Tag Archives: journal

art, Books, drawing, Life, sketchbook

From Sojourns in the parallel world

A year or so ago, I used to have a morning ritual of waking up and reading some poetry with coffee. Once in a while I would read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and during that time, I also read White by Kenya Hara. (It’s such a meditative, beautiful book, and it was rather a spiritual and other worldly experience for me.)

One of those mornings, I read this poem by Denise Levertov. Though it’s about immersing our human consciousness in the natural world, to me the last few lines evoked how we continue to voluntarily lose ourselves in the virtual world.

levertov

“No one discovers

just where we’ve been, when we’re caught up again

–but we have changed, a little.”

From the sketchbook called Finding Soo • August 2016.

Advertisements
Standard
Life, sketchbook

Letters Home

This is a series that begins from 2014, drawings that I wasn’t able to share until now, until I was able to grow a necessary sense of detachment from then.

01: Frontispiece

Looking back, I must have been terribly grumpy when I started this book! Was I not drawing the happy memories from that time? Was I only using the sketchbook to work out my darknesses?
letters home 01

02: Wednesday

letters home 02

“The whole day. It really wasn’t bad. I was doing my own idea and it was going well. But there’s this utter sense of discontinuation that is no one’s doing.

I guess I am always meant to be a loner among peers.

I miss a lot of people who are away. And wish we could go on a holiday.”

03: Feels like someone else’s life

letters home 03

“That body I must take care of. At least I’ve lost this need to be cool. You must be so happy, and I a different person. Feels like it’s someone else. Oh this bloody heat!”

A little clue that I had just become pregnant then. And scared of children, scared of giving birth and scared of being a mother!

04: Another Sunday

Why was I making such a big deal about being pregnant? You know half the country can get pregnant, since they have the necessary apparatus. In my case, though I didn’t smoke in college (because I wanted to have a healthy baby when I was 25) I never really wanted to have children. I did not like them, I was scared by their non-verbal communication, and intimidated by the general unpredictability. However sometime around my thirties I started being more open to the possibility, probably because we started acquiring nieces and nephews, and the brown boy is a complete and utter baby person. Around 8 weeks, I finally started getting more used to the idea that I was growing a new human being!

pregnancy_00

Another Sunday that I spent mostly in my own head. Thinking a lot about my 30-year-old relationship with my body. And my imagination reducing slowly but surely.

I should be happier, I know. So many good things are happening.

05: Monday

Friends are such a great support. Here’s Anitha:

preg 01

Anitha: Do things that make you happy.

Me: But what? So hard to find something like that…

Anteater: Or you’re already doing happy things, like me?

06: 8 weeks baby hungry little tadpole

pregnancy_02

Helpful books, advice and food from 2pie and Snehasis.

Standard