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
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:
1. Dervish - A member of a Muslim,religious order who has taken vows of poverty and austerity.
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.
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.
Orange blue faces on the sidewalk with wide open marble eyes folded nostrils and figure eight lipsStare at ME
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
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.
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.”
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.
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.
I see an old woman
talking by herself,
down a lonely road.
Talking to herself,
down a traffic road.
Oh child, you cannot know
Why folks are talkative
cause travelers are none
And the road be long.
If showers of sorrows Fall
down like arrows
May talk by himself
on lone traffic roads
Laughing all the time,
May babble to herself
to keep the tear away.
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.
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.
|
talking by herself,
down a lonely road.
Talking to herself,
down a traffic road.
Oh child, you cannot know
Why folks are talkative
cause travelers are none
And the road be long.
If showers of sorrows Fall
down like arrows
May talk by himself
on lone traffic roads
Laughing all the time,
May babble to herself
to keep the tear away.
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
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.
