Dancing to the Rumble !

So much has been said about the joys of motorcycle adventure. Very few things in life, it seems, come close to the thrilling freedom afforded by traveling on two wheels — preferably through the far flung reaches of the universe, and for as long a journey as possible.

But is it the same when you are the pillion, not the pilot?

Recently me and my friends planned a weekend trip to the mountains on the bike. We were two bikes with four riders and a car with two. Before we left for the trip, I was asked.. Why would you want to go on a bike as a pillion on a long trip, its not like you are doing anything, instead sitting uncomfortably in the blistering heat with not much scope for movement or added comfort. I brushed it off saying you don't know what you are talking about, its a whole new experience, and I stood by that statement, except somewhere at the back of my head I was left asking my self a few questions ?

Was there a ring of truth to what was being said? Was I eager to ride pillion because its the closest I can come right now to riding my own bike or was there really a thrill ?
I think I can be excused these obnoxious insecurities since I wasn't on the bike at the time. After having completed the trip on two wheels I can tell different. I am not sure I will be able to do justice in explaining the experience of riding pillion, but I could not live with my self if I didn't try.

With a glowing sigh, I reflect back upon this fantastic journey. Total satisfaction overcomes me when I think of the wind in my face on my adventures along winding roads in the company of good friends.

Who would have ever thought that one can experience the complete and ultimate exhilaration and adrenalin rush on a bike as a pillion.

Once on the back we cruise along straight and winding roads feeling the horse power and sheer engine thrust from beneath us. The rhythm of loud pipes, the warmth of my riding partner's heated jacket, the crisp of wind on my face, the brilliant sun on my back, the enchanting view over his shoulder. Every detail is viewed from a completely different perspective.
On a bike you are forced to interact with your surroundings in ways you cant ignore, its not like you can listen to your music, sleep or even turn away from the window like you do in a car. You are constantly interacting with the gushing wind, the trees rushing by and everything around.

Every motion affects the performance and handling of the motorcycle. Pilot and pillion ride together as one with the knowledge that the simplest move of a hand or nod of a head can change the stability of the bike. This fact bonds you to one another in a peculiar and blessed way.

The experience of riding pillion, without facing one another has an uncommon, and quixotic closeness that might never happen in any other situation. Together, pilot and pillion are in the poetic sense inextricably tied on a machine that imparts thrusting, gliding and weaving motions. You are dancing to the rumble of the motor, under the sun and the stars. The motions create a position without conflict, a place natural and unnatural at the same time.

When on a long journey, you are ecstatically happy for the first 40 km or so after which your back and legs start hurting, the sun pierces your skin and you are forced to question your choice. This feeling in my experience never lasts more than 8kms, during which there will be some bump or stop that will reposition you on the bike. And you are back to that indescribable feeling of never wanting the journey to end again.

Sitting on Satyen's 500cc standard RE the three words i would want to use for it are......intuitive, powerful and invincible.................. I seemed to have some kind of unbeatable faith in the bike, no matter how hair raising the bends are or how mindless the traffic is, there is nothing that this bike can't cope with.. absolutely nothing !!

In this trip there were rough patches that didn't allow the girls to be on the bike for safety reasons, we were very promptly packed into the car during this time, and the amount I missed being on the bike at that time took me by surprise. I wanted to get out of that cushiony comfort and get back to the thumping discomfort of the bike. I would always be wondering where we are going? did we take a wrong turn? where are the bikes?

And after what seemed to me like ages when I finally got on the bike again, it occurred to me that on the bike it doesn’t matter where I’m going, whether I will get to where we intended. All that matters is that I’m here, and I’m holding on. Pretty damn tightly.

My Peter Pan Principle

People have often asked me why i am so nuts about a story.. that too Peter pan! And every time the question never fails to put my mind in a complete frenzy. Where do I begin? What should I say first? How do I explain that this story compels me to believe and how it just automatically generates magic !

We all know the story of Peter Pan, a vain and mischievous boy who never wants to grow up, he spends his time with the lost boys in Neverland, stealing the hearts of mothers, daughters and fairies alike. A whimsical fantasy that has stood the test of time and shows the magic of childhood flights of fancy.

Its by far more than what Disney portrayed it to be, it is dryly witty, poignantly tragic, exciting, and lyrical, a perfect distillation of childhood fantasies and adult nostalgia.

This tale is every child's birthright. The story has a certain complexity and darkness which is as essential as the joy and adventure. It might be a book intended for children, but this is storytelling that anyone can love.

But even with all its underlying themes what captivates me is the depiction of the magical time that was childhood, when the simplest of things gave us pleasure, how we wove fanciful stories around the mundane.

An excerpt from the book.

"I don’t know if you have ever seen a map of a person’s mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose."

Or even look at how beautifully he painted with words a thing as simple as closing yours tightly

"If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire."

I suppose there are some of us who believe that because adulthood brings added responsibilities, we should live our lives like people who never found pleasure in looking at the clean sand at the ocean’s edge. But we forget how beautiful the world is through a child's eye..

Which is why I feel, the world must always remain a place of beauty, a place where joys are strong and as simple as you can make them.
I have not forgotten how to laugh even though I pay bills now and sometimes stare with hostility in confrontations with the cunning auto wallahs of Delhi.

I stare in wonder at little children when I see them; the incoherent babble they make that has so much meaning to their own ears, the spontaneous laughter that comes at seeing a bubble rise in the air, sheer happiness at life itself.

Children do not stab each other in the back; if they are your friends, they do not make snide remarks when you leave the room. They genuinely and totally believe in you, believe in love and in the world’s goodness. They are able to do so simply because they are willing to.

This I feel is the most important message that Peter Pan gave out - BELIEVE. It doesn't take anything from you, only adds more color and positivity in your life. If you want to believe good in somebody, believe it, its there. If you want to believe vampires or fairylands exist, believe it, so what if you haven't come across any, you might one day and if you dont, it just made you happy to believe they existed, and no one has the right to take that away from you.

But most importantly believe in dreams,no matter how small or impractical they are, it is the first step to achieving them.

After all as Peter says " The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings."

There are some who say the trouble with some people is that they refuse to grow up. If growing up means I forget how to laugh and become full of guile, I’ll leave “adulthood” to you and be more than happy, because all i need is faith and a little bit of pixie dust !

"O" Factor !

There was a wonderful article in the guardian (uk) on the letter "O" and its manipulations in graphic design.

To lexicographers it's just the 15th letter of the English alphabet. To designers it's a perfect shape for treatment: a world, a ball, a ring, a sun, a moon, a clock, a compass, a face. It's not even just a letter; it's a number, too – if zero counts as a number. It's a solid sphere or an empty circle.

A circle is a universal symbol. Or possibly myth; Plato argued the perfect circle only existed as a Form, something that we understand but never see; a circle in the real world is always merely an imperfect interconnection of adjoining dots. There again, the artist Giotto was reputed to be able to draw a perfect circle freehand.

The letter O first appears in the ancient Semitic languages of about 1000BC as the fricative consonant ain (eye). Some time later the Greeks morphed it into a vowel, and from there it slid seamlessly into the Roman alphabet. "It came to Britain around the 6th or 7th century when the Romans standardised Old English," says David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales. Yet even Crystal can't explain O's enduring popularity as an iconographic symbol. "Like the letter X it's one of the few letters that retains its shape in upper case and lower case and that, too, has multiple meanings," he suggests.

Michael Johnson ( one of my biggest inspirations, seriously i love his work !) says "It can mean so many things to different people, that I rarely use it in my artwork. It's also a very self-contained, static shape, so it is quite limiting. It's what is adjacent to the O that signifies its meaning; Think of O2; it's the 2 that tells you the story."

Johnson also points out that the O is rarely the perfect circle of our imagination. Or Plato's perfect alphabet. "Only a couple of fonts make O a perfect circle as it makes the O look chubby on the page. Normally they are an oval."

The article also reminded me of the "Just so stories" by Rudyard kipling which has probably the most fanciful explanation behind each alphabet. The story “How the Alphabet was Made” recounts how a Neolithic tribesman and his precocious daughter invent the alphabet by drawing pictures to represent sounds. For the letter "O" the daughter says

‘Now make another noise, daddy.’

‘Oh!’ said her Daddy, very loud.

‘That’s quite easy,‘ said Taffy. ’You make your mouth all around like an egg or a stone. So an egg or a stone will do for that.’

‘You can’t always find eggs or stones. We’ll have to scratch a round something like one.’ And he drew a circle.

The father’s sketch of the first O would serve perfectly well today, since round remains the defining property of the letter. Actually, the O did start out as a drawing of something, but not an egg or a stone, or even a mouth. The true ancestor of our O was probably the symbol for an eye, complete with a center dot for the pupil.

Below are some posters that were given to illustrate the article.

Hows your day ??

No matter how the day goes, It always looks up when its time to be with friends again. This is something that hasn't changed through the years. Whether you are 5 or 50. I think we still have that little kid inside of us that wants to rush out the door the minute we are back from work, rush out to see friends, rush out to the playground. Trust Calvin to hit the nail right on the head.

I think everyone has those moments when they feel a little low or slightly subdued, but often it all changes with just an encounter with certain people. I think we are extremely lucky to have people in our lives that can rekindle our inner spirit.

That being said i cant wait o finish up with work and rush out the door just to be with my friends again. Hurry up time !!!!!

Type me Preddy !!

A lot of people really enjoyed the scribble pad i had posted earlier.. (duly noted)
Here is a slight twist to your regular scribble pad! Its called type drawing ! I was thrilled to come across this as i am a thorough fan of type manipulations !! There is so much one can do with just words and characters. From poetry to portraits ... Have fun with type drawing .. cheerios !!
Click on the face for some type madness

North Korea Propaganda

This set of propaganda posters were removed from its original location on Reddit Today, I found a set mirrored on Scott Hansen's Blog, and just had to share it !!

I have always had a fascination with propaganda posters and it still surprises me that in terms of art and aesthetics, they haven't changed much. I even made a presentation on World War II propaganda posters in my fourth semester in college. I will upload them too some time, till then take load of these ..

Translation : "Prevention and more prevention. Lets fully establish a veterinary system for the prevention of epidemics." Translation: "The US is truly an Axis of Evil." Translation: "Death to US imperialists, Our sworn enemy!" Translation : "Though the dog barks, the procession moves on." Translation: “"Lets drive the US imperialists out and reunite our fatherland." Translation: "Do not forget the US imperialist wolves." Translation: "When provoking a war of aggression, we will hit back beginning with the US."
Translation : "Wicked Man" Translation: "Lets extensively raise goats in all families" Translation : "When we say we will, we will. We do not talk idly."