Superbugged

Dark notes from the ICU of a hospital in India

Some TV anchors
and rich doctors have been shouting
crying hoarse
about Superbugs
No, they can't exist, they scream
It's a conspiracy

Unfortunate circumstances
found me in a hospital
Praying for family
Here's what I saw and noted down:

Just outside the Neurology ICU is a room.
People say it's a walk to hell.
Mix of pee and grime and the smell wafting through for visitors.
People lying on the corridors with split heads, pee, spit.
And this is the neurology department.
People are being treated like rotten cabbage in this country.
We talk of being an economic giant. What bullshit.
Hey you, yes you prime minister, walk into any of your hospitals and read your speeches about 8% growth there.
By growth you meant hernia?
I don't want to see people's innards with flies all over them and cellphones ringing pathetic anup jalota laments
while just outside the ICU millions of people are waiting for godot. and by godot i mean shit
oh i forgot there is a routine throwing of phenyl which splatters on the patients lying on the corridors

we are a bastard nation
produced out of a clusterfuck

Munna on the run. Again.

How can you stop running when you have travelled miles and sat on that bench and watched the birds? How can you stop when you know somewhere around the corner you'd find your favourite words written over the sky? How can you not go on when you know somewhere along the miles you'd meet the poet's ghost still in his walking boots. How would you ever explain that poetry sentenced you to a lifetime of running?

Thanks for shopping.

photograph: Anvita Lakhera

They say the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivli, Mumbai is a miracle. A biologist told us that it is dying. The boundaries of human intervention are moving inwards and in about 45 years this little forest in the heart of Mumbai will be dead.
Take a walk there if you can. If you see many alcohol bottles, plastic milk packets, thermocol plates, polythene bags on the way, collect them. Maybe someone is building a museum for the 'age of stupid' where these would fit in.
And remember, as the message someone lovingly left on the exposed root of a several hundred years old tree says: Have a fun time. Thanks for shopping.

Go

photograph: Anvita Lakhera

An adventure in information. Coming to an end?

The first (and the last?) milestone of the art project I've been working on . A 28 page adventure in information. More about it here.

Some days

Wikipedia

Sometimes I don't find the need to explain myself.

The yellow umbrella

One evening as I was driving, crawling back home, I thought, 'there is something about the decay of Bombay that is beautiful.' It can't be the roads. It can't be the smell. It can't be the cars. No, not at all. It can't be the fat faces that bob out of those cars and spit on the roads. It can't be the musty cabs. it can't be me. Far from it. It can't be the film stars. Oh the lost glory. It can't be the sad lament of the sparrows and the watchful eyes of the crows who scan the billboards. It can't be the graffiti on Tulsi Pipe. Yes, that is tired. It can't be the tiger illustrations of those who call it Mumbai. It can't be the ego of being Bombay. For that is as outdated as the Marine Drive. It can't be the paans. Too much coconut. It can't be living in Bandra. Too expensive. It can't be the bookshops. Bookshops? Oh, ha! ha! It can't be the ad industry. They are like the monkeys in one of the recent ads. Ugly, made-up and idiots. It can't be the Western Express Highway. Never before was a more potent irony in a name. No, it can't be the Mahim stench. This particular evening as I was driving home, it had to be the yellow umbrella.

They say the rain won't be around for long

They say the rain won't be around for long
I worry about that a lot
But my mind is a beautiful empty
when the yellow melts in what they call a downpour.

Climate Camp takes on RBS

The world's worst enterprises are funded by banks. Be it mining or oil. So it's your money which is actually doing the killing. Climate Camp takes on RBS this August. Here is the link to their newspaper - Never mind the bankers. Download and have a read. It will put some nice questions in your mind. I am glad to continue my association with the amazing Camp guys. This time I sent them quite a few pigs!

I found the Lochness monster in my hard drive.

Questions for the world

Is dividing the world in different countries, the real problem?
Has the entire Israel-Palestine issue been kept alive because it moves business?
Are the third world countries dumping grounds for untested technologies?
Does a crime against humanity become any lesser because it belongs to a certain country and becomes more if it doesn't?

Here's where I put these questions up. (Click to see).

They like Munna in Taiwan

A couple of pages from a feature in XFuns. They liked this blog and wanted to talk about my illustrations. Here is an excerpt:

XFUNS: Could you describe your work process?

I believe in doing work that has something interesting to say. It could be a story, a statement, a protest. Once I know what I want to say, I think about how best to express it in words and pictures. I like to mix a lot of mediums to make my drawings and illustrations. When I make books, it is almost as if I am making a film. I direct each scene and the overall narrative.

XFUNS: Let’s back to the past, what kind of children illustration you like to see when you were a child?

I used to read a lot Asterix, Krazy Kat, and also a lot of Indian comics. But what really used to spark my imagination as a child were the Russian fairy tale books that we used to get back in the 80s. I remember there was a publication house called Mir Publications Moscow, which used to print amazing children’s books. These were readily available in India and were my absolute favourites.

XFUNS: How do you think your work represents the most infantine aspects of children illustration?

People tell me that I draw like a child myself. I don’t do it consciously. I think when children draw they do it without thinking about rules, art, what people will say. I like to draw the same way. I really do not care what people think. I draw to have fun. And if in the process it makes people smile, it is great.

XFUNS: What kind of music do you listen to while creating?

All kinds. I like to listen to everything. But end up listening mostly to Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Grateful Dead and Indian Ocean.

XFUNS: As being an illustrator, how this role acts in your life?

I have stopped taking myself seriously. My illustrations are mostly fun. It makes me look at life not so seriously and with more hope.

XFUNS: What is the most important thing in your life and how is it reflected in your works?

The most important thing for me is to spread the word and educate people about how we have damaged the environment and what we can do to make things better. Most of my work is about environmental issues. I want to make work that is entertaining and yet conveys a strong message.

XFUNS: What current designers you admire? Why?

Stefan Sagmeister, because he is original and his work makes me think and makes me want to try harder and makes me feel humble.

Sara Fanelli. She is a children’s books illustrator and her work is simply outstanding. It makes me want to be a child again. She mixes her mediums so well and it seems her illustrations have been created by a magic wand.

Nedko Solakov. Ingenious. Humorous. And so charming and innocent. I love his 99 fears. Amazing.

XFUNS: What words of wisdom do you have for anyone interested in entering the world of the illustration?

Be yourself. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Don’t worry what people say. Do what comes naturally and instinctively to you.

Off limits

Where it all began.

The mystery of the magic glasses

Somewhere

This little statue with its broken neck waits for the children to come back.
I will. One day, I will.

There's something about colour

Then again I may be thinking too much.

Who by fire

Who's the kid that sleeps in the ice cream van while the big shiny cars move around him like aluminum tortoises ? What does he dream of?
Who's the man in blue, sitting in a blue room, with a blue paper puncher on his table? What does he write so intently as his friend watches on?
Who's made all this delicious farsan that will end up in our homes?
Who's the man with silent determination written on his face? Where is he going?
Who are the lovely ladies and what are they contemplating? Have they given up on the dirt of the world?
Who is the little girl with so many books in her bag?
Mulgi Shikli Pragati Jhali!
Who sells all those roses that fill the morning air with their romance?
Who are those kids who live by the Tulsi Pipe Road reminding me of my own childhood?
I ask these questions every day on my way to office.
My reason for getting horribly late.
But who would not stop to look at these wonderful sights, these unfathomable portraits of India?
Who would speed their cars as if they were getting late for doomsday?
Who amongst you is so blind?

An evening in Aarey Colony

photograph by Anvita Lakhera

Troubled by the heat, the snake crossed the road to find shelter where the egrets played in the tall grass.
The pigs made merry with garbage. The plastic bags, as usual, jarred the image.
The dogs, lazily, wondered what is it all about?
The goats showed some acrobatics to reach the Neem tree leaves, while the crows gathered around the ugly iron bin.
The sparrows played about in the sand, oblivious to extinction and we walked on.
The parrots talked about in the sky. They were after something. God only knows what caught their fancy today.
The cuckoo sang a lullaby to the crows so it could sneak into their nests.
The little birds with long tails darted about in groups. We still have to identify them.
The coucal was suspicious.
The buffalo looked up and ambled about, carrying the egret over it.
We came upon a temple and the bells began in earnest.
The mother called her children and at that moment, the rain tree filtered the last sun of the day and everything was at peace.
All this while, a drongo watched on. I wonder what report it must’ve prepared and who it goes reporting to.
The parrots, well, they could not care less.

A haiku in toxicity

When you walk the ravaged landscape of Gurgaon
Or the mushroom city of Mumbai
Or sit under a plastic coconut tree in Chennai
you can find amidst the concrete chaos
the vestigial remains of Americanization
Bright pink Disney characters
promising a plastic childhood and a lot of gas
and if you bothered to look close
you would perhaps find poisonous toxic phthalates

(And if you click on the highlighted link, a child inside you may feel terribly sick.)

Will this shitstorm blow over?

No, it wasn’t this bad. Ever. When I look back all these years of my life, I don’t think I have seen a worse time.
A sanctuary in MP gets denotified as the Great Indian Bustard hasn’t been spotted since 1995.
An Air India plane suddenly becomes a chartered flight on the insistence of the aviation minister’s daughter. Oh, thy holiness!
The turd has risen to the top in the cricket competition. I don’t know if it is a diversion to keep the nation tuned to stink while the powers that be go about green hunting.
A proposal in Goa will let US Navy to come and relax there and seek out comfort women and comfort men. Just like they did in Philippines.
Then there is the Supreme Court orders against mining which are being read and taken as daily jokes in the newspaper. Miners are flouting all possible norms that there are to flout, flouter, floutest.
And all this in just today’s newspaper which doesn’t even report the real news anymore.
I shudder to think what could be the real news?
My head is covered, my ears are plugged, my eyes are closed but I still feel giant blobs of shit falling on my face.
Will this shitstorm blow over?

Life in 2 megapixels

Those Indians

Shoots are boring. Shoots with rich urban Indian kids are boring but you have to wait for 'the moment'.
My moment arrived when the rich Indian kid shouted what are 'those Indians' doing here?
I looked and found a gang of boys on a bicycle looking at the shoot proceedings with interest. They were discussing something and after some ten hesitant minutes they came up to us and asked questions after questions.
Their curiosity was amazing. Their happiness at getting information was uplifting. Most of all their innocence was something which pierced through layers of urban city life and tugged at the soul of this small town boy.
'Those Indians'.
Is this what the rich kids in big cities refer to the rest of the country as?
Is the division on the lines of money, complete?
The producer scolded the rich Indian kid. 'Are you not an Indian?', she asked him.
His face turned red and he uttered some incoherent excuses.
In the bigger, badder world I hear these incoherent excuses turn into a cacophony of unbelievable madness.

Our water

Those of us who buy bottled water without thinking twice should shut up about the water problem. We deserve it. And we deserve what is going to happen in the future. We deserve the water mafia. We deserve corporatisation of water. We deserve the foul smelling water dripping from taps. We deserve to pay a hundred times more for water. With every litre consumed.

Why, you ask.

For if we had questioned that why don’t we get clean water in our taps we would not be here in the first place - throwing our hands in despair while a handful of people hold our water supply to ransom.

Those of us living in cities where monsoon is aplenty deserve to pay hefty sums for water tankers and fill our tanks with worm infested water. We deserve the trickle supply from the municipal corporation.

Why, you ask.

Why indeed the question would come back to us. Why isn’t our building or house equipped with a water harvesting system? Who will come and do it for us? If we don’t know how water harvesting can solve our water problems, whose fault is it? We have access to more information than any other generation of people in any other age. What stops us from googling water harvesting and finding out just how we can benefit from it.

Those of us living in cities where rivers used to run fresh, deserve the gutters these rivers have become. We deserve the Yamuna and the Mithi and the Ganga and the Chambal. Polluted and out of breath.

We deserve the gutters and our complains should end up like bags of degraded plastic thrown in the river at 2000 per second.

Why, you ask.

Why indeed the question will fill our nostrils like stench. Why don’t we come out in numbers and protest. It’s our rivers. If the land mafia would rather they run dry then take the land mafia to task. If the industries would rather they carried effluents and not water, then let the industries know that there are far bigger things than profit.

Fresh water is disappearing fast from the face of this planet. And in India we used to have enough. We wasted it. We are wasting it. Millions of litres every second. There is only one thing we must remember. It’s not government’s water. It’s not municipality’s water. It’s not Coca-Cola’s water. It’s our water. It’s our problem. And we will have to solve it. Unfortunately it will require more than us using 5 litres less water every day. It will require us asking some serious questions. Addressed to ourselves, to begin with.

Hell, yeah!

The old storybook

I found the old storybook
of Russian fairy tales
That Papa used to read to me
for hours
and I was reminded of
many adventures, many journeys
that I had gone on then
One of them
I am yet to return from

A nation of fools and the world house sparrow day.

So a residential colony, Technocrat Society, in Mumbai cut down 30 year old trees because bats used to roost on them. The residents, contributing their own deafening decibels to the world with their televisions and cars and machines and their banter, complained of ‘noise’ the bats would make.

They cut down 1 acre of trees in Prabhadevi in Mumbai.

I wonder just how many people lived the colony. Did no one ask why it was being done? Did no one think about how rapidly their living conditions would decline when the trees are gone?

Of course, no one thought about the bats. Black, slimy, ugly, aren’t they?

The president of the society, KM Patel, and the hundreds of others probably never went to school or they would have learnt that bats eat millions of insects every day. Or we would be diseased dry. They would have, of course, never studied about trees giving out oxygen. Who needs that?

So with anger for breakfast, lunch and evening snacks, I went for a walk and I found a tree in Mumbai where bats roost and tried to find what exactly could have caused such pain to the residents. And this is what I found.

Hundreds of bats hanging on the trees. Half asleep. Some spreading their wings in laziness, some talking to each other. It was evening so probably they were making plans about their night out. Soon about a hundred crows joined them on the tree and held their own conference. And then came the mynahs. They had their own agenda to discuss, but were cut short by parrots, who arrived with their gossip. Mynahs and crows and parrots and bats. That was till the koyals arrived with their song. And they enthralled the audience with their lovely songs.

This tree is just like any other tree in Mumbai. And anywhere else in India. Every evening birds hold their conferences and their concerts there. And in one lonely acre in Mumbai the residents chopped down the trees for that reason.

The residents probably are sitting in their living rooms, as I write this, and watching tv at high decibels. Some of them may be honking their way home. Noise?

I walk back home convinced that we are a nation of fools. I do not think that we can ever understand the plight of the Dongria Kondh, or the tribals in Chattisgarh or anywhere in the country. It’s a sad, lonely and futile battle.

Like those bats, common sense in India is roosting its last.

Epilogue:

Today is the world sparrow day and I have a little secret. In my journeys in the cities of India over the last three months, I have seen a welcome sight on some bushes and some trees. Sparrows suddenly appear in hundreds in the evening and roost for the night. Not before discussing the day in their beautiful twittering. But I am not telling where. Some residents may take offense and chop those bushes and trees down.

Must not play RATM in the car. Must not play RATM in the car.

Mumbai, one morning

Things I have learned in my life so far: When in Mumbai, keep your eyes open and your camera ready.

Once upon a time in Rajasthan

That day
there was a lot of rain
a lot of paint
a lot of slush
two Bullets
a drowning farm
a devastated crop
Roti and pyaaz
Once upon a time
in Rajasthan
we had nothing
but we were so rich

Baba Yaga