this is weeny » India

Omkareshwar

Sheena — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:08:28 +0000

Is a magical place. We could have spent a week in the quaint spiritual town but unfortunately, we had one night. I think I may have been the happiest I have ever been in Omkareshwar. We walked through the market, peddlers selling religious paintings and kitschy idols, malas and garlands, jewellery and toys; and found a place to stay for a few hundred rupees on the advice of a holy man. We crossed the footbridge and headed towards the giant Om climbing a million stairs up to the top of the island, dotted with shrines and temples. I felt a deep, consuming sadness in the Shiva temple, the effigy over it so tremendous that you can see it from the other hill. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t prayed in months but I broke down on the temple floor and it felt greatly cathartic. We drank chai at the tea stall nearby and a baba reminded us that the only temple that really mattered was ‘apna shareer’, the temple that is one’s own body. We dipped our feet in the sacred Narmada river, though many swim. We smoked chillums with a baba who told us all about this temple town that he loved. We bought tiny brass bells to make music and rings to wear on our fingers. We ate dinner and breakfast in the lovely garden cafe. We spent the night under the stars and felt good and whole and complete. And we left the next day, our hearts lighter and heavier at the same time.

Sari Madam

Sheena — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:26:24 +0000

I love saris. I wish I could wear them everyday like my grandmother did. I went to exactly one show at (Lakme India) Fashion Week, the Shantanu and Nikhil show where I saw and lusted over this one. How perfect it is, and how chic and nicely draped.

In other updates, I discovered the album Sinema from this Delhi band Peter Cat Recording Co. And Motherland, one of the first indie magazines in India by ad house Wieden+Kennedy has great cover art and insight into Indian subcultures.

If you can’t tell, my Indophilia is currently off the charts.

Dicso Dicso

Sheena — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 21:55:45 +0000

Another saweet thing about Bandra is these parties. The second edition of Grime Riot Disco is this Friday, March 25th at Bollywood Mischief, Hill Road and features DJ Ruskin and Bandish Projekt who will be spinning disco, electro funk, techno. Grimy venue in walking distance, cheap bar, beer cart, hookah lounge. Hell yes. Entry is Rs. 300, and covers one drink. Down with the current repetitive, pretentious, bourgeois scene. Music is for everybody.

Vandre

Sheena — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:51:43 +0000

I love you, Bandra. I love your Portuguese influence, I love your villages and your Goan grannies who get their skirt suits “stitched” and your tiny stalls set up in verandahs selling homemade pickle and potato chops, I love your promenades and pink sunsets and shwarmas, I love your games nights and communal youtubing and burrito bars and theme parties.

I love your farmers markets, and your supper clubs and Sunday brunches and rooftop dancing. (I don’t like your rickshaw strikes and when they say they won’t go some place) I love that Janata and Jimme’s Kitchen deliver. I love your lively backdrops to impromptu photo shoots. I love your bookshops in garages and artist studios and production offices and chocolate shops and Manju dosa and Bombay sandwiches guy on Hill Road and Saroj sev puri.

I love your things to do on Mondays and Thursdays and other days. (I don’t like when your venues shut before I’m ready to stop moving) I love your street stalls and junk jewels and best fifty rupee finds. I love photos from your skywalks and the shops who sold me furniture underneath. I love your host of interesting characters, your beautiful women and sometimes men and my wonderful, wonderful friends.

Bandra, I’m in love.

Sita Sings The Blues

Sheena — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:28:10 +0000

Hibernated with my favourite person and watched this feature film yesterday. Sita Sings the Blues is an animated retelling of the Ramayana by the extra-talented-and-I-am-now-in-awe-of Nina Paley who wrote, directed, produced and animated it. Narration of the Ramayana, punctuated with irreverent shadow puppet commentary and scenes from the director’s own life, with perfectly sychronised musical interludes with 1920s jazz musician Annette Hanshaw’s songs. The animations are beautifully rendered and alternate between different styles. It’s a brilliant film, a delightful interpretation of this ancient epic.

Amrita Bagchi

Sheena — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:50:35 +0000

My girl Amrita’s work is now on the cover of Time Out magazine. A detailed and fantastically bizarre illustration adorns the Mumbai edition this month, and the Delhi edition last.

And she’s not just an illustrator. Artist, graphic designer, experimental filmmaker, photographer. The girl paints murals, she sings, she cooks, she exhibits. Her current exhibition runs till 18th March at Studio 21, in Calcutta.

Her blogs showcase a thoughtful and vivid collection of commercial and personal work. Graphic design and illustration can be found here, and her photography here. The Mahishadal Palace slideshows are especially wonderful.

Hire her please, so she won’t have to go to an office and can play with me all day instead.

*Studio 21, 17L Dover Terrace, Kolkata

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2011

Sheena — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:31:33 +0000

The nine day Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Bombay just ended and it was a treat. Jampacked with art and activities, the historic arts precinct Kala Ghoda really puts on a show. Rampart Row is pedestrian only, decorated with flags and festoons, providing stage and street for live performances, hair installations, live painting to fire dancing and drum circles, photography exhibitions, as well as NGO, food, handicraft and independent designer stalls. Everywhere in the surrounds is a gallery space; the classrooms host workshops; the halls hold screenings; the gardens, book readings, panels and poetry slams.

I think however, to fully enjoy the festival, you have to become a part of it. I was dressed as an eggplant one day, a strawberry another, I took photos most nights for the Art Loft who organised the doll parades and a bevy of other performances daily. I painted faces. I attended a fantastic weekend workshop on freelance journalism, and a panel once on food and literature. I only wish I hadn’t missed the heritage walks! I am completely smitten with the Fort-Colaba-Churchgate triangle. I feel like I’m cheating on Bandra with South Bombay.

Rad, rad festival. This city needs it. Counting down to 2012′s.

Tinted

Sheena — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:39:30 +0000

So some dicktits stole my camera, on New Year’s, just post midnight. EFFF DAT. My friend Ratika had a string of some really cool coloured filters that we used to take fun pictures using her camera though. And so I present, bits of my holiday through rose tinted glasses.

Varanasi

Sheena — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:02:00 +0000

I didn’t think I could write too much about Varanasi. I was petrified when we got off that train. It was midnight, there were bodies laid flat all over railway station platform and we were inundated with pleas and requests from rickshaw drivers. They’re very in your face and they thought we were foreigners until I ruined it for them with my awesome Hindi. But I was very overwhelmed and frightened. I spent all night looking through Varanasi photoblogs with our overpriced hotel’s wifi trying to make sense of the place. But the next morning, everything changed and I did. And Varanasi ended up being one of my favourite places.

Tiny alleyways through which no vehicles could fit led us at sunrise to the ghats, to the most stunning, surreal and unexpected view. We spent the morning walking the ghats, watching the babas pray and smoke chillums, people wash themselves and their clothes in the Holy Ganges completely unfazed by the tourist filled boats that sailed past. On the main ghat Dasashwamedh, we bought bracelets with the pictures of Gods, brass agarbati stands and lamps, and the best T-shirt ever which reads – No rickshaw. No hashish. No silk. No change money. No boat. No problem! which are all the things we got asked if we wanted. Countless times over. People kept taking our hands in theirs and demanding money for services like blessing us. Oh, we’ll pass thanks.

The whole place and experience was moving and enticing and raucous, dirty and imperfect and spiritual, and commercial and chaotic and colourful all at once. I spotted a super cool baba I imagined was once an art director fed up with city life and asked to take his picture and he grinned. The Ganga Aarti every evening is very special. It’s beautiful and hard to describe, feverish and fragrant with smoke.We prayed and released our little flower lamps into the Ganga which is something I’d always wanted to do.

I loved the magical light filtering through the claustrophobic alleys.It was nothing short of unsettling though. You can never know when you’ll cross paths with a moody cow or a (covered) corpse will suddenly appear behind you, mourners chanting ‘Bhagwan satya hai’ as they carry it down to the river to the two burning ghats.

We found the German Bakery there to be our favourite spot of solace, where we met lovely travellers and ate delicious organic food while listening to some live classical santoor and tabla.We moved to a guesthouse on the ghats so we could be closer to everything and at night it was especially eerie but wonderful, the sunrise even more so. We took a boatride at dawn to see everything from a different perspective which I recommend everybody does. We spent almost two hours on the water, witnessing some incredible things – from swimming schools to burning corpses. With a little more exploration, and a lot more cycle rickshaw rides (I loved!) to buy stunning silk scarves, and a lazy lunch at El Parador, an absolute gem of a restaurant with delightful service and delicious food; we bade goodbye to Benaras.

Click to view slideshow.

Grass

Sheena — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:46:17 +0000

Nick Drake was (is) amazing. Yet nobody knew who he was until 40 years into the future.

And I went to Lonavala for the weekend

And at sunrise
We found a valley
Full of crystals

A waterfall and an infinite abyss

Everything was neon green
And I wore party shoes.

P.S. I finally have my baby back from the doctor and I’m shooting for Save The Children India in a little village this week. Roadtrips <3