not a soul passed me by as I did this sketch. It was the last sunday before the end of summer vacation. This morning, as I left home for office the entire street was transformed with hundreds of kids, cycles, parents and general mayhem.

A little less wisdom

I had a quiet weekend indoors thanks to the fact that J needed to have two of his wisdom teeth extracted. He was advised not to drive after the procedure so I went along to bring him back. The Dentist's clinic is attached to his house. After a full day consulting outside he comes home and sees some patients at night. Since it wasn't a formal set-up I got to go all the way in and sit there on the side while the dentist got to work.

Compared to my own experience many years ago, this was a fairly quick and smooth extraction. Two wisdom teeth came out in just ten minutes. Barely enough time to do the sketch. No stitches needed and surprisingly no swelling either!

Boats

This sketch is technically only half finished, but given my recent track record I thought it would be better to share it as is, rather than wait to finish it at home, something that may never happen. More and more often, I find I don't have the patience to improve or "finish" a sketch once I leave the spot where I did it.

Last sunday I spent the morning at The Madras Boat Club. The early morning rowing members were long gone and the boats that had been used were lying overturned sunning themselves by the river-side. They looked like giant blue porpoises.

While I did this my mum sketched me! You can check out her sketch here!

Surfs Up

Not many people know this but you can surf at the beach in Madras. Well, not technically Madras, but Kovalam. On proper surf boards with instructors to guide you and tell you about proper technique. Known as the Covelong Point Surfing School, its run by a vibrant new, young group of surfers with a strong connection to the local community at Kovalam.

Right now they just have a shade net propped up on a few poles but a new cafe with toilets and showers and a few rooms is getting built.

Many of my friends have made it a regular sunday outing and I finally went along the last couple of weeks. They surfed, I sketched.

Newcomers are given a tutorial and then made to go through all the motions on the board on land before venturing out. The location has a nice cove (hence the name) where the undertow we have along the rest of the coast is not as strong.

Its just the beginning of April and its blistering hot but there are dozens of surfers from various countries. Some staying at nearby hotels. There are regulars from the city and lots of locals. Young boys from the fishing community are the real pros. Its a real treat to just sit and watch them ride the waves.

A historical link across two weekends

Over two weekends I visited first St Thomas Mount and then the Santhome Basilica. It was mainly because someone in our sketch-group was kind enough to organise sketching permissions at both these places one after the other. But having gone to each place I started reading up about the connections - and was amazed at the variations in the stories that are available.

First off, the basics. St. Thomas Mount is a small hillock near the Chennai Airport. Legend has it that St Thomas, one of the original apostles of Christ came to Kerala in 52 AD and slowly made his way across to Madras where he was killed in 72 AD on the top of that hillock. His body is said to be interred in a tomb in Mylapore over which is built the Santhome Basilica. This is the most popular legend.

There is a Shrine - Our Lady of Expectation - which is a pilgrimage site on the top of the hillock and a winding stairway up to it. Very picturesque and very hot in the mid-day sun. The stairway has resting points and 14 "stations of the cross" along its side which are statues showing Jesus dragging the cross flocked by a small crowd.

As I was there sketching on a sunday, I experienced the full force of the Sunday Mass. As soon as a sermon in English concluded and the people poured out another wave of them would go in and another sermon would begin in Tamil. Once that was over there was one in Hindi and there was one in a European language as well (Portugese? Latin?)

People who came out would walk back down the stairway in groups singing hymns or some would hang around at the top as there was an excellent view of the airport from here. The children especially were endlessly thrilled to watch flights take off and land.

While the legend of St Thomas is questionable, the location is famous for another event which is completely factual and extremely impressive. Colonel William Lambton began the great trigonometrical survey if India from the top of this hillock in 1802. There is a commemorative bust of the great man at the very spot. I felt humbled thinking about the enormity of the task - few dedicated men  holding chain links and spot levels going all across our huge country and coming up with a highly accurate map.

In comparison,  my visit to Santhome was on a saturday and the Basilica was very quiet and peaceful. No matter what the veracity of St. Thomas's presence in India, the building is beautiful and a pleasure to sketch. Oh, and one last thing - did you know that St Thomas is the patron Saint for Architects?!

The Trade Fair

The Trade Fair is in town. It's located at the Island Grounds and the official timings are 11 am to 10 pm. When I got there at 11 am not only was the place deserted but it wasn't even open. The ticket booths were not manned and the previous evening's debris was strewn about. It was also baking hot!

 Thankfully this guy spotted the sketching gear which several of us had peeping out of our bags and he came up and said sketch me! Five minutes later the ticketing line opened and in we went.

The main walkway was a sandy path with stalls on either side. First up was a shop selling plastic inflatable balls (and ducks and rabbits) of all colours and sizes. Further on were shops selling just about anything - clothes, hats, underwear, vessels - a completely random selection.

After walking past a few shops I spotted a sugarcane juice stall. Also deserted. I guess the vendors didn't expect anyone to turn up so early - at opening time. But the machine brought back so many memories for me of Ganne ka Ras on the pavements of Ahmedabad as a college student, sitting on low Modas and sipping the juice which was more slushy and icey than actual juice. And further memories of the morning after... which I won't elaborate on here.

After walking for a while down this sandy lane the shops eventually gave way to rides. Hideous odd shaped fibreglass chair-cars resembling helicopters, teacups, fishes, cartoon characters and what-nots in garish colours. Some would move round on tracks while others swung up and down. You get the picture.

And finally at the very end - the giant (or Gaint as they decided to call it) ferris wheels. There were two. These could be seen from the main road as you circle around Napier Bridge and drive to the entrance of the fair. This is what glows with lights in the night, dominating the marina skyline, attracts all the kiddies at the beach to drag their folks over the next day. And it was quite a site, to sit under it and look up.

Kerala Trip - Part 1

Saturday evening. We are packed and all set for a much awaited camping trip. John and I will be joining a bunch of close friends in heartland Kerala - away from the big crowded cities and all the creature comforts that we get unnecessarily used to. The idea is to try and rough it out as much as we can - possibly camp away from human habitation, electricity and a host of other things we take for granted. We charged our phones and cameras, disabled data and packed with great care crossing off everything on our lists.

3 sets of clothing in total - hand washing the ones on your back each time you bathe. Basic medical and toilet kit. All kinds of protection from the sun and bug bites. Some handy survival tools and camping gear. We bought a 3 person tent specially for the trip and  when all the packing was done, we were quite proud to find that everything for 2 people fit into one big rucksack and 2 knapsacks. Everything except the groundsheets, that is.

I love my sleep dearly, and no matter how much I'm prepared to rough it out, I need a good night's rest to be functional the next day. While browsing online for the tent, we found that the sites kept suggesting "ground sheets" to us. Firm foam sheets that you lay on the floor below your sleeping bag to cushion you from the rough terrain. These were quite expensive, but their specs were not so high end. And I decided I had to have it. So the evening we were to leave we went hunting in Royapettah, in the narrow lanes full of car upholstery shops.

We found exactly what we needed at a tenth of the price and ended up buying 2 extra sheets for friends that we had to cart with us.

Rolled up, the ground sheets were quite light but very voluminous. Thankfully we had upper-berths on the train and we bridged them between our berths. Hats and shoes went on top of that and with all the luggage stowed away I began sketching on the journey. I had a brand new sketchbook for this week-long adventure and was determined to sketch right from the start and keep it loose and quick. We would be reaching Palakkad Junction at 4.45 am the next morning so after a quick sketch I called it a night. 

Coming up in the next post - The next day and all its sketches!

Lots of CWA action!

2014 has started out with lots of sketching action and oppurtunity for me. Most of it is thanks to the CWA. A wonderful group that I am a part of that makes sure that no matter what happens there's a reason to sketch outdoors each sunday. Soon after I was back from Goa, our group displayed our sketches during the Mylapore fest and next to our stall was a busy street full of banana vendors. Below you see the general crowd and mayhem of Art Street where we camped with our artwork, making live portraits and sketches.

More recently, we took a day trip to Senji which was hot, tiring but totally worth it. The old fort and the ruins have tons of sketchworthy subjects to offer. My first painting is of Rajagiri or King's Fort. I tried to do a watercolour directly without doing outlines in pen. Something I'm very afraid of and in the end I succumbed and added a bit of ink work for definition . But at least its a start. At least I did the brushwork first.

And this one below is an attempt at a panoramic capture of Senji. I climbed up Rajagiri (my first painting) but only a fifth of the way and already the view was so... Epic... as a friend put it, that I gave up on the climb and decided to record instead.

Those monkeys crept into the frame. Look adorable. Most annoying and when they single you out (one female did) it can be quite terrifying.

Approaching the Koothambalam

I chanced upon the Koothambalam while walking through Kalakshetra campus from the other side. Approaching from the office and going past the newly built lotus pond area I followed a group of dance students as they walked purposefully towards their practice cottages. So as not to disturb them while they rehearse, I turned away and was suddenly stopped in my tracks by this scene. The majestic structure loomed out from amidst the trees. I had approached it from the back.
With my usual fascination for performance spaces I began sketching, standing up. The Koothambalam is undergoing extensive renovation and the main entrance area is quite un-approachable at the moment. They are planning to air-condition the space and the inside of the  auditorium was covered in scaffolding.

As I sketched I thought of groups and repertories with their own performance spaces. How important it is. As vital as the work itself. I thought of the koothambalam as an inspiration for the young students who would work towards performing there and then, as I stood, in the shadow of the old trees, sketching from "behind the scenes" , I thought of a weekend, a few years ago when we had staged two plays inside the same space. I remembered carrying the set through those large doors and the frenetic activity ahead of the shows. Its funny how the sketch turned into such a nostalgic experience.

People at the Park

There's a park close to office and its although it's tiny it is really wonderful to see all kinds of people from all walks of life enjoying the greenery and shade. One of the few public places that people can go to that is free and green. Its a great place to observe people and do human figure sketches too. 

Here's a drawing session in progress. The back of the park has a bunch of tables and stools. Its called "chess square" and there are people reading, studying, catching up. Its lovely.

This tree is near the front entrance. Lots of people with laptops! Discussions. Its quite a lively place. Apologies for the page-marker getting in the way of the scan! I have a new scanner :) and I'm getting used to it.

And of course... a park doesn't take care of itself now, does it?