Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance.

WEEK 1

Fear as a Writer:

One of my main fears is the fear of being humiliated. It’s more like you write your heart out, and put what you've written out there, and everyone points at you and shakes their heads in dismay, or outright laughs. Shame is one of the most hard-wired, deepest feeling I have. Another one such fear would be the fear of criticism, and probably not finding enough time to write, finding out I’m not as talented as I like to think I am, etc.  However, beyond all the things that make me hesitate I still want to try and be better.
 
URBAN SKETCH - YELAHANKA

Character Sketch

Character name: Melancholy 

Fictional Story:

Melancholy is 34 years old, 5 ft tall, with light brown eyes and auburn hair. She is ambitious and daring and she is resourceful and is scared of heights.She is an expert thief, a rogue agent who works for no one but herself. She prefers her solitude and soft rock music. Melancholy’s talents include lock picking, hand-to-hand combat, and throwing knives. She would much rather evade enemies altogether, but she is often forced to fight them. It is eventually revealed that she was the daughter of rich parents and lived in a luxurious mansion, but she was placed in one of the city’s worst orphanages when her parents died in a plane crash. All of her thievery was only in a vain attempt to recreate the life she used to have once.  

WEEK 2

URBAN SKETCH - yelahanka

Beginning to WRITE by simply listening to all that I hear and letting it influence me:

"Took a stroll down the corridor gazing the movements of the people around me. Like a fast forward motion and a slow rewind action, I felt the rhythm in the air. Each sound around me was all of a sudden so musical and sounded like an orchestrated symphony to my ears. I wondered the sense and refinement of my imagination on how it translated the sound of such rush the thud of people’s footsteps, running up and down the stairs rising and falling like different musical notes. I could just sit there and listen and listen this note forever and ever. This new musical note, the rhythm and the memories, a piece of my heart will always recollect and cherish but a big piece of it will always accompany me wherever I go. I sarcastically call it The Rhythm of My Life."

Graffiti Exercise ( to help improve the vocabulary )

1. Dervish - A member of a Muslim,religious order who has taken vows of poverty and austerity. 

2. Deem - regard or consider in a specified way.

3. Reify - Make something abstract, more concrete or real. 

Response writing to reading Quotes :

"Integral Nature of Things" - Lata Mani

1.   “The goatherd evinces an orientation to the world that is dominated in this time, one founded in a distrust of the unfamiliar and the inclination to dismiss or discipline anything that threatens some notion of order or appropriateness.”
The world that is dominated in this time reminds me of how thoughts of few are suppressed and never heard maybe because of their lack of capabilities or means. People have kind of evolved this way long enough for them to ignore changes it’s all based on beliefs and superstitions quite often. It’s a human nature to protect him from strangers (unfamiliar things) a sensor kind of a mechanism in built in him.

2.   Our life is not merely shaped by the people we know, it is equally formed by those we see regularly but do not know such individuals may be close friends.
  I agree with it because I feel every other person around us makes a difference to our life, but sometimes I think it’s a matter of choice, it’s me who chooses if I want the people around me to shape my life in a certain way or not . Quite often we get influenced by people around us, and our life is molded accordingly and may continue to be that way.

3.   A Street is not a road. True they are synonyms, but ‘street’ evokes much more. Roads connect points in space. Streets are life worlds, people in action, and cultures in play. The street is a theater of contiguity and conviviality.
  Streets are narrower and roads are wider, “streets” are people from similar spaces coming together which makes it easy to interact, unlike roads are wide people from different spaces coming together shows mix of culture and race. Also sometimes widening of roads lead to narrowing of streets , its like one losses a bit of home each time a road is widened , streets are more like the comfort zone and there isn't a disconnect and theirs a personal touch to it. Streets are more dramatic and lively and the wide roads where people are just rushing past in a haste to get some where and hence the scope of interaction is comparatively less, but none the less roads are connecting points to spaces one wants to reach. Roads are the junctions for streets.

WEEK 3

Creative Writing Piece - 650 words

Linge Gowda sold soda pop from a tiny shop alongside of an open sewer drain. The shop, just ten feet high was built with used metal sheets. A small square size soda shop was Gowda's full-time residence and business place. From a squatting position inside the shop, he sold all kinds of beverages, but mostly plain soda or carbonated flavored drinks prepared on-site using a small hand operated soda making machine.

A trap door on the floor functioned as the secret exit and entrance to the shop above. While sitting inside the shop doing business, Gowda kept the trap door open to keep an eye on the stuff below. Besides sodas, he sold other sundry items such as cigarettes, bananas, soap and pan. But, he was known for making and selling sodas on-site.

People knew how strong the Gowda’s soda was just by the popping sound it produced every time Gowda opened the soda bottle by pressing the ball stopper with force using a round-wooden opener to let the gas (carbon dioxide) out. The “fizz” in the soda water that tickles the tongue made Gowda famous for his soda and earned him the nickname Soda Gowda. If the popping sound was feeble, he discarded it, and replaced with a better one to the customer to maintain his reputation.

Whenever the business was slow, he would jump to the floor through the trapdoor to make more sodas using a hand-operated soda machine. The machine is simple to operate with a wooden handle to rotate twelve soda bottles at a time. The empty soda bottles of varying shades of light green were first filled with tap water. Carbon dioxide gas was pumped from a small cylinder into the bottles, and the bottles were rotated upside down several times to charge the water with carbon dioxide gas, and pressurize the bottle to seal itself with glass marble inside.

Unlike other soda makers, Gowda never shortchanged on the amount of gas per bottle to get maximum amount of “fizz” in the soda water. He kept the soda bottles in invert position to keep the marble stopper wet, and prevent excess gas escaping the bottle thus maintaining its freshness. Gowda conducted the entire soda making operation like a step-wise scientific experiment.

For him, the quality of soda he sold is a gauge of his personal reputation. Besides plain soda, Gowda also sold flavored sodas such as ginger and lemon sodas. People suffering with common cold and sore throat preferred ginger soda, hoping it would cure. Drinking plain soda was a daily habit like drinking coffee in south India particularly among thirsty rickshaw-pullers to even the rich class people; some drink to quench their thirst, and others as an aid for good digestion after a heavy meal.

The brisk business hours for selling sodas were generally when schools and colleges were closed between 5 and 11 PM. Some people belch loudly after each gulp of soda, a sign of freshness of the soda pop, and a relief from accumulated unwanted gases in the stomach; this is how his days went by.

Opening his shop was quick; he would unlock the front metal cover, and rested it opposite the wall next to the sewer drain. Then, he hung-up two large bunches of bananas, one at each end of the shop. Since he always slept in the shop, his soda machine, and other contents of the shop were secured against theft. He kept a long bamboo stick inside the shop to discourage wondering street cows from grabbing bananas using their long tongues.

Once a week, either Friday or Saturday, both auspicious days for Hindus; he would donate a small amount to beggars. He was generous in that way but he did not like beggars bothering his business. If they were persistent, he used his bamboo stick to drive them away.

When Gowda were to notice a passing cow, he would touch its butt with palm of his hand and then carefully draw his palm back to touch his forehead, as if he was receiving some kind of blessing from the sacred animal, a religious belief by Gowda. Inside the shop, he would light-up few incense sticks to pray to Goddess Lakshmi, the Hindu deity known for improving business and providing wealth. This more or less concluded his daily Morning Prayer ritual.

He bought breakfast; rice pancakes or flat deep fried wheat bread called puri. He would shove them into his mouth hurriedly with coconut chutney, and potato curry to enhance the taste. He threw the large dry leaf in which the breakfast was packaged into the sewer drain and drank his coffee. A cheap, nearby street-side restaurant supplied lunch and dinner for him on a regular basis. The soda business provided enough profits to support his simple and inexpensive needs.

Gowda was middle aged around 45 years or so,

whose wants are more but he is content. 

URBAN SKETCH - Avenue Road

WEEK 4 - Design Earth Class

Creative Writing Piece - Earthen voice of the Sculpture 

Lost Only to be Found

It’s been so long
Since I’ve been here,
So long,
Since I’ve let go of fear,
The doubts slip away
I embrace the shade,
I let myself go,
And everything starts to fade.

Mortal or immortal I am made of Mud and water Yet you say I’m not I am alive and I feel. Sometimes I do not understand the value in this. Alas it is part of my mystery. The knowing. The feeling. Knowing the depth of me. For me is a mystery. Who am I? What am I? I know I’m not completely human. Or am I? So what am I? Detach myself whenever need be. Yet I love deeply, Intensely. No matter the harm done to me. Or words spoken against But the truth, I will still smile And pray for their happiness And well being On one of those fortunate nights, When the air goes cool And noise goes calm I see the clouds go dark And a sharp sense of vibration in the air The shadows whisper of rain I yearn for those Crystal droplets of freedom If only I could reach out  All I feel is- Isolation, Visions of things that could be, That should be, Taunt me with its unreachable promises of hopes and desires. The soul travels alone, no attachments, Born alone, Exists alone, Dies alone. The endless journey of the lonely soul chases the dream but never quite grasps it, constantly slipping through its fingers, only to disappear; hope is merely the Crystal droplets upon which the lonely soul stays aloft.

I see an old woman 
talking by herself,
down a lonely road. 
Talking to herself, 
down a traffic road.
The shadow say to me,
Oh child, you cannot know 
Why folks are talkative 
cause travelers are none
And the road be long.
A man talks to himself 
If showers of sorrows Fall 
down like arrows
The lone wayfarer 
May talk by himself
So an old woman 
on lone traffic roads 
Laughing all the time, 
May babble to herself 
to keep the tear away.
The tear that slipped
The tear that held the life of golden opportunity
Slipped just to fall on me
As I took a breath feeling cool and calm
I could watch the pain 
I felt for so long
Rise above
And rise so high
Letting my dreams take flight
In the dark of the night
As it was never a part of my body
Or my mind,
A friend of my nature was there to support me
Support my new born agility
My nature and my thoughts
I wanted to feel no surprise
And have no expectations
Just embrace my surroundings
And accept my flaws
Will I stay this way?
Will I be corrected?
The shadow speaks again,
Talk about my growth
My sophistication
My acceptance
I feel the tiny cracks in me being filled
Oh the good soul who remembered about me Who took enough thought to correct me
I see myself pointing at something
Empty spaces,
Flashes of lights
Killing silence
At nights
Basking in darkness
Ignoring the noise
It’s been so long
And it just goes on.
Shadows whisper to each other,
We watched her dreams
And all her pain,
Her undying wish came true
Only to take away her pain. 

WEEK 5 - Courtyard Cafe

Urban Sketch

Courtyard café

Orange blue faces on the sidewalk with wide open marble eyes folded nostrils and figure eight lipsStare at ME

As i pass by

on my way to the courtyard cafe crying for escapeBut I cheerfully stroll over this entity and let the solar warmth mock it into non-existence.

Gurgle, hiss relentlessly to the click of cups and clank of clogs dragging on wooden planksInterjected by nasal drone of a person expressing his opinions,Silence ensuedWhen the old man With a mustache walked by in slow motion armed with a Cafe Latte

The jazz vocals struggle to keep up with sudden sharp ringing of the cell phone and the knocks of espresso filter on counter top

Jet black pulled into a rich pony tail another draped in natural twirls while the deep black smitten eyes speak to frizzy curlsSo I sip my diluted iced coffee and wish I could stop in time and enjoy the moment

Half past one, how the time has gone by.Half past one, how the years have gone by.