Salon self portrait

This is me attempting to draw me as my hair gets tugged at a salon near my house. What has always amazed me is how effortlessly these women (and men these days) at the salon get your hair to do their every bidding while back at home those same docile locks just rebel and do as they please.

This time around I was sitting in this chair for three hours while doing a very long drawn out hair straightening process which involves smearing some goop in your hair, followed by a waiting period, and then they smear some more goop in your hair. Then they wrap up your head in cling-wrap for a bit and you sit there feeling like a lettuce in the fridge. Now all this while I was not doing this sketch. I was correcting an electrical tender document, and managing rather well, all things considered.

After an hour they unwrapped my head and washed the goop away after which the lady started ironing my hair. It was at this point that I did the sketch. The ironing went on for a little under half an hour at which point the ink drawing was done and I put it away. Usually when I sketch in public places, its a good way to start off a friendly chat with the people around me, but this being an up-market salon (or so I assume because of the discreetness of the people working there) not one person said a thing to me as I sketched away. Several people peeked at it and smiled shyly and walked away.

I cam home and did the painting in all enthusiasm and botched up my face. Well, it didn't look like me in the first place anyway.

One hell of a Bangalore Weekend

I must have been to Bangalore a gazillion times but last weekend, for the first time I went with a group of close friends with no agenda - no specific family or friends to meet, no function to attend and no play to stage. All my friends had done this before, it was a first only for me so when we started saturday morning off with breakfast at Koshy's they all nearly fell out of their chairs when I said I had never been there before. It was decided then (though actually it was probably the agenda anyway) that we should spend the entire weekend visiting as many such cool hang-out places - pubs, restaurants, breakfast joints etc etc and we covered eleven over two days!!

I initially had grand hopes and plans of sketching in each place, but the second place where we went to was Hard Rock cafe and because I took a while painting there all the others were forced to buy a second round of drinks and there was much Tsk-tsking and genial pulling of my leg all around so I desisted from then on. The waiter at hard rock who waited at our table was a Sandeep who was a happy chirpy chap. If you asked him to turn up the music volume he would do so and then dance all the way down the aisles between all the tables and he was most intrigued by my sketch and then my little painting kit. Soon a bunch of waiters came and huddled around our table and as soon as the sketch was done (the paint was still wet) they asked to see my sketchbook and gave me many smiles. Altogether a happy place.

But our schedule was ambitious, we had to move on; I won't bore you with a list but we covered a lot of area and Tarun, Uk and John are planning to get a whole lot of bragging mileage out of last weekend. On Sunday we had a superb breakfast at this place in Indira Nagar called Daddy's Deli. It's a Parsi joint and the Akuri and different side orders and waffles were yummy. Big thank you to Sidey for not just putting us up at his place but for taking us to this scrumptious breakfast. From there we moved to a new place called Toit that everyone we bumped into was talking about and when we got there we realised why.

Its really beautifully done up. The resto-bar occupies four levels with staircases and mezzanines and bridges and double heights all within three stepping up pitched roof volumes. I decided long ago not to blog any photographs here and my decision still stands so I'm afraid all I can show you is one sketch but this was the top-most level where we sat in these deep-set divans at low tables. This level opens out into a terrace garden but the best part is the roof. You know the sky-light tile in the mangalore tile system? Well the entire roof here has only the slylight tiles so it forms a lovely waffled light-and-shade pitch roof and in the splendid Bangalore weather that light filtering down as we sat there was just amazing.

Disclaimer to all Bangalore relatives who read this blog: really sorry I didn't call you but it was a group pact, none of us were to call our relatives this weekend. But hope to see you in October :D

Steps to reach Gandhi

If you have ever fixed up to meet anyone at the Marina Beach, then the likely meeting point would have been the Gandhi statue. The Marina is actually a little over three kilometres long from the light-house at the southern end to the war-memorial at the north and the entire stretch has a wide major road of the city running down it as well as a promenade with many statues. This promenade at road level steps down to the beach which is also un-interrupted for the three kilometre stretch and is the second largest beach in the world after Rio - how about that?

So given its huge size and our immense population it is always good to plan a precise meeting point with friends so as not to miss them completely and wander around picking up long lost twins all evening. Over the decades statues of prominent figures from Indian History, our freedom movement, Tamil Literature and the Tamil movement have been placed as statues along the promenade but somehow Gandhiji is still number one.

Any marathon or walk, for a public cause, any banner holding, slogan raising get together on the beach, the morning laughing club, the VIP stand for the Republic day and Independence day parades - the starting point for all of the above is what you see above.

I actually find some of the other statues better (as statues themselves, in terms of the craft, the depiction, the idea) and hope to sketch a few more in the future here. Gandhiji is positioned at the junction of Cathedral Road and Beach Road so when I walk down from my house to the beach, then bang! - this is where I'm at.

The promenade was a simple side-walk for most of my years in Madras. Recently though, its been given a facelift. Some greenery, some meandering paths and mainly a lot of fuss around Gandhiji. These steps you see here are also pretty new, there's a huge curving oval set of steps cascading down from a wide landscaped plaza to the beach. At the point where the cascade meets the inner beach lane there's a set of funky huge granite balls (I'm sitting on one of them) serving to cordon off the pedestrian area from the parking lane.

Once again, it was quite an experience sitting in one of the most crowded points of the city and sketching and I was actually asked by a friendly north Indian if I was a foreigner!!!

Bajji on the beach

Last Sunday evening, for the first time since I started this blog, I decided to go for a walk somewhere purely in order to sketch. I packed a little jolna pai with two sketchbooks, my Koi travel watercolours and my assorted pens and pencils and set off from home. It was around five and quite cool. I kept walking down R.K. Salai and didn't spot anything particularly sketch-worthy except the grotesque-ly ugly city centre building and so I kept walking till I hit Marina Beach.

The beach was teeming with people - merry-go-rounds of different sizes, hand operated and motor operated. Push-carts with street food, kids on a roller skating rink, hawkers, beggars, in short I didn't know where to start. I was also feeling a bit self-conscious because its been a while since I've sketched on location at such a crowded place.

I spotted a really colourful merry-go-round and was contemplating squatting on the sand to draw it when I realised there was a bajji stall nearby. The stall was a simple push cart with a really lovely display of hanging molagas - so typical. Lovely huge green chillies. I immediately felt like drawing the stall too. The stall was run by a young lady and another elderly lady and they had put out multi-coloured plastic stools. I guessed you had to buy something from them to get to sit on a stool. But sitting on the stool would give me a comfy vantage view of the merry-go-round as well as the hanging molagas so of course for this reason and no other (heh heh) I ordered a piping hot plate of bajjis.

I don't like the green chilly bajji and they had a lot of other veggies on offer so I chose a mixed platter of raw banana, potato and onion bajjis.  The merry-go-round sketch got done while I waited for my order. The bajji stall sketch was done while I nibbled slowly at my delicious hot snack. It was served with a small cup of green chutney which I didn't touch since we all know what happens the day after that chutney.

Very happy with my fried snack I handed the young lady a large note and she had to send it somewhere to get me my change. At this point the elderly lady plonked herself in front of me with a large tub of onions and started peeling and slicing them. Her speed was astonishing. This is a really quick sketch because she really went through a pile of a dozen onions in less than five minutes.

Meet Gypsy

I'd like to introduce you to Gypsy, our Dalmatian friend. He adopted Tarun, Tarun's family and anyone else who lived at 159 Santhome High Road, on independence day, 15th August 2004. Tarun was out, somewhere and his family called him in panic because they spotted this spotted guy sitting quite peacefully in their backyard.

Tarun's house is near the light-house and Marina beach. Every 15th Aug there are vast hoards of people who flock there to watch the independence day parade so at first they all thought that this dog had just gotten separated from its owner in the mileu. He had on a black collar and looked perfectly groomed. But over the next few days Tarun started walking him all around the locality asking various watchmen and security guards if anyone had come looking for him and no one had.

Gypsy settled down happily and the vet guessed his age at the time as two by looking at his teeth. Dog and master were (and still are) completely devoted to each other. Gypsy wasn't quite as hefty as you see here in the sketches. He was a normal young frisky dalmation, sleek and fast.

Then one day, Tarun had to go away to Delhi for a couple of weeks. He gave a lot of thought to where he could leave Gypsy for that time, and finally chose a lady living in Harringtom road, affiliated with the PFA, who had a large property in Red Hills where she looked after dogs. She agreed to take care of Gypsy.

As soon as Tarun left, she started calling him and saying Gypsy was un-manageable and she would have to neuter him. Tarun insisted that she should tie him up for the two weeks instead. Finally to Tarun's despair she actually waited till the day before he got back from Delhi and instead of holding out one more day she got Gypsy neutered.

The PFA might be conceptually against pedigrees and pure-breeds and the reason is sound but some of their methods of trying to curb the trend is cruel to the animal when it's actually the master's outlook that needs changing.

Anyway, the poor fellow was bandaged and despondent when he was brought back to Santhome. He bloated up soon after and has stayed this way since. Now he must be around nine and his legs are a bit arthritic. He still hobbles determinedly behind Tarun if he so much as leaves the room. Even at his prime he was the most gentle friendly dog when it came to people. I have never heard him bark to this day.

These three sketches are Gypsy's 3 most favoured sleeping positions. He acquiesced to stay in each position perfectly still and asleep for exactly five minutes apiece - just enough for me to get his outline right, but then I had to make up his spots.

New friends from an old school

In the year 2012, my college will be completing fifty years. To mark the occasion the alumni fraternity that is still actively involved with the school, mainly several professors, came up with the idea of celebrating all year long with various events and exhibitions. They soon realised that this is the ideal time to get 50 years worth of alumni re-connected and actively involved once again.

Wimbledon Finals at Santhome

Last night was the ladys' finals at Wimbledon and we went over as usual to Anu and Uk's at Santhome. Its become a regular routine. We all enjoy cricket and tennis enormously and they are just down the road. Tarun upstairs has a dalmatian named Gypsy and there are two cats (also black and white to go with the theme as it were) so we're a motley bunch.