Some long forgotten projects from the past

The other day, my brats went rummaging through my bookshelf and dragged out an old forgotten scrapbook. As I tried to pry it away from their fingers, I realised with a pleasant surprise that it was a long forgotten (very small) collection of photographs of some glass paintings I made ages back. 

The one on the top of this page, the Two Swans, I painted for a friend, as a wedding gift. This was a period where I was obsessed with glass paintings and made many as gifts, though I am not even sure if the people I made it for, even liked them or wanted them. Except for my sister of course, who loved them and still has hers hanging from her wall.

This Sunflower I made for my sis, who even after all these yrs,
still  keeps it hanging from her wall

An Egyptian themed painting

Fish, Fish Everywhere....

And finally this one below was my favourite - a glass cylindrical lamp with paintings of autumn leaves. The picture does not do it justice at all, but it looked really, truly gorgeous when lit! And the best part of this was, when I took it to the lamp shop for fitting, the shopkeeper had liked it so much, he actually made me a business proposition! Which sadly I couldn't accept as I was relocating out of India, but it definitely made me grin from ear to ear for the next 1 week! :-)

There were some grand ones that I intended to do, one of St. Basil's Cathedral Moscow and one of Marilyn with her skirts flying, but I never got down to doing either of them.... Suddenly finding the scrap book brought back all the enthusiasm and the zeal with which I made each one of these. 

Looks like its time to go to the art shop and buy some more colours after all.

Addendum - 23rd January 2012

One of my close friends posted this on my Facebook page a few days back - Cannot express how thrilled and touched I was to read it and so had to share this.....

"Was reading your blog 'some long forgotten projects from the past' ... I loved the glass paintings you presented me, I have since moved 4 houses... And the paintings have adorned walls of all our homes. Every time we move, the paintings are carefully bubble wrapped... Safe and sound ... Intact. My favourite possessions." . A

A rare sunny day, a long hike & a photo-shoot....

"With a smile and a song,
Life is just a bright sunny day,
Your cares fade away,
And your heart is young"
Disney's 'Snow White & the Seven Dwarves'

We had been having day after day after day of dull grey weather complete with a non stop, never ending light drizzle .... you know the kind where you slowly begin to feel the greyness seep and settle into your soul, drop by drop, filling it, overflowing leaving room for no other colour..... In short, the grey weather was seriously getting to me!

And then suddenly, yesterday almost as if the Weather Gods decided they needed a change, the sun came out yesterday, bright and clear. I woke up late, and for a while I kept wondering why everything felt strange and different. And then it hit me. Oh.My.God. it was the sun shining into the room. 

So in the spirit of making hay while the sun shines , we decided to take the boys to Richmond Park, one of the Royal Parks in London. I had heard that there is deer about the park and these days the boys and I are reading Bambi; so I thought it would be real exciting for the boys to watch a few live little Bambis scampering around. 

So after an eventful drive, getting lost a couple of times along the way, and then discovering that I had programmed the post code of Richmond Park the pub, not Richmond Park, the park into the sat nav (Oops! Awkward!!! But Vj's shocked face was so worth watching!), we managed to reach the park. 

Bambis we didn't see, but we did have a nice long walk with the boys discovering hollows in trees and little ponds while I clicked a few pictures. I didn't have my DSLR but still, even with the iPhone, the pictures turned out quite nice....

Autumn in all its glory....

When even the leaves on the ground look like a gorgeous red gold carpet

 For a 2 yr old., its a whole world full of wonders and secrets 

And a wee bit of apprehension

And a million questions.....

A little duck pond in the park

Standing, watching, answering why it doesn't have crocodiles

Light and shade on the trees and the grass made the place look magical...

Watching a rider and her horse in the distance

Who is teaching whom, I wonder...

The attack of the Spooky Pumpkin.....

Yet another festive post right after the last one about Diwali! Though, given how my idea of relaxing is curling into the sofa with a really gory horror movie, this one I was far, far more enthusiastic about!

And after watching loads of pictures of people going pumpkin picking, this year I wanted to do some of my own! So got the name of a nearby "pick your own" farm from the boys' play-school and went pumpkin hunting one weekend....

After spending a considerable time looking, and ending up squashing some not so fortunate ones, we finally came back with one that looked perfect!

So come Halloween, decided to take out almost every type of knife I had in the kitchen, and start the carving!

The knives are out!

After a brief struggle, the top of the pumpkin comes off!
Note to self: Need sharper knives next yr! This was surprisingly harder than it looks!

Now to scoop out the intestines..... oops! I mean the insides.....

Holy Mother of God!! This is beginning to look more funny than spooky! OMG! Need to give it an evil clown twist !

Hang on, maybe I can try give it an evil clown kind of twist....
And Viola!

Yep! Does look spooky in a 'cute clown turns sinister in seconds' kind of way!!! And more so at night....

And this is how it looked from outside to all the 'Trick or Treat'ers....

As you can see, am having a hard time stopping myself from admiring my own handiwork and artistic talents ;-)

Given how good this turned out for a first attempt, have decided that next yr I shall get a much larger one and then attempt a really elaborate spooky killer pumpkin!!!

A Diwali after ages!

The happiest Diwalis of my life are the ones from childhood. Having grown up in a tiny little town, Diwali was all about new clothes, my mom doing the Alpana, dad going to the RamKrishna Mission for Kali Pujo through the night and coming back early morning with khichuri bhog, my mom standing by my side for moral support (I used to be petrified of crackers) and sticking crackers on long poles for me to burst while my sisters attacked theirs with gusto, all the amazing food being cooked at home.....

But after growing up, all that changed. By the time I was living on my own, I had moved to hating the whole hullabaloo around Diwali, which by then had lost all its charm and degenerated into the deafening noise of crackers bursting non stop for days and nights, the cloud of thick smoke that lingered on the city for days and the senselessness of people blowing up (pun intended) shockingly grotesque sums of money on crackers; money that would have been so much more usefully spent on a charity or a good cause!!! By the time I moved to Bombay, all the noise and the smoke had gotten so intolerable, that we would run away each year to the beaches of Goa to escape from it all. 

When we moved to Indonesia and came back to India for our annual visits to the motherland, it still remained a tradition to spend Diwali on the beaches of Goa. Thus, for a long time now, Diwali has stood for lazing on the beach with a good book, pigging out on seafood and spicy Goan sausages and diligently keeping the system hydrated with fluids in a place where vodka is cheaper than bottled water! ;-)

Then the kids came along..... And as every parent would agree, having kids changes everything. It could be because of the nights of sleeplessness and the exhaustion from the non stop running around, but the brain starts working in strange, unfathomable ways ..... for instance, you overlook the pleasures of the spicy Goan sausages and the days of doing nothing and swap them for giving your kids a taste of their "kaalchar" (culture). (Not that it is ever going to be possible to lie on the beach and do nothing when you have to struggle to feed 2 kids, 3 meals a day and change diapers 2*5 times a day!) 

So last year, we took the boys, then not yet 18 months old, to India for Diwali to give them a feel of their culture and heritage. Except it didn't pan out as we planned - not only did they fall sick they minute they landed, but they went around petrified from all the noise of the crackers and refused to remove their fingers from their ears! So after last year's misadventure, this year we decided to give the cultural tour a miss and stay here in our very 'predominantly white, middle class neighbourhood', far removed from the festivities and the buzz of Diwali that you would expect to see in Bombay or Bangalore or even a Eastham or a Southall. 

Or so I thought.... My sister decided to extend her stay and so for once, instead of not being home for Diwali, not only were we very much home, but we had guests over. And thanks to my sister's unbridled enthusiasm, we decided to celebrate, and do so in style. 

So the hubby was sent to buy candles by the dozens. And like any self respecting Bong household, a menu was made. Then my brother in law decided to go all the way to Eastham to get mishti and crackers to round up the celebrations. 

After ages, at my sis's urging, made this rangoli. It was actually quite fun, with all the arguing about the design and the colours.....what with me wanting to make it more monochromatic and chic and judicious use of colors and with her wanting me to put a different colour in each stroke...

And then decorated it with fresh geraniums and rose petals from the garden

It turned out so good, made a few more, including the feet of the Goddess Lakshmi, as my mom used to make...

They looked even better at night with the candles glowing inside...

Also in true Bong tradition, cooked a feast - maidar luchi, alu dam, mangsho kosha and payesh... almost perfect except for the fact that my brats refused to eat payesh or luchi with alu dom and kept asking for dosas!!!

Dressed up in ethnic clothes.... and yes, burst crackers in the garden ....

All in all, a near perfect Diwali .... and one the reminded me again of what Diwali was all about - celebrating good times with loved ones and ofcourse, plenty of good food!!