Saturday in Toronto – CN Tower
Yesterday I went to the CN tower with my uncle. It is 553.33 metres (more than half a kilometre!) tall and can be seen from the looking boulevard or the skypod.
The skypod is right on top, while the looking boulevard is below the skypod. The world has changed and we have modern wonders. In India, we visit forts and temples and here in Canada, the attraction is an antenna! Ok, so it’s the tallest antenna in the world.
(Image taken from www.cntower.ca)
The best part was the glass (or plastic?) floor on the top on which you could walk and on looking below you could see Toronto far away right under your feet. It does give a feeling that you are going to fall through.
Reena Mohan and Bharatanatyam
After vsiting the CN Tower in Toronto, my Uncle and I went to an arangetram. Whats an arangetram? I didn’t know. Never attended one in India but did get introduced to one here in Toronto. I wondered if I would see any interesting Indian guys in the crowd.
An arangetram is the first formal performance of a Bharatanatyam trainee. It was the arangetram of Reena Mohan, the daughter of my uncle's friend. Well, ok.. I sat down in my seat wondering what was in store for me. As the performance went on, I swayed my head side to side with the taal and music occasionally. After all, I was the true blue Indian in the crowd, just 20 days old in Toronto, and was supposed to be knowledgeable and appreciative of Indian arts more than others! In an interval between performances, some Canadians were doing a good job of understanding the mudras or hand gestures in the row behind me. They identified the ones for suffering, removal of sorrows, crown but got stuck after that. "What this?" the guy wondered. I felt very good educating him and saying that it was the mudra for a flute, the symbol of Lord Krishna. You know, the way you explain saying Krishna, RamA, karmA, niravanA.
JoB SatIsFactIon
Hi,
I recently made 9 caricatures for the Orkut team at Google, Hyderabad. In the beginning I was only just developing a style which meant lots of crazy colours and crayon rubbing. Towards the end of it I got better at it and faster!
Tell me how you like the caricatures -
One of the times you dont feel like backspacing…
Sell your soiled soul to Lucifer and if it is not stained enough, he'll make sure he does it for you. The soul is bothersome, a boring thing to have. It snips your being in half. No man is a drag queen, no woman a callous lover with the soul attached, the tag of good, the tag of minimum decency. Throw it to the winds once - caution, controlled fun. Stop driving just fast - fast enough for thrill, slow enough to not die. Die. And die again. And each time live again. reinvent. there is no soul, no fixed you to preserve and protect. so each time it is ReInvEnt. Jekyll and Hyde. Faustus. Van Gogh. Later, sit with your head in your hands. mope. cry. despair. let your Mamma be happy. She warned you. She said "I told you so". And now you are in disrepair, torn and bruised and defeated. All that adrenalin rush and foolishness lead nowhere. Stronger people, cogs in the wheel are living life Kingsize now. Applaud the erstwhile bores. ANd then jump up, ReinVent. Be an imposter. Step on the accelerator. Go to Studio 54. Be a Lautrec if you like. The deafening roar of feeling Supreme. the blinding visions of being invincible, swirling, swimming around the world before it finishes one rotation. Sell it all. Believe in gypsies. kick them to death when they look at eggshells and call your life crap. Believe that a meteor will fall over you - a streak of divine shooting light - and will turn you into a Superman. Live in soap suds, Dreams and air light souffles. Step out from a movie festival, from a hall of darkness and 3 hours of losing yourself in a drama, into the harsh afternoon light. Harsh and white with zipping autos, oily and indifferent cigarette vendors leching at passing girls. Harsh light, so white, so bright. From spacious darkness to elevating whiteness. Don't bang into anything, just pick your way home. Or to Subhash.