The double-helix of imagination and technology
Imagination is the most advanced technology that we have today. What is equally true is that technology today is also as imaginative as imagination can be… and so there is obviously no lockdown for an imaginative use of technology if one adds a bit of technology to imagination! There is a whole world beyond canoodles,...
Design your dreams
‘Hug style. Without it, you’re nobody,’ said this voice inside my head. Well, you know how some people have long conversations in their mind… I had one a few days back and that was when it occurred to me that a smartphone is more than just a tool for communication. In this world of instant...
The graffiti walls near Meher Chand Market in Delhi
Walking on the connecting lanes near Lodhi colony in Delhi with a part of Meher Chand market on one end and Khanna market on the other, I realized that government quarters need not be as drab and lifeless as the jobs are for those who stay in them. The quarters have a charming old-world feel...
Power is toxic to culture
Power and culture are in perennial conflict with each other. Countries experience this and so do homes. States and Union Territories in India know this. Politicians too understand the phenomenon and yet go on stoking power conflagrations. Corporates get into the heart of power contests more readily than adopting a culturally friendly attitude. Families are...
Voices in my head
My mother once said, ‘Watch your world from above and you’ll be liberated.’ These words have stayed with me for long as I have slowly climbed hundreds of stairs to reach the top of towering buildings in many cities of many countries. There were always others taller than me who stood beside and whispered in...
The artist within you
The artist within you Creative impulses are there within each of us and the way art interacts with life brings home the definitions we have of freedom. The funny thing is that most of us remain fearful of a blank canvas or a blank page, if I may add, though our hearts and minds experience...
Look down to discover chewing gum art in London
Travel get more interesting at times when you begin stumbling upon wonderful undiscovered facets of a city or a country. And during my 2017 trip to London (which is still going on… and I do pray I meet and interview this chewing gum artist) I happened to read about chewing gum art on the Millennium...
Create or die
Being pro creation doesn’t mean you need to procreate or you will die. Nor does it work out if we just pick words out of create and say things like eat or die or rate or die. But then I guess we have all sorts in this world. After all, our eateries are thriving and...
Shehzad Bhanji – this lefty plucks the right strings
Music sensations, some believe, are born on YouTube because this is where the really appreciative crowds assemble. The internet is where original impulses drive through hearts along a global pathway and are sometimes accepted, adopted, and nurtured by the conformist monarchs of the music industry. Shehzad Bhanji is one such person who I have met...
Every brushstroke is an idea
The strange thing about ideas is that they do not necessarily happen at the right time… but they are there when their time has come. Just like brushstrokes. Or even a single brushstroke. The funny part is that a brush isn’t always smeared with paint. ‘What do you mean,’ she asked and she isn’t an...
An idea is an enterprise
An idea is so much like an ephemeral strand in a dream that most of us allow it to wave frantically for a while before we turn our attention to some other such wisp. Only a few manage to focus on just one strand, pick it up gingerly to give it a shape that the...
The lens is forever between you and your camera
With a camera in your hands you have the power to take ‘an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still’ and then whisper a thank you to Dorothea Lange for these wise words. But before you begin assuming that great photography is just about zooming in on whatever it is that you...
