A Rat's Tale

Open publication - Free publishing - More vandana shiva

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All that you wanted to know about GM Crops but were too unconcerned to ask.

For details, click here.

News

A question of survival

Here is one video that you must watch before you decide on your answer, or before someone like our environment minister tries to bullshit you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oju86YIOOLI

Good luck!

Is this the end?

If you ask me personally, I don't think there is any hope left. There is far too much greed and far too many vested interests for us to live simple, happy lives. The Great Indian Clearance Sale is on. And we are selling everything.

Once upon a time in the west

Let's take a walk, shall we?

The little comic shop. All of us knew one such. We used to go there and find indescribable treasures. And then life went on the fast lane and we stopped turning the corner where the little shop used to be.
Sometimes we wanted to, but it was too small a corner of too small a street and cars would not go there. So we forgot all about it.
The little shop stopped waiting for us too and turned a page and the chapter said, The End.
We need those little comic shops. Those little hidden gems in the small corners of the small streets. They make our lives interesting and turn our travels into adventures.
Let’s get out of our cars and let’s walk. Let’s walk a new street, turn a new corner and discover a new comic shop, a cake shop, a curiosity shop, a hidden little place in our big little world, every day.

It's not that hard, if we try

One could watch the swallows run about the wind, collecting insects at will and flirt with the clouds over the valleys, and not feel the need of a city for days upon days.
One could lie down on a grassy knoll some two thousand metres above the sea level and watch a mountain getting covered by clouds, uncovered by clouds, covered by clouds and repeat, for hours without feeling the urgency to twitter about it.
One could lie wide awake in the early hours of the morning and hear a fox bark three times as it sniffs the bunny rabbits in the little cage, and one could wonder till the wee hours of the morning of how frightened, but thankfully safe, the rabbits were.
One could walk uphill for kilometres upon kilometres upon kilometres and discover that it was just under a kilometre that one covered in those two and a half hours of strenuous walk to realization about one’s fitness. And yet, and yet, feel good about everything.
But one cannot, upon one’s return to the city, justify anything that one goes about doing in every day urban life. Not the mad rush of the city, not the police sirens playing tinnitus with the ears, not the hours in front of the computer, not the meetings, not the pints of beer after work, not the night life, not the incessant checking of the bank account to see if the gnomes secretly worked their magic and produced some remarkable jump in one’s fortunes.
There is, in my mind, a rising tide of conviction that tells me there is genius hidden in simplicity.
It is the next big idea.
Wait and watch.

(Here is a beautiful article on simplicity by Pico Iyer that Anvita pointed out to me the other day.)

English Summer

Don't make a science of the obvious.

Don't you smell a rat?

Thursday, 4th June. Feeling...

Weekend

Things on my mind this weekend
Dancing dervishes
Dying rivers
A fig tree that will soon be cut
Dead ideas
Ideas I must talk about
Poetry
A long tired road to nowhere
Anger
The ghost of Tom Joad
And another week goes by
The mouse eats the food kept for the birds,
yet again
I have a feeling
It is symbolic of life

Hay-on-Wye. The town of books.

The last picture is the Hay Castle. Also a bookshop.

You could be surprised on seeing a book called ‘A field guide to fairies’. But then again, if you happen to be walking in a weave of magical streets and little huts in a small idyllic village called Hay-on-Wye in Wales, you would almost be looking for fairies when you stumble across this odd illustrated book.
Hay-on-Wye. A town of books. If there is anything that can beat that description, it’s the town itself.
Years ago, when I started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I hastily put it down after reading the first few lines. I could not go on. The writing was so beautiful that I was afraid to finish the book. And I did not read it for several years. Preserving it. How terribly stupid.
My trip to Hay-on-Wye is that feeling all over again. The approach to Hay-on-Wye is like reading the first few lines of the most enchanting book you have ever read and see it come alive. You cross a river to go into town. But you would almost be forgiven if you stop right there and put your bags down and think to yourself that you should turn back for this dream would be broken.
But like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Hay-on-Wye does not disappoint. You walk on, greeted by the dancing swallows in air, the songs of the blackbirds and songbirds flying as if this place was untouched by the evil hand of man.
You see sheep scattered on the hills. Their sublime minds eschewing the philosophies of the day.
You walk on and land amidst books. Or shall I say you land in that chapter of life where there are nothing but books and beautiful people talking about books.
But I would not want to spoil the story for you. You will have to discover this one on your own.
Hay-on-Wye also hosts the Guardian Hay Literary Festival every May. A festival that sees the youngest to the oldest book lovers arrive here.
How unbelievably amazing is that?

Alienation

What good am I

I don't know

The Science Period

There was something about the science period in school, which was confusing. When you talked science with friends, it seemed so exciting. When you used to discuss Star Trek and all the unimaginable possibilities, science used to be, well, magnetic. Then they killed it.
First the obnoxious SK Sharma killed it with his formulaic bullshit on the blackboard, his raised voice and his loose hand which he used to transfer kinetic energy on to unsuspecting cheeks of students. God only knows that I am still nursing the mortal wound in my soul. Chemistry died that day when he slapped me for calling out Celcius instead of Centigrade. I can still hear him shouting, who is that bastard?
Then came Gerard Peter. With his oily hair and precision mathematics. And a penchant for slapping unrivalled by any other. I didn’t think maths was boring, I thought it was sinister. And it stung.
Physics was laid to rest by a 70 year old Malu, who used to whisper and mumble like he alone knew the secrets of the universe and was not telling.
Secretly, I continued my education with Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and wondering if the force was still with me.
That was till our generation got blinded by the glaring lights of conspicuous consumption.
We forgot how the stars looked like. How the billion journeys across the skies could make us less concerned about our own greed and make us think of far more important things.
Science, to me and to a lot of others, was lost.
Then over the last few days, several things happened all at once.
I finished reading the most amazing ‘The World Without Us’ by Alan Weisman with a sense of shame on being a human.
I watched Star Trek, which redefined the genre of science fiction, took the trash out and once again rekindled the questions that used to amaze me. The movie kicked the collective butt of ‘photons, neutrons and morons’.
And I began to read the wittiest, the most well written book on the subject in years: ‘The Canon -Beautiful Basics of Science’ by Natalie Angier.
My brain has been howling with laughter more than it did when I read Douglas Adams. I can only recommend it highly. If I was a millionaire, I would have gifted it to everyone I know and don’t.
I can feel it coming. Another era of exploration. Which will take us, as Leonard Nimoy’s voice says at the end of Star Trek more convincingly than ever before, where noone has gone before.
And though I am no longer a student, I am ready to go into the science period. Again.

The death of a tigress

Watercolour ink, pen on paper

1987
The trip to Ranthambore stays stuck in my memory. We had a point and click Hotshot camera. And my sister pointed it at deer and held on like a professional photographer and when she clicked, the deer had hopped out of the frame.
Spotting bears is difficult. But we were lucky to spot two. Eating berries. I passed on the camera from behind to my Harvard returned uncle. He pointed the camera at the bears but did not click. He too was delusional about being a pro photographer and took his ambition out on that Hotshot.
I have the picture. But I can’t convince you that the two black dots you see in that are actually bears.
And then the tigers came along.
Two cubs crying for their mother. The mother hurrying to meet them.
And that is the image I carry in my mind.
And that is the image that is brutally killed every time I see the word ‘poaching’ in the newspapers.
It’s been 22 years since that day. And so many tigers have been killed mercilessly in the jungles of India.
I have read stories of how tigers are tortured before they die. I have read accounts of people who have seen poachers go about their business. I have heard of corruption and I have resigned myself to the fact that tigers will no longer roam our forests.
And slowly, painfully a memory is getting created in my mind.
The cubs calling out to their mother. And the mother being killed before she can reach the cubs.
I cannot shake off the imagined memory.

A year after we returned from the trip, there was a small clip in the newspaper. Three tigers poached in Ranthambore.

Soonish?

When does it end and when does it begin? When do you start getting comfortable in what you are doing and when do you forget that the 'battle outside is raging'? When do you let go of the lazy comforting feeling? When do you jump to the other side and go on an exploration? Perhaps it's not a question of when, but how. Oh the beautiful power of how. It settles all debates and all such radical musings.

How I got Bob Dylanned

How does it feel
To go to a Dylan concert
With no projections at all
Like an abs0lute rip-off

One long weekend that

So after feeling like walking out of a neurosurgery with the head split wide open and feeling all William Gibsonish, I ran to the nearest park, stared at some trees, looked at a wren sing, watched the duck family, the familiar coots and felt human again. I wonder if I should just become a farmer. Soonish.

I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
-Bob Dylan

Uncomfortable questions

Sometimes I feel, we don't ask enough questions these days. I remember when I was in school, the boring classes were those where no questions were asked. And we learnt most in those where we asked all kinds of questions. I get a feeling that we are in those boring classes again. Instead of a dreary teacher, we just sit and listen to television. Well, I think we can all do with some questions. Here are some of mine to begin with.

The revenge of the bored

Back in the days, the last pages of my school notebooks used to be filled with all kinds of doodles and writings. There were film scripts, weird thoughts, album names from a band line-up that was totally fictional. It even had song titles with the minutes written on them. All that was done when the teacher was trying to explain moral science. The most trite subject ever.
Things haven't changed. I am much older now. And I sit in hours long meetings. And I am still making strange doodles to escape the dull monotony of someone explain me the virtues of crappy and utterly disgusting products.
One day, I am going to sell these things and earn money out of it. That will be my revenge on all the bullshit I have had to hear for so many years.

Hoodwinked

(Pictures: Anvita Lakhera. For a complete set, click here)

The raven patrols his nest and drives away the pigeons. The swan is busy marking territory. The coots are fighting as ever. The blue tits have found a birdhouse where they will hatch their young ones. The chaffinches sing beautiful tunes. The robins hop and skip, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a sunny day or a cloudy day, cold or a warm day, life outside my window is beautiful as ever. I shut down my computer, drag myself away from the internet to catch a fleeting glimpse of a world we have abandoned for carbon.
And just when I wonder if it was worth it, a duck swims by with its nine little ducklings. People stop in their tracks, mesmerized, to watch the duck and its young ones come out of the water and cross the road.
Even expensive shops with their fantastic displays don’t get that kind of adulation.
I have a feeling we’ve been shortchanged and hoodwinked into believing that malls are all we need to feel good and ‘developed’ and first worldian.
Maybe we should reclaim our parks and trees while there is still time.
A Coke and a burger shop in a mall is no patch on the duck family.

Climate camp, take a bow.

Yes reduce your carbon footprint, use it to kick some ass.
Indeed!
On April 1st Climate Camp showed us the power of a non violent protest.
They showed us dignity.
They showed us common sense.
And they showed us, that if you start making sense, people get wound up.
Here's a round of applause to the Climate Camp people. Well done. And yes, no matter what the media says, we saw and we heard and we know what the truth is.

Monbiot reports the truth. And here is what The Independent says. And here is something for you who question. And here is something for the climate change numpty and what to say to 'it' when you come across one.

Nature doesn't do bailouts

All illustrations designed for the COP 15 Newspaper for Climate Camp.

Will the Copenhagen UN Climate Talks end up as they always do? Time is running out and the world must wake up to the challenge of climate change. The leaders often tend to look at the economics of it all. And their policies depend on this profit and loss game. Well, I don't think anyone needs a nobel prize in economics to figure this one out:

An economic analysis of strong, dedicated steps to tackle the climate crisis.
PROFIT: We get to live
LOSS: We become extinct and destroy the planet as we go down.

The protests have begun. The police is out in huge numbers, painting a demonic picture. It's stupid. The protestors are no criminals. They are just demanding that common sense prevails. It's a protest for jobs, justice and climate. How wrong could that be?

As the Climate Camp puts it: Nature doesn't do bailouts.

Twitter, twittering, twittered.

View the complete set here

Just about a year ago, we were shooting a film in a studio located in the outskirts of Mumbai. It wasn’t going according to plans and we got outside to get some fresh air.
Three kids came by and we took some pictures. The little kid was fascinated by the digital camera when we showed him. For about fifteen minutes he marvelled at how he could see himself on the screen.
The he got bored and moved along with his brothers.
We learn to be amazed, get familiar and be amazingly bored by technology in a matter of days, if not minutes.

A year on, technology has exploded in my life.
Digital or die. That’s the catchy new mantra for the new age advertising agencies. The business of advertising has changed and a lot of us around the world have been left running, panting, exhausted in trying to keep up with this rabid advance in technology.
Back home in the ad world of India, there is talk about digital. Cautious talk. Some are trying to justify the analogue. Some do not know what exactly to make of the new age.
But in November twitter showed us a glimpse of the future.
The twittering that happened during the Mumbai attacks was phenomenal for two reasons. One for the revelation of how technology will work in the future. And two, that it happened in India.
Here is a country where a massive percentage of the population doesn’t even have access to basic food and education. And the remaining are sucking the last drop out of the 156 kpbs juice. That twitter would become big overnight because of those 4 days in Mumbai, is a topic better googled than written about here.

The world truly has moved on. Back in the days, as they say, advertising used to influence popular culture. What I have begun to notice is a reversal. The people are beginning to influence advertising. How many times have we seen youtube videos rip offs by ad agencies.

And while we grunt a few decibels of denial, thousands, if not millions yet, people are twittering in India. Some updating their friends with their bowel movements, but some using the technology for powerful, meaningful purposes. Like this tweet I found from Wildlife SOS India.

We learn to be amazed, get familiar and be amazingly bored by technology in a matter of days, if not minutes. And it will be interesting to see how soon the ad world grunts off its denials and embraces this new world. Before people get bored and move on to newer things.

No No Nano

For the amount of time
We spend on roads every day
We don't need a smaller car
We need a car
With space enough
For a TV, sofa, bed
And will it be possible
To include a commode
Please?

Once upon a tree

I can watch trees for hours for hours. And I now know of one tree that has been watching us too.

The beast won't go to sleep

Back in black

The hungry wolf, the thinking cock and the alien who loved hawais. Back in black. (I wish every time I write or read that line the AC DC riff could play somehow.)

R.I.P Science Fiction

He is my favourite science fiction writer ever. I used to think Asimov was like Nostradamus. He was looking at least 500 years into the future.


This is the present. Here and now.

And this, is me.

(And this here is what the young prodigy called Pranav Mistry is thinking about)

To Russia with love

Baba Yaga. India Ink, pencil on paper.

Baba Yaga, Ivan Bilibin

Hedgehog in the fog

Once upon a time, in a very far away land we all grew up on Russian fairy tales. We bought books published by Mir Publications, Moscow. They were cheap and translated into our languages. And they were wonderful.
If my childhood memories are made. in equal measure, from the Indian mythology and the tales of brave Ivan, the youngest son of the farmer, it is because of Mir Publications.
But that was then.
When Soviet Russia went away, the books went away too.
The stories, gone.
Baba Yaga, the tormentor of my dreams, gone.
I hang on to memories from the days. And I scourge the internet for anything, anything that would bring back those books I loved and lost many moons ago.

I recently came across Vladimir Arkhipov’s wonderful book – ‘Home-Made’. A book about contemporary Russian folk artifacts. And I could see the creativity with which the men and women of the then Soviet Russia led their lives.

I stumbled across, thanks to Anvita, on a very beautiful Russian cartoon film, ‘the Hedgehog in the fog’, and my heart was overwhelmed by its beauty.

And searching for Mir Publications I came across many a post mourning its loss. And I saw, once again, the illustrator who coloured my dreams as a child, Ivan Bilibin.

I do not know the politics of life, of nations and of the world. All I know is, without Russia my childhood wouldn’t be half as sweet. And my memories not powerful enough to make me write and draw them for the rest of my life.

Cut the crap

In the picture: Excerpt from the 2009 Dictionary of Bullshit. Click to enlarge.

I don't think we can fight the environmental crisis by paying lip service. Or saying, 'I care, but I'm not a treehugger.' Either you care enough to take responsibility on yourself and do whatever it takes, or you just don't care. Climate change isn't a matter of living room discussions anymore. It is here and it is heating the hell out of my village and drying it of all water and hope. And I care. So if you can't tell your carbon footprint from your facebook status, please shut the fuck up.

Questions and reflections from my hairdresser

Went for the usual haircut.
Or a cheap London haircut.
£12 including a head massage
and these insightful words
and questions:

Do you go clubbing?
Working as a security guard?
From India?
Why do we keep fighting?
Look at Southall.
We live as brothers there.
I go clubbing. I need it as a release.

What is the problem with Aaj tak?
It is still after us Pakistanis
Waise, this NDTV Imagine is crap
Look how it is troubling these film stars.

Hindi films are great, dramas are shit.
Saas is hounding bahus all the time.

When I went home I took 2000 pounds
I was treated like a king.
My money ran out
And so did my friends

Do you go clubbing?

We can’t have war.
We both are nuclear.
It will be a war of buttons.

Abhay Deol does good films.
Shah Rukh is over.
Oye Lucky was funny.
This Shahid Kapoor is too immature.

Do you go clubbing?

Why don't you spike your hair?

London huh! We have at least four seasons in our mulk.

Those malls

And while on the topic, here is a brilliant little film, a friend made. And click here and here to access the links given in the comment below. Amazing stories those.


One Day from Jay Sav on Vimeo.

The Boys of Kota

Pictures and video © Hemant Anant Jain

The summers skies
are still filled
with kites
and the boys still
hide on terraces
with sticks
to loot the kites
busy hands measuring
the manja and the sadda
But the images I have
are of broken girgidis
and torn kites
that lie in the abandoned house
where we once were young
where I hope we can fly kites
again, one day
but the boys of Kota
never come back
once they leave
much like them kites

For Meena Kadri and her amazing eye.

I saw a tiger

Horrified

Scared

Perhaps he heard what was happening back home in Ranthambore. Or Corbett. Or Assam where recently 9 were killed. And some which went unreported.

(Pictures © Hemant Anant Jain. Please do not use any pictures from this blog without permission)

That recession thing

Where did they come from?

Visualizing Bullshit

This drawing: Mixed media and bullshit on paper. From the series, 'Visualizing Bullshit'.

If I had the authority, I would have ordered a scientific inquiry into meetings that last 4+ hours. I am convinced that everything degenerates after 20 minutes. Here is a sample from my overloaded brain: We take photographs to preserve memories. Said at the 245th minute of a meeting.
Bring on the neurosurgeons, my head is splitting with silent, painful laughter at this amazing revelation.

And dark is the night for all

It doesn't really matter
if you don't care
about the sparrows
or if you haven't seen
them around
like you used to
even a few years ago
It doesn't really matter
If you do not know
the sparrows die when cities die
when the air corrodes
a little more
It doesn't really matter
if you want to wish away
the last chance
the last light of hope
for dark is the night for all

But in the morning if you wake up with your senses, and the dark, selfish dream is over, sprinkle some grain for the sparrows. Some rice. Some jowar. Small pieces of roti that you would have thrown otherwise. And bring back your city to life.
Oh and if you are wondering how to keep the pigeons from eating the food for sparrows, look here. I found this rather interesting.

Dishum

No tigers? Climate change? Environmental mess? Problem solved. Aa gaye bade bade Superchor.

What do the poachers know? We got two tiger species in India.
As one is being poached, another one exists secretly in the official government documents. Roaming the wild of the babus’ minds and politicians’ hearts. Who needs wildlife sanctuaries to hide them?
Want to know more about this tiger species, or a bird, which only exists in the minds of our amazingly talented and creative politicians, or how cows are fauna, or how the endangered red panda, snow leopard, Himalayan black bear, musk deer are not even wildlife, check this article written by Prerna Singh Bindra in Tehelka.
And if your mind is filled with questions regarding these wonderful new inventions of our politicians’ minds, direct them to our beloved ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) who is using EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) to fight climate change.
My mind is ringing with a Hollywood trailer style, ‘This summer, the MoEF will introduce climate change to its nemesis, the EIA’.
A song to go from Oye Lucky Lucky Oye: Aa gaye bade bade, Superchor! (The master thieves are here.)

(with Anvita )

Oceans

The walls of the house talk to me
Even through photographs
And I dive deep into the coolness
Of the lime
Buried into this welcoming sea
I discover
Stories, voices, visions
And many childhoods
Drowned but breathing still

How the hell did that get in? A D&AD design event.

Found this rather interesting video clip from a D&AD design talk. Patrick Baglee of Navy Blue talks about three little books and the craft of writing for design.


How the hell did that get in? - Writing For Design from D&AD on Vimeo.

Was Mr. Baglee talking about these books? Indeed!

Get your own - Open publication

Get your own - Open publication

Get your own - Open publication

This is where I belong

Frantic

too many ideas
need many boxes
to put them in
i neatly packed them
to open
at the right time
and now i can't find
my way around the mess
i open one
and say, um maybe
not this one
and i look for
another then

That one, bright moment of truth

And in that one moment all the painful years of playing with water colours in school flash past. The horrible flowers that had to be coloured, the endless vases that had to be made, the brushes which were utterly destroyed and the drawings exam where it all came to naught. After all these years I wonder why I even bother.

A winter morning

The two swans force their way across the dark frozen canal to the bread crumbs which the seagulls have staked a claim to. A swan relishes its power over the seagulls and eats the bread peacefully. Jonathan Livingston or some such circles the swan looking for his chance to snatch the bread crumb away. All this in the few crazy moments of a morning, while a hundred metres away the number 8 bus passes by. I can either be a photographer, or reach the office on time.

Journals

There is a place where influences, ideas, memories and reflections meet. It's called a journal. That much I figured out looking at some pages of my own. But then I cannot explain the meaning of: trying to draw spider shit. But what the heck, who wants to explain a journal? And yeah, it's a powerful internet deaddiction tool (I mean the journal, not spider shit). I suppose some of us really need that.

Cycle Logic

Oh and there's 14 days of paid leave in it as well. Of course not for the filthy. Rich.
Here's the deal from London's perspective. And what made me think. And here's a little about cyclists in Delhi, Critical Mass, and what you can do in all the cities of India.

That one last thing

That was 2008 in a nutshell. For me.

The thing I hate more than the new year eve

Is writing a review. So I will write some and feel better, or even celebratory, about the new year.
The truth is, I wanted to get these out of my system.
Some of these were shouting and screaming to be told. And one in particular was decaying and the stench was strangulating my thoughts.
So here we go. In as few words as possible.

1. The World Without Us: Alan Weisman
It’s perhaps one of the most important books I have read in recent times. Not only it is imaginative, it is brilliantly argued. I have lost all hope in the world. I think we are hurtling towards our collective, dark and stupid deaths with what we have done to the planet. This book makes me feel good, great in fact, about the world without humans. If you have someone studying in school, make them read the book. Discuss it. This is stuff that can lead to some amazing conversations.

2. Palestine: Joe Sacco
This is a bit late for a book that came out in 2001. But then I just read it and it shook me. I won’t go on and on about it, but just hasten to mention that after you read this graphic novel, your view of the world will never be the same again. In more ways than one. Because not only Joe Sacco is an amazing cartoonist, he also brings alive the misery and death and sweat and grime and politics of Palestine and Israel. It’s terribly important for us to know. Because like it or not, all things are connected.

3. News Channels
Bombay. Terrorist attacks. And a crazy journalist shouting and screaming to the camera man to zoom in on the broken glass and hoarsing, horsing to us: Look at this, look at this. Oh my god, look at this.
For a month I have been possessed by extremely violent visions of what should happen to people like that.
And while I do have respect for Gandhi and democracy and freedom of speech and other articles mentioned in our constitution, even a red hot iron rod down their trap would seem to me a rather pleasant revenge for what they did to us.

4. Us
Yes, us inhabitants of that little blue planet. Here is a three-point review on a scale of 10.
a. World peace: 0
b. Environment: 0
c. Immediate Future: 1 (the single point nods to some upcoming films like Harry Potter. At least we will entertain ourselves as we hurtle towards our destruction.)

There we go. I still don’t feel celebratory. But happy new year. Never the less.

2009. The year of individual action.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Sunita Narain thunders in her latest editorial: "We need leaders who will not allow panic and blackmail to rule. We don’t need corporate welfare. We need welfare for people and for the planet". True words. Coming at a time when big climate deals are being forged with shocking apathy and lack of concern for the real issues.
This year planner comes with the latest issue of Down to Earth.
With the title - the year of individual action, the planner / calendar takes a look at some of the things we as individuals can do. Some powerful facts in there. Take a look.
And if you like the planner, get yourself a copy of the December issue of Down to Earth.

The Big Climate Deal

We are going down to meet our collective dark and stupid deaths. And while I think that there is just no hope left, you may want to know a bit more of what went wrong.

An unintentional experiment in Prejudice.

To test: Levels of prejudice present in polite, educated western societies.

Equipment: A beard, a colourful Rajasthani turban.

Location: A Christmas Fancy Dress Party, London

Results:
These are the reactions from about 25% of those present.
“So you are dressed as a terrorist!”
“Why, do terrorists announce their presence by a certain appearance?”
“Aha! Terrorist!”
“So are you dressed as Osama?”
“Is that bag supposed to be full of explosives?”
“No that’s my office bag which I will leave at the cloakroom.”
Two gentlemen chose to continuously make gun sounds behind me as we walked to the venue.
Fed up after a while, I started answering, “I am dressed as the quintessential terrorist cliché!”
I got the un-PC award for my getup.
And all I wanted to be was a Jaisalmer Rajput.

A year ago I made a book about prejudice. Never believed it would be so true even after the world watched three days of Mumbai terror unleashed by clean shaven youngsters who looked like any average college going students.

Correction. Any average brown skinned college-going students.

Uh-oh!

A pig, a witch, a hedgehog and some bats.

And here's a lovely little story about the pig, the witch, the hedgehog and the bats.

Crazy people you meet in London

(Click on the image to enlarge)
Here is where you can get Tony Davidson's book: One Track Mind. And here is a little website about the book where you can see some spreads, and contribute your own images.

The Battle of Bombay

The loudness of anger rises like the tide and fills the sewers up and spills the water on the roads and floods them and make people swim in it. The loudness of anger subsides and leaves grime on the roads and leaves us watching aghast at the mess that can make a city rot. The loudness of anger is a good thing. We need the deafening to hear our inner selves. To lay bare the muck that covered our eyes.
And what do our inner selves say?
That the news channels are crap. That.
That the politicians are the cause of all this. And that.
Kill fundamentalism. That too.
Politicians, shut the fuck up. And that.
I think everything that is being said is right. In some measure or the other.
We are all traveling on the same rocking boat that perhaps will cringe and suffer and break and split, but will never sink.
It’s easy to rattle India. It’s impossible to sink it.
The video from CST showed people catching the terrorist and hitting him.
If they come as ghosts in the night and take over our hotels like scared, ball less fucks that they are, they can kill some of us.
But if they come out in broad daylight, we can take them on empty handed and we will take their guts out from their throats and we shall make them hang like drying meat for a fly feast.
They have started the The Battle of Bombay.
This isn’t a battle against anyone. This is a battle for India.
The anger will subside and our fuckhungry politicians will start raping sense. And nonsense.
But this time let some things begin.
Let us call for police reforms.
Let’s depoliticize the police.
Let’s give them better arms and better training and better salaries.
Let the corporate India step up and tell it to the government that this will have to be done.
And the next time a politician asks for bribe for a posting, his ass should be stuffed with one crore rupees in denominations of one rupee coins.
Let the battle of Bombay begin.
Police reforms first.

Remember me?

Remember me? All those years ago I broke your back. And I sucked your spirit. And I bought you and left you to dogs? Remember me? I am back again. I have been hungry all along. And I smell blood now. The blood in your veins bursting with anger. What a feast it will be to suck your angry blood and buy you and leave you again. Broken. You don't know what I am talking about? I am the dirtiest little devil of Indian politics. They let me loose when the nation is angry. Like all those years ago. Mandal Commission agitation. All the students around India...oh how angry they were. How deliciously angry. A nation united by anger. Oh ha! ha! What a sell out it was. I bought young, angry students and made them numb. And the rest of you were left to rot with disbelief.
I can sense that same anger now. More, in fact. And I am ready to break your back and leave you numb and stupid. In a few weeks, I would have sucked your anger dry. I have done it before. And I will do it now. Indian politics is unleashing me again.
A nation united by anger. Delicious!

Rajasthan. Or Burano?

That's the trouble with travelling. It challenges ideas. I used to think Rajasthan is the most colourful place on earth. (This little legend, in the storytelling tradition of Rajasthan was 'told' by me and Deepak, once upon a time.) I am not so sure now, having been to Burano in Italy.

Mumbai. 26th November, 2008

And now we will watch our spineless leaders whine and speak shit on television like they have got a 'foreign hand' right up their a$$es. And soon enough, there will be talk of the 'Mumbai Spirit' and all will be forgotten. We are so fucking tired of this nonsense.
Here is what our adorable home minister Patil had to say. And here are the carnage pictures from flickr.

If I manage to catch them

I've always loved those coming soon posters. Here's one of my own. Can't wait to see how things develop. February. The boy is back in business.

I have questions

This road never ends

Happened to walk back on a road long forgotten.

I know this room, I've walked this floor

will i remember the old house where my summer holidays were spent watching my uncle's car go by. the lone tree that threw shade askance on the footprints in the sand. the old canvasses that now are painted and forgotten like the skills of the one who splashed colours, shades, dreams. the kites in the skies, the whoops and laughs, the holiday club of an odd bunch, the mile long hikes into the berry country, the tales that grandma plucked and fed hungry souls, the old cooler that made grandpa's legs ache, vishnu, who then was called to massage. will i remember the milkshaked mornings, the lazy afternoons when we stole, milkpowder cartons, from the one who would not remember his cousins, the devils will i remember my brother who showed me the old well in the backyard and said dracula would rise from there putting fear in me that would last for years and wake me up in the strangest of nights when i would be haunted by memories that i try hard to find. will i remember the voices, will i remember the songs, will the red dresses float before my eyes will i ever be able to recollect what thoughts possessed me for hours, as i watched the armyman's rifle that hung on red velvet. will i remember the day when, many years later i would visit that house and my cousin, the dracula devil would make me listen to grateful dead to the ghost of jerry garcia as it sung from a vinyl that little men collected as cool long before the rolling stones became old men and paul mc cartney the wise fool. i try hard to dig and come up with this handful of desert sand, still warm enough to make my feet hurry. will i remember the old house where my mother grew up and bid goodbyes to a world she belonged. i suspect not.
but whenever i listen to cohen and hear his dark deep voice, i touch upon old dust, which, when i clear, makes me remember a life, with every asthamatic breath.

Leonard Cohen: Two concerts between July and November. A lifetime of wishes. Fulfilled.

Something's not quite right about it all

Sunita Narain's article made me think.

Flyover

Foretold

Once upon a time in Barcelona

Once upon a time in Barcelona a story was told on a wall. The story of two kings. The king of grass and the king of clay. It is said they had absolute dominion over their kingdoms.
No one could defeat them, let alone challenge them. And this made them lazy and fat and most of all sad. After all, what's life without challenges? Then one day they came face to face with each other. So they started to fight. And game after game they made each other faster,
stronger and better, ever after. (Translated from Spanish).

I'll remember her

There are two worlds. Time keeps taking away the colours of this world to the other. It drains souls colourless till they have nothing left but the unending blackness. Time is death. The ninety two year woman resisted time by her will, till time took the colours of her soul away into the other world. Lost between this world and the other, she could not make up her mind. To stay in the world she lived or follow the promise of the new world. But time. It just toys with you and makes you believe that you have a choice. And then it gets bored and moves on. With you in his sack of emptiness.

And no, it's not going to get any better.

Let's stop fooling each other and get on with the truth. We are all going down. And how.

Ravan. 1973-2002

The Hindi Belt

How can one not take the names of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Nirala, Ayodhya Singh Upadhyaya in the same breath as Keats, Eliot or Emily Dickinson?
How is it that anything Hindi is looked down upon in our own country?
How is it that people like me write and speak better English than Hindi?
How is it that most of us grow up reading English translation of our own epics?
How is it that the two Indian ladies I met in London started laughing when I mentioned that thankfully we are over the worst phase of Americanization and at least we have begun to respect our own language a little more?
How is it that my dear friend says and believes that he will prefer a brand called Peter England over Vimal? (Vimal sounds so downmarket, he adds.)
How is it possible that most of us will offer blank faces if a poem by Nirala is recited to us?
And yet it is true. More than guilty we are perhaps the stupidest nation on earth not to respect our own literature and our own language.
Stupid because we are missing out on some of the most amazing writing that has ever been done on this planet.
Stupid because we equate one language with progress and another with decadence.
Ye hamne kya kar daala?
How did we let Macaulay succeed in his plans?
(Apparently the fact that Macaulay ever said it (click on the poster) is debatable. But here is the text of his education minute. Read points no 31-35, if not the entire text. A classic case of the phirangi attitude towards India which continues till today. Unfortunately.)

So many tigers

I.Q.P

The power of water harvesting

Every roof is a potential water harvesting structure. Use it to solve your water problems. This is how simple it is:


For more information: www.rainwaterharvesting.org

What model of economics is this?

This is pretty much the template for development in the new super India. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Up next, there's 1620.361 ha of discontent brewing. And for good reason.

Veg Roly Poly: Just what we need for a revolution.

I have been wondering why we never protest. Nothing makes us unhappy. Forget poverty, forget inflation, forget that the country is heading towards chaos, forget that everything than can go wrong in the country, is. Forget that the politicians have actually taken time and effort to piss over our collective selves very recently. We are not going to protest. Or so I thought. Until, on my carbon emitting internet journeys I stumbled across a very angry Indian. Reproduced here is the fiery complaint she lodged at a site dedicated to complaints. I have taken off the name of the airline to avoid any action against myself. I, like all the other countrymen, am happy in my little frog well of no protest.

Lessons in global advertising

I have been dealing with an unusual dry patch. Obviously I was doing something wrong. And it wasn't till today I could put a finger on the problem. Simply put, I wasn't subverting. Enough. More about that when you click the image.

London Diary 2: The Elusive Fox

Boredom, pen and acrylic on paper.

Subscribe to common sense.

The biggest environmental problems can be solved by common sense. But why do we look the other way?

Boxes and Cities

Neatly packed cardboard boxes, underlined with polythene to make them waterproof so that the books don’t get wet. Brown taped. And again, for added strength. And yet every time some books get destroyed.
My Louis L’amour collection was handpicked by the movers and packers for a particularly twisted fate.
And if my life over the last eight years can be summed up in boxes, so be it.
Though ‘summed up’ doesn’t feel quite right as the number of boxes have been getting fewer by the year.
I am beginning to get obsessed with these boxes. What strength. Which tape. Should I call the movers and packers or should I just call the movers and pack it myself.
The brand of the boxes and the look of them have come to signify cities for me. And vice versa.
Delhi is a thin box. Careless. Money saving. Useless. And you can expect life to become lazily twisted, like my books, once you are done unpacking.
Mumbai is a thick skinned box. But kinda wet and slimy. Can’t trust it from the appearance. But it will surprise you once you unpack. Luck will decide if the surprise will be pleasant or otherwise.
Amsterdam is a pile of neat boxes. Nicely designed. Matter of factly. Even the packing tape is great. If you pile up the boxes it looks like avant garde architecture of Rotterdam.
London. Damn. I am dreading my first move. Within the city and then eventually out of it. It promises to be an unnerving experience. But I am sure I will get to the bottom of this box too.

© Hemant Anant Jain

Er..who is Enid Blyton again? Read. It helps. Part2

In this follow-up to the read it helps campaign we got a little bolder and more political. But first up was Madonna, who writing her children's book, feigned ignorance of Enid Blyton. Interesting Guardian article here. The other two were bold political posters taking a dig at two of amazingly stupid comments made by Indian leaders. If a healthcare minister underlines the importance of shamans, the country is seriously sick.

Mumbai

Madness. Rain fallen madness. The overflowing drains, gutter smell madness. The madness that rises with every high tide and rises and rises till it consumes us. And yet there is something about it. Something not quite seeking the asylum. Yet. Something which says the madness is a welcome break in this great cosmic order. The order which makes us wake up and go and sit on those desks, stare at computers, aggravate our sciaticas and annoy our carpal tunnels. You can’t find this madness even if you go looking for it. It comes to you when you are done hating this great mega of a megapolis called Mumbai. You have to hate it. And yet you end up loving it. Madness.
Every square millimetre of this city is brimming with it. Expensive square millimetre. Rented out, rented in, unaffordable square millimetre. And yet if you are unlucky you could be in Mumbai and get nothing of this beautiful madness like your life was subjected to a low interest rate. Most of our lives are. Deposits lying in bad accounts, accruing nothing. But then again. If you have stared at the lights before they say camera and action you’d know you are mutually funded and stock marketed your life in the right place. For Mumbai is tinsel. Make believe. Dirty, whoring, gigoloed make believe. Isn’t life too? Then why complain. Breathe in and walk about and touch the grime that turns to moondust and sparkles in the imaginative mind. You could be wading neckdeep in the gutter water in a flood in Mumbai and yet and yet feel lucky to be there. Madness. And it comes after you have hated and hated Mumbai and run out of hatred. And run out of it like the arrows thousands of years ago, when, having run out of arrows you were subject to a long tortuous death by Genghis Khan’s army. This is going to be the same. Your reason will bleed itself dry. No logic will help you as you fall, knees first in love with Mumbai. And you will look at the moon hanging over Haji Ali at 2am and your soul will confess an undying love to the city. And you will move out of the city and out of the country. You will become a gypsy living in enchanted lands. You will get drunk on Amsterdam and dazzled in Paris and become a beggar in London and you will return, by accident, to Mumbai and you will get down from the plane and walk out of the airport all ready to hate it. You have seen the world you have seen reason you have walked the famous boulevards and those musty seats of the taxis will make you fall out of love and you will be free of Mumbai. From Mumbai. And you step out arrogantly and you step out and you feel the first kilo of the foul stench at reclamation and you shout with joy and the words come out in a victory march and you know you have lost. For you hear how much you love Mumbai. Madness.

On the road.

Get your own - Open publication


"They danced down the streets like dingledodies,
and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life
after people who interest me, because the only
people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are
mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous
of everything at the same time, the ones that never
yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn,
burn, burn..."
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 1

Independence Day

A pocket sized war against prejudice

Get your own - Open publication

A pocket sized war against prejudice. And some other pocket sized crusades.

But, it's only politics.

A short story in 3 parts.

London Diary 1: Blackbirds

A tale of two deathly attacks and how I almost survived them.

Munna on the run

if I walk my foot breaks down
if I smile my mask's a farce
if I cry I'm just a child
if I remember I'm a liar
if I write the writing's done
if I die the dying's over
if I live the dying's just begun
if I wait the waiting's longer
if I go the going's gone

From 'Mexican Lonliness'. By Jack Kerouac.

And another one of those things

One of those things

Our darkest hour

And I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Which book are you reading?

Many years ago I was refused entry into an art college.

And rightly so. I did not know how to draw
a straight line. In 2005 when this idea came to me,
I looked at all the hot shot art directors to help me
do these books. But no one was interested.
So I did them myself.

And now they say I am an illustrator.

I still can’t draw. All I know is, I want to tell stories.
And like those cavemen who drew all those hunting
scenes thousands of years ago, I too will get my
stories across to people.

I take hope in the fact that those cavemen probably
never went to an art college either.

Read. It helps.

Shouldn't a bookshop use its bags to communicate about the power of reading? This was my first project for Midland Bookshop. Deepak and I scourged the Chawri Bazaar to get the right bags for our clients and screen printed the messages on them. Those were the days.

Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and 169 Rampura Bazaar.

© Hemant Anant Jain, 2008

Climate Camp 2008

A few good people. Are they enough to put some sense into the heads of the powers who don't seem to have any common sense? We are now moving back to the dark ages of coal powered plants. Even the Guardian Climate Change Summit is sponsored by E.on, who propose to take the world into dark ages by building a modern age wonder - a coal powered plant. What a mess. The Climate Camp 2008. Be prepared.

Let's never get lost again

A film for Nokia Navigator. Produced by Wieden+Kennedy London for India as a part of their Let's never get lost again campaign.

The Water Crisis

Solving the world water crisis isn't that big a problem. It's common sense really. Here's a place where you can find out more.

It all began when

If my thought dreams could be seen.

Your choice.

An obituary

Indiana Jones and Death by Comparison

The trouble with saving the planet.

Kneel Down! Hands up! The true story of BAF Zodiac.

A bike called the Bullet

Theory of Everything

A theory of everything (TOE) is a hypothetical theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena.

Physics. I loved the subject. And I failed miserably in it. But examinations aside, I was crazy about all that I read on it.
From Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking to Isaac Asimov.
And all through the school year I used to read these books and really wonder about the possibilities of alternate worlds, and even what the unified theory would achieve. I used to open my Physics book and the wonderful diagrams and theories used to transport me to another world.
Pink Floyd was the soundtrack for these memorable journeys.
And I started writing poetry inspired by the subject.
(With generous help from Roger Waters’ lyrics.)
Till the exams came and I barely scraped through.
I never figured what my love for Physics had to do with solving complicated numericals.
I just loved the subject. I did not want to be a scientist.
Many years later, in 2005, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at creating some kind of art.
And all I could think of was Physics. Because 2005 happened to be the World Year of Physics. A celebration of 100 years of the theory of relativity.
I had this wild idea of creating typography from physics diagrams.
After months of research and going through hundreds of those, I finally got hold of 26 diagrams that looked liked the letters of the alphabet.
This poster literally transported me into a parallel universe.
I sent this around to graphic designers I admired and got very interesting responses.
With no formal training in art, and nothing to show for except badly drawn doodles, I started believing that I could make art. Good, or bad. I could do it.
2005. Physics changed everything for me.
I’ve got a funny feeling that quantum physics and Theory of Everything has something to do with it.

Three observations in black and white

The Reader's Alphabet

© Hemant Anant Jain, 2006
Each letter represents a famous literary character and a little text summarizes the story of the book in which the character appears. Here's a little appreciation for the poster in the blogosphere. And more here. And a little bit of Notcot.

Portrait of a city

Delhi. An old eunuch done in by his own excesses. Face thorned by warts of ugly buildings. A congested sinus filled with the soot of traffic. Decaying bones and morals. Pride and arrogance and a soul which is scarred and raped everyday.

Borrowed Pixels -1: Mathematics

Borrowed pixels: A series of bad painting attempts combined with lo res images sourced from the internet to explore and deal with my childhood fears. Today it's maths.

Boxed on a monday.

Run

A campaign done for Grey Duesseldorf. I loved writing and illustrating it. Out of Mumbai! Small world indeed. Funny how it came about. Before joining Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, I had this offer from Grey. And I did the campaign for them. I ended up never joining the place. They are a bunch of great guys though.

More observations

Things I have learned in my life so far

Stefan Sagmeister's brilliant new website for his new book - Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far. You can contribute your own learnings on this website. Take a look.

Monsoon in Mumbai

Things I have learned

I don't have time to think about things I hate, because I don't have enough time to do things I love.

Observations

1 minute ramblings.

Bjorn Lomborg in the Bar

I had the good fortune of attending a talk by the noted environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg. His contention was that global warming is good for Europe. As it will spend a lot less in heating and electricity. And that less people will die of cold. Someone asked him that there was a rapid decline in the population of frogs in Europe because of warming. To which Mr. Lomborg said that he didn't care about frogs. I had the good fortune of attending the talk by Bjorn Lomborg and knowing how much of his head is inside his a$$.

Life is short

Which book are you reading?

A storybook series about people who read books and went on to great things. This is a series of six books done as a graphic design campaign for Midland Bookshop in Delhi. Designed, written and illustrated by Hemant Anant Jain.

The Communist Manifesto

A storybook series about people who read books and went on to great things. This is a series of six books done as a graphic design campaign for Midland Bookshop in Delhi. Designed and Illustrated by Hemant Anant Jain.

Let's never get lost again

An interesting assortment of Indian type for a campaign. Created by Hemant Anant Jain, Deepak Dogra and Guy Featherstone of Wieden+Kennedy, London.

Colas, Chemicals, Politics, Water, SUVs, Tigers. My illustrations and environment.

A series of cartoons done for the Center for Science and Environment. These appeared in Gobar Times, their magazine for children.
From the pages of Down to Earth. The Science and Environment Fortnightly. It has been many years since the Cola controversy broke out in India. And yet, till today we have not got any food standards to regulate against such incidents. You can download the article here.

This was a series of posters for the campaign Subscribe to Common Sense for Down to Earth magazine.

A planner for Down to Earth. Done in 2006.

If you had to choose one what would you choose, tiger or water?

Published in Down to Earth, Science and Environment Fortnightly. I wrote this when the tiger population had dipped to an all time low. And as of May 2008, it is officially just 1300. A shame for the country. Things can be done, but people have to understand what we stand to lose if we let the tiger become extinct.

Star Wars Time in Office

Star Wars is always fun init? This is as impromptu as it gets. Shot on a mobile phone. And it's me cracking up in the background.