Category Archives: NID

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Now…Here…Nowhere

These are some stills from my first film, Now…Here..Nowhere. It’s a 2 min 30 seconds animation film that I took about 2 years to complete! The film is about a man’s search for direction. I was thoroughly confused in my college days (though I didn’t know it then) and I guess the film was a reflection of my true state of mind.

I even wrote the soundtrack –

“I have traveled further than beyond
Through cities strange and known
Over trodden paths and foreign shores
Amidst crowds, all alone.
In quest of something I know not what
I search here and everywhere
I ask of people who show me routes
Over land, by sea, through air.
That pointing finger – where is it leading me?
To my dentist, my niece, my neighbor –
But will they show me what I want to see?
Shall I follow a stranger’s advice?
Will she tell me which way to go?
I pass through these deserted streets
In search of what I need to know.
Darkness – and then
A way out of my plight –
Do I dare ask the truth of my maker
Will he help me see the light?
But I leave empty-handed and this confusion carries me
on it’s own motley crowd of thought
and then I’m where I want to be
Why do I look for an answer?
Why don’t I just let things be?
The world’s full of questions, but maybe
I’ll find the answers in me!!”

Sometimes I’m amazed at how wise I used to be!

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Fire Fire

I have a terrible problem replicating the spontaneity of my sketches in the final art. Somehow they always end up being really stiff and contrived.
Look at this film Fire Fire for example. This is how I visualized the film’s treatment –

And this is how the final film really looks –
Which one do you really like?

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NID, People, sketchbook

Words of love


For you, my luscious fig
the Taj Mahal wouldn’t be too big
For you, my sweet paratha
I’d write a poem longer than the Mahabharata
I’d walk backwards over the Himalayas
if you’d spend with me your nights and dayas

For the maharani I adore
I’d steal the priceless Kohinoor
I’d meditate
I’d levitate
to hear you say
“That dog is great!’

For you my learned guru
I’d learn to speak Urdu
and for my true-blue fakir
I’D pluck the rarest rose from Kashmir
I’d practise Ahimsa
for one quick glimpsa
your pure clear white soul
the one that knows all.

So come my darling Darjeeling
my prize, my jewel,
my everything –
our Karma can’t be clearer
there’s no one I hold dearer
no Fata Morgana
it’s you that I wanna
share Nirvana with.

Swami on Rye,
Maira Kalman

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