sea dreaming today

my brother mrunal

feeling stupid at stupid passport office

For the sake of a single bliss..

When are you going to have food?
when are you going to finish eating?

Junuka when are you going to get married?
when will you apply for further studies?

Junuka when are you going to learn to make chapatis?
when are you going to throw your old jeans and buy new clothes?
when will you wear a saree Junuka?

Tell me tell us tell everyone...

when are you going to put up your exhibition?
when will you make a film?
why aren't you showing your works junuka?
why aren't you making a film?
When will you make a baby?
When will you go back to the islands?
why aren't you going back to the islands?

when will you earn money Junuka, money is important!
when will you settle down?

When are you going to the beauty-parlour?
Look at your face,look at your hair...
When will you pluck your eyebrows?

When are you going to sing Junuka?
Why aren't you doing riyaz?

When are you going to do exercise,get up early and do Pranayam?
why aren't you doing it?

Tell me tell us tell everyone...

When are you?
Junuka, when when when....

Junuka says..
when am I going to die

or fly away or dissolve or evaporate
or become a stone or a frog?
or fume into steam and vanish..?
WHEN...
Tel me ,tel us,tel everyone...

For the sake of a single bliss!!!

-love,Junuka

Missing Worlds..Dosti ki Dhun

I miss all of this and I guess I am going to keep missing it for the rest of my life.The Nicobar islands and some stories we lived. I thought so much about it that the doctor said I am emotionally exausted. I hate myself for leaving the islands at the same time love the fact that I still have a lot of hope and amazing things to remember and feel good about.

We did work hard and tried our best.But sometimes the dreams can not come true,and its not a crime!

I yearn to live life ahead without the feeling of guilt and longing...

Anyone wants to say anything?

Love

Junuka

bathroom song

I love bathrooms

cold

white

soap smelling

flowy

Today in the afternoon,

I washed a painting

and

some fish flowed out with water...

A yellow shirt and a blue dress on a wooden plank

Rambo Walk on 26th Jan

My neck pains stomach growls head spins mind blows eyes wide open now
I am not keeping very well and reason is becoming more and more unknown.

Today I was walking down the two wheelers bridge in the old city of Pune towards Deccan.I saw the riverbed from top of the bridge.Rambo circus has parked itself there. As I walked the bridge I saw the whole circus from top.From the main gate to the tents at the back. As if one is looking at a large aurthographic drawing.Huge,shiny and Old.

Towards the end of the bridge facing the bridge wall was sitting a security guard, to guard the Rambo circus..! he sat playing a mobile game with open umbrella tied to a chair which was again tied to the bridge railings. The umbrella carried an Indian flag.Wind blew nastily.

Lovers sat and stood on the bridge footpaths with heads turned facing the Rambo circus.Their backs moved with joy.
With the headphones(again) the mundane world looked great enough with a circus-shining under my feet...

blue woman in 2003 or 4

Abeer sleeping in 2003 or 4

The G-Talk dream

Two days ago I dreamt a dream in a bus to mumbai from Ahmadabad.I had slept off with the earphones and Kishori Amonkar singing raga Yaman.It was a gmail screen i saw with many people online...the green and the red dots...(now i know where si-fi movies are inspired from!!). The moment i came online they poped up.many ppl were saying hi. few were in particularly saying something.A large number was silent with their status messages displaying a frowny feeling.I was a mediator between two lovers online who were not talking to each other but to me at the same time.So i was very worked up.You were telling me about a temple you visited for two days and how it was the best idea to go there when you went. It was an old temple of stones and you lived there in the ruines for two days.I was saying hmm...

When I woke up I was startled to see the bus and Morning-Mumbai outside the window and Kishori Amonkar was still singing raga Yaman in the earphones from the last evening...

My g-talk dream was the best mode of continuous imagined communication in a half awake state of being.I found it very metaphorical.Arent we all in this state most of the time?

-junuka

Tickets of Dharamshala

Cannibaled t r e e s & the other s t o r i e s

"Please do not think that we are happy because we are singing songs……We are not."
An old woman said while leaving the meeting.
"But you will be…soon…may be…"
A weak voice of mine had no relevance. It was not heard. I did not want it to be heard. Because it sounded so stupid. A group of villagers surrounded us with stories, demands & songs. A group of forest villagers.

The land where I live today could have been a forestland. A land where there could have been trees, which could have made our map greener. And our lives healthier. Nevertheless, that was not to happen. Instead, the trees got cannibaled. They started eating humans. Some survived and some are dead. Some are trying to die.

Manshi and I went down the narrow slope off a road. The slope took us to a narrow river where some women sat bathing in the sun. The water made sound and children ran away with fear because they thought we came from the forest department to evict them. However, a heard of goats came climbing up the same slope and we stopped. The goats stopped. We stood in front of each other for good four minutes. Only the bells in their necks made sound and nothing else. It felt hot and confronted, standing there. After a while, we were standing in front of the people on the hill, who were evicted. With the same goat-bell sound and a hot, confronted feeling.

People were evicted because they encroached on the land. The land was a forestland and the people were forest dwellers. The decision makers decided that dwelling upon people’s own land is ecologically and legally wrong. So, empty the land with all forces to plant more trees.

Now the dead ancestors are left alone and people are flying away in search of a new land to live on. They could have been dead by the bullets fired and the fires put inhumanly for the sake of planting more trees. Today their fault is that they are alive…things would have been much simpler if they were dead. We would get more oxygen, more space, more timber, more buildings and more highways… The trees are made cannibaled.

We entered a settled group of make shift tents. The hens ran with their chickens and children cried often, constantly. The hot wind blew and fluttered the plastic sheets of the tents. The abandoned land lay in peace down the hill with few burnt poles of the houses. An old man got up and stood in front of the camera. Behind him was a big thin tree and an empty blue sky. He said his grandfather lived here many years ago. The family grew here. There is no way back, to where the grandfather came from. He pointed at the burnt poles down the hill from where he had to run away when the eviction took place. He was accused of encroachment. He had old court papers proving that he has been living there from before 1980. In 1980, tribes who lived on forestland for years were given their share of the land. Officially, on papers, by the forest department. The old headman’s wrinkled hand clutched the paper and showed his and his villager’s names on the papers. A precious proof of their existence. But they were beaten up, as the trees got cannibaled.

Rayalibai was raped, as the trees got cannibaled.

Rameshbhai was almost burnt alive, as the trees got cannibaled.

Guddi’s saree was taken away, her food was poisoned and her family is leaving for the city in search of labor, as the trees got cannibaled.

As trees are eating up some humans, the others who make the trees cannibaled watch the show with a great pride. The show of saving the great tropical forest. The rows and rows of plantations will soon grow into trees of tropical forest. ‘The dooms day is arriving!’ the officials say and visit forests in big herds, to hunt for people to be eaten for the better tomorrow. Under the shadow of a newly tied roof, a forest villager says, "why would we cut down trees? The cut timber goes to the city."

TREES ARE TIMBER.

Now onwards it is a story of timber.
Now we have a new war to fight. One more addition in the list of already existing many. It is an ecological frontier. The ‘green war’ will be noted in the history.
One truck, 100 guards, 3 jeeps leave in the morning for the day’s conquer.

Rayalibai cannot eat. She says they all should be sentenced to death. The forest ranger raped her in her own land, in front of her own husband. The story became news and came in the newspapers. The world knew about her, not the war. The kids gather outside her house, as we talk to her and we switch the camera off.

Deforestation, they say is caused by poverty, overpopulation’ and underdevelopment. The solutions therefore are simple. Lesser the people, more is the development. So, kill them like cockroaches.

Dustbin

Velachi hates old stinking dustbins. Especially in the monsoons when things rot quickly as the way feelings rot once, you stop paying attention to them. It is the same irritation. Her dustbin always overflows because she hates to empty it regularly in a larger one across the street. Why add more stink to the road? Actually, it is just that she avoids the important dirty job like she avoids many others. For example, crying for herself while watching a film or otherwise. But today she had to empty it after three weeks in 6 plastic bags. She had to stuff the bags with her hands. Crouching down in front of the dustbin, in a fresh white light of the tube light, she saw all the three weeks again. Just a few hours back, in the afternoon, Velachi had thrown a cup noodle cup with a biscuit rapper and a banana peel. Her lunch. It had rolled down from the heap and now the ants were eating it. When she picked it up, all the ants ran around the dustbin, some climbed up her feet. She angrily pressed and rolled her fingers over them. That ended their lives.

There were actually other options around the dustbin. Cigarette stubs, cooked chilies from the curry, curry leaves, milk packets and few hair strands...

Photosketches of udaypur

Udaypur, in 2004 was a treat for a lone traveller.
People and places in udaypur merge in each other like magic...you dont know who is who!

With lots of poha(roadside snack of puffed rice) and chai i had too much fun with only 100Rs in my pocket, hence no place to stay.I wish i could stay in the palace.I remembered all the thumris with tinted coloured light falling on white walls so sat and sang there.It was a first exprience of singing on the street(on the palace street)and it gave me a good high...!

i was sketched!

art by shreyas krishnan,NID

I went to NID after 2 years..and had this 'BAatein' session at Audi. I used to stand here when I used to announce film club screenings...

But this time it was really scarry..some 100people watching you and ready for scrutiny.I felt like a jury time with 100judges sitting in front.It was also very intense for me as I realised I was still a student somewhere inside and could imagine myself sitting there.And while all this talk and drama was happening there was somebody sketching.I was very thrilled to recieve the sketch when I got back to Pune.

Junkart from the Junkyard Productions

Junkart 2

Junkart1

Indulging for a while recently...

An intuition, an individuality and hence subjectivity of an expression (Ideally in any form, but vitally in a visual expression) is something I feel is the only one which is truly yours.
The rest is the system, the globalized scene especially in a developing country like ours we ought to think similarly, ought to express similarly in order to be objective towards one’s own opinion.This helps only to survive. I feel it is very much a need today to be subjective and thoughtfully value one’s own values and hence an individual expression. A collective expression of each of such process is what I strongly believe in. Through the series of paintings I express my current mindscape, memories, desires and fantasies which arise from every mundane object I get back to after returning from far away land and cultures. Both the worlds question each other and try to rest in my mind. Rather I try to rest them but they don’t. Paintings continue.
In the process of discovering and articulating self my work is creating a room of its own which will give an experience of culture, made of /by/from an individual. The same is true for the process other way around where culture is giving a room for an individual to find itself.
Such rooms around an individual form culture, which is unique for each one. Yet similar in many ways for people from similar social, ethnic and geographic experiences. The individual-culture relationship is layered and complex. A bit abstract too. My work is an interpretation of an experience of return from another culture and digests the step in between which of experiencing the other culture itself.

junuka