Chitra Santhe...

I came to know about Chitra Santhe - the art mart- happening on Jan 27, 2013. Last year I wanted to attend, but could not. And while looking up on it online, I found it figures in one of the must - dos if you happen to be in Bangalore in January. That turned out to be very true! I had a great time roaming around, checking out the stalls on Kumara Krupa road.

It was a nice sunny Saturday afternoon. Had a good lunch and left home, it is only about 3kms from where I stay. The afternoon sun was not a worry as the road is lined with trees on either side of the road. In the shade, on the pavement there were hundreds of stalls set up by artists showcasing their art. It seems like a wonderful concept - not only making art affordable - since the artists need not pay galleries - but also a platform for the not-so-art-aware general public to check out some wonderful art from all across the country. The street was lined with stalls on either side of the road - most stalls had paintings of all sorts, water colors, on canvas, portraits  landscapes and the list goes on(that's all I can manage to list, with my limited art knowledge, as of now!). One could talk to the artist and know some history of the painting that one wanted to buy. There were paintings that were not framed available, and the person could get it framed the way they chose to - some some amazing flexibility available. Some of the artists were kind enough to share some wonderful information. Like I was wondering whether to buy a certain painting and was taking a closer look at it, the artist told me that was not how to view a painting. You need to place the painting vertically and move back about ten feet from it. I felt quite grateful for the information.

There were lots of vendors selling ground- nuts, popcorn, ice creams, khara puri, fruit bowls and a dozen other things to eat. It looked like a fair. There were also artists selling some jewellery and painted diyas, both made of terracotta. They were so beautiful.

I also saw artists making caricatures of people, mostly of children. My plan was to get a caricature done. I wished I had gone earlier, when the crowd was much lesser(in fact when I reached the venue the crowd wasnt much, but I spent a lot of time checking the paintings and only remembered about getting my caricature, when I saw them being done, by then there was a considerable crowd!). The problem with the crowd is the wait time increases for you to get your picture drawn and you have to endure a crowd of onlookers(probably that is why mostly kids were getting it done, they dint care much who was watching! :) ).
I had not seen so much of art in a day in Bangalore. It was very refreshing. After watching few hundreds of stalls of art work, I kind of felt saturated and got very choosy at the fag end(choosy as in, what interested me very much and least crowded stalls).

I found a stationary shop(not a stall, regular shop) and they were offering discounts on some items because of Chitra Santhe. I bought myself two sketching notebooks, lots of pencils - of all HBs available, fine erasers - for my old-hobby-revived-with-some-new-enthu hobby of pencil sketching. I was so excited to see so much of paraphernalia for artists that I asked a couple of times, if there is anything more I need to buy! It was a child in a candy store kind of a feeling! Am going to be a pro now...yaaaay!

It was a wonderful experience. I would like to go there again next year, and may be with my camera to capture and cherish, how that street looks on that day!

Five years of blogging!

I just realized I have been a sometimes-regular-sometimes-irregular-but-anyway-alive-blogger for 5 years now! hmmmm it’s a nice feeling :)

Funny, whacky, crazy things...a Ton of them!

This is going to be my 100th post! One more reason to celebrate!
So I have decided to pen down(ok type) the most craziest/wackiest things that I have done and thoroughly enjoyed doing. They are not in any chronological order or arranged by the craziness quotient, just random.

There was this nice friend in office who stayed close to where I am put up. While in the evening shuttle(office bus) I came to know it was her last day in office, she had got a job in another company. It was around 7.30pm. I asked her if we could chat for a while over coffee. There is a Barista close by and we went there. We talked about many things, about work, people in our office, our plans for the future, our families, hobbies and God know what all. I noticed one of the guys in Barista uniform pulling the shutters of one side of the store. I told her and we both looked at the watch. "What the hell!" It was close to eleven! We both were very scared. My mobile in the bag had some five/six missed call. We lived in different mains in the same block. We held each other's hands and walked sheepishly on the main road. I kept telling her to call me once she reaches home, then she reminded me I was the one who had to go farther! After she turned to go her way, I reached my house in record time! I must have literally run, I dont remember! Although I was very scared while on my way home, I remember it for the wonderful evening we both had, for all the girlish talks and for the little adventure.

My roomie H and I had completed kind-of-milestones in our careers. She had completed one year and me, two on the same day! We had planned for a celebration. We agreed to come early and have our favourite - wicked brownie that evening. When H came back it was close to 9. She asked me to get ready and go. Me, being the cautious one(of the two I mean!) said "No, its quite late, tomorrow". I sometimes used to act like her elder sister and she let me be. After dinner it was close to 9.30pm when she again asked "Shall we". She must have read my thoughts, I said lets go(9 is late not 9.30!). Two girls in their T shirts and pajamas went to Barista when it was close to 10pm for a small celebration. It was less than 5 minutes walk and we had a great time!

It was early in the morning, a friend of mine and I were driving to my sleepy little home town on a saturday morning. It was around 7am and we were 15 kms from home. There is a CCD on the highway. My friend had just mentioned about apple pie with Vanilla ice cream tastes awesome and I suddenly remembered I owed him a treat! (Yeah if you want me to treat, you just need to ask, am most often ready for one!). We stopped there and had apple pie with ice-cream followed by some coffee! My friend told me it was the earliest he ever had an ice cream, I said "same here". Try it sometime, ice cream at 7 in the morning!

I have a bunch of friends from my home town, who were with me from kindergarten and I love being with them, as I feel I have a lot to share with them. We dont meet that often and that makes the meetings even more something-to-look-forward-to. We all met one evening for dinner. By the time we finished, it was quite late. And it is customary to have ice cream after dinner for the group. It was raining and quite late. So what, we have to abide to our customs. So we headed to Corner house(which we call "Moole Mane"!) and we were not alone. There were quite a lot of people considering the time we went! We relished our desserts and the drizzle made it memorable.

We had been to "Wonder La" from office for an outing. We were a group of five girls and had decided we are going to have a great time. We motivated each other for all crazy rides and falls and shouted our lungs out while in some of the stomach-churning rides. In one particular ride I was high up in the air and turning upside down - and they(the ones operating the Giant wheel) kept us like that for a few moments(which seemed very long then) before they continued with turning and twisting machine. I could see the whole landscape upside down and was very afraid I may fall off! I kept screaming! When I got down I felt on top of the world(and on my feet atlast!).
A bunch of friends, from school days, had gone to Jog falls last August. We were climbing up the steep stony terrain. It was drizzling. I was hungry and tired. Since it was getting darker because of the cloudy weather, we decided to see whatever had to be seen and then go for lunch. It was late afternoon and I was very hungry. The drizzle was beautiful and was soothing. While climbing up, I was holding onto small plants or rock and would pull myself up! It was getting slippery and I had a "Y" shaped stick in one hand for support. While holding onto one such shrub and pulling myself up, whatever I was holding to came to my hand! I lost balance and was about to fall back when a friend above me held my hand and another supported from below. Of the two, he gave me a nasty look seeing what I held in my hand and guessing how I ended up doing it -his look said "Cant you be a little more careful? What if...". She was more worried than angry and looked at me as if to say "are you ok?". We mumbled something appropriate to each other. Had I fallen, I would have ended up somewhere some 800 feet below!

Hurray!!!

We have won an individual gold medal in Olympics for 10mt air rifle event! Finally. What a way to start off our independence day celebrations. I always wondered why we dont win as many medals as many other smaller countries do, but there must be reasons. Without getting into the politics of sports, lets celebrate a much deserved, much needed gold in Olympics! Way to go Abhinav Bindra! Hope we get a few more this time!