GB-4 THE JOY OF ART

BY KALYANI GANAPATHY,  artist

My story on rediscovering joy, and finding art.

Illustration by Kalyani Ganapathy 

Have you ever wondered why Lewis Caroll woke Alice up from her dream? Or why we ever stopped believing in fairy tales, that happily ever after, that we painted vivid pictures of when we were growing up. What did becoming a teenager have to do with losing sight of happiness in it’s simple form? Today at 28 after a 3 year journey I’ve rediscovered joy! Does that give me the authority to say ‘this is the answer to beautiful art’, probably not. But let’s face it somewhere in this journey of becoming an artist, I thought, ‘I want to inspire’. So that brings me to putting pen to paper today.

Illustration by Kalyani Ganapathy 
 As I stare into the horizon from the gigantic window in my studio, I find myself thinking aloud. Where does my imagination live, have I had it all along? Have I really? 

If you asked me this a few years ago, when I was completely ignorant about what I could do with a paint brush and 3 colours, I would have retorted with a ‘no’. Many life changing experiences later, too many dark mornings later, and after much skepticism 28 year old ‘me’ picked up a paintbrush with the enthusiasm of a 5 year old and guess what, I discovered I could paint.What changed, one simple fact, I was joyous! Joy?

 Why joy, when for hundreds of years artists like Van Gogh sold post-humously because of their tragic love sagas? What’s with me and joy?

Joy gives me a reason to believe, joy means a brighter day, joy means I dream, Joy means I am that I am. It means I express, I love, I care, I love my life, just the way it is, this moment in time, I am present! That ladies and gentlemen, is the power of joy!

Illustration by Kalyani Ganapathy 

Love what you do, do what you love! An hour a day, a day a week, a week a month, a month a year an then all year long. What makes you joyous? Is it candy floss on the beach, the monsoon rain tapping at your window, the red nail polish on your fingers, the hum of your Enfield, the golden Labrador at your feet? Take a deep breath, visualize, feel the joy, and dab a brush in any paint you want and paint the town red. 

Illustration by Kalyani Ganapathy 

Joy is in every moment we live, every cup of tea, every drop of rain and you can choose to see it. The simplest moments make it to my canvas. Some days are tough, and I see those too, and I sulk, and I cry, and I wish life had better things in store.  On that very gloomy day I find that little part of me that sees jeweled fish swimming in green seas, cats that talk, and foxes that fall in love! It’s in that little box called my imagination, and like me only you have the key to unlock yours and travel on a magical journey somewhere far away that puts a smile on your face.

My personal mantra ‘we are all creative, it’s my choice to choose to unfold my creative journey’. You and I both deserve joy, and as long as there is joy, I will be, I will draw and I will smile!

GB-3 OF NEWSPAPER AND POSITIVITY

BY MINI SHIVAKUMAR MENON, language and youth leadership trainer

Newspapers figure somewhere at the bottom end of my list of chosen reading material. I’m not proud to admit it, but then, it’s the truth. I usually read anything I can lay my hands on, but it’s with great reluctance that I browse through a newspaper. Too much reality in there for me…

Last month, we were on vacation in India. I happened to pick up one of the more popular vernacular newspapers lying on the coffee table, purely because there was nothing else to read. The front page proudly presented one high-level conspiracy/corruption at the Centre, a local rape and murder, a gruesome accident and an ominous prediction about the effects of climate change. 

The second page carried child abuse, flanked by the news of a much-married mother eloping with a younger neighbors  and an unidentified body on the railway tracks, with a small column on a two-headed chicken that hatched in a farm thrown in at the bottom corner. I don’t even want to talk about the obit page here. If there were any positive bits, they were lost in the darkness that was emanating from the rest of the newspaper. At this point, I felt a desperate need to put as much distance between me and the newspaper, so I got up and went to take a good, long look at the rising sun. I needed all the light I could get.

credits- MANYA AHUJA

To the average citizen, newspapers are still the first event of the day. I imagined an entire state waking up to its daily morning fix of corruption, murder, rape, abuse, death, fear and mayhem. What a way to start the day! This is what Citizen X – including children and young adults – carries with him/her through the day. Is it any wonder that our crime rates are increasing? Is it any wonder that our children are growing up world-weary and cynical? The mass media, whether it is newspaper or television, gives so much coverage to all things negative that there’s no more room for the positive in the real world. Not even in the unreal world, as most of the television series that are being aired seem to tell us in no uncertain terms. What are we teaching our kids?

Why aren’t we telling them that ‘yes, there is all this in the world, but there is also something else’? Why aren’t we telling them more about the Abdul Kalams of this world who refuse to compromise on their principles? Why aren’t we taking the time to tell them about the Sunita Krishnans of the world who turned their tragedy around to help victims of rape and abuse? Let’s encourage them to contribute their efforts to Greenpeace instead of scaring them with a dark future. Let’s teach them the value of human life over that of passing the medical entrance test. Let’s make them understand the real meaning of duality – that for every bad, there is a good; for every night, there’s a day; for every problem, there is a solution. That their glass, which everyone tells them is already half-empty, is actually half-full yet, and if they want to, they can still make it full.

credits- MANYA AHUJA

My friend Jithu begins and ends his day by going through at a Powerpoint presentation he has made for himself. In there are his prayers, dreams and aspirations, along with some motivational quotes and calming pictures. He says it gives him a great start and end to the day. I have to believe him because he is one of the most positive and happy people I have come across.

 From being a typical hypertension-cholesterol-obesity-ridden executive, he has evolved into a happy and healthy entrepreneur who deals in gems and jewelry, his long-time dream. His positivity has obviously percolated down to his wife and daughter as well. They look at life with their torch shining, and everyone around is benefitted. I learned a lot from that family in the few hours I spent with them. Mainly that it is possible to choose happiness, goodness and serenity over everything else.

credits- MANYA AHUJA

 Newspapers and television glorify ‘badness’ because we accept it unquestioningly. They claim that there are fewer takers for happiness and positivity. If that is true, then it is incredibly sad. Have we become so used to darkness and negativity that we cannot accept anything better? What will happen if, one day, we hold a morcha against sensational journalism and ‘yellow’ writing? How would it be if we go on a hunger strike against all those ‘saas-bahu’ (and other) TV serials that insult collective human intelligence? Maybe then the media moguls will stop dishing it out to us and we can start our day the way Jithu does!

GB-2 A PAGE FROM HIS DIARY

BY BRIKESH SINGH, green peace activist 

                            Thursday, 4 October 2012

We crossed 100,000 signatures on the petition, asking the Prime Minister to protect our forests in Central India from coal mining. A lot has happened since we started the petition, three months ago.

Once the coal scam became public, thousands of us occupied social media and made junglistan.org the most tweeted link in the country that day.

We added to the existing pressure on the government. They ordered an investigation into the scam and cancelled some, but not enough, of the coal block allocations.

Around the same time, I set out to spend a whole month in the forest of Padmapur, which is threatened by coal mining.

MTV aired my journey to the forests and made a new group of people aware of the threat forests in Central India face from coal mining. 

While I was in the forests, two activists occupied trees outside the Coal Ministry’s office in Delhi. They asked the minister to end his greed for coal.

A forest area right next to where I was living was saved from coal mining. Last month, the Adani group’s proposed coal project in the Lohara forests, in Chandrapur, was rejected by the Maharashtra Forest Department. This was a victory for the local groups, who have been fighting to save the forests in Chandrapur from coal mining.

Before I left the forests, the petition to save them crossed 100,000 signatures.

I am back from the forests and my next task is to hand over these petitions to the PM. The next few weeks will be tremendously important in our fight to save our forests. 

Watch his inspirational journey on Junglistan rises with MTV ACT-

                     

GB-1 THE MEMORY EATER

 BY ROHIT GORE, Author of 'CIRCLE OF THREE', 'FOCUS, SAM' and 'A DARKER DAWN'

                     

The journal survived.  Like a pearl inside a shelled mollusk. Everything else destroyed by the roiling, angry sea. He raged when he saw the dry crisp pages of the journal.  Seventy three people on the ocean liner. Seventy two dead.  One survivor on the desolate island.  And his journal. The endless horizon, as though God’s smile, mocking him. The sound of waves His laughter.  He laughed too. It sounded like a hideous cry. 

He opened a random page.

1^st January : ‘Kissed her for the first time!’

He smiled. She was beautiful, his wife. She was dead. He tore and ate the page. A memory good enough to eat. He ate all the pages with her name on it. Almost fifty. He retched the whole night.

He buried twenty two bodies. Then gave up. The island was a giant grave.  The pile of dead flesh. Marinated by the salty sea water. Good enough to eat? He pressed his fists on his eyes and cried for hours.

29^th September:  ‘Got a promotion today. Party planned!’

credits - MANYA AHUJA

He read the menu of the party. ‘Chicken biryani’, ‘Mutton Roganjosh’. ‘Paneer Hyderabadi’ ‘Casatta ice-cream’. He licked the ink for a long time. A tasty meal. He found all the pages with the mention of parties. He ate them all. He did not throw up.

He looked at the bodies. Lined up like a buffet. His mouth drooling like a hungry dog. He wondered if he was a dog. Whether all the things that happened before were a dog’s dream? A dog can eat any flesh. 

He clutched the journal to his chest. The touch of the paper to his chafed skin was soothing. There were many pages left in the journal. He was yet to become a dog.

5^th December: “Our new house!” Did he own a house? 

credits - MANYA AHUJA

  He closed his eyes and saw a corner. A corner adorned by his guitar. His favorite corner. He searched for it in the journal entry. He cried for a long time when he saw it. It was his house. He tore the page and ate it.

credits - MANYA AHUJA

Days (Months? Years?) later only a few pages remained. The sad memories. Entries where he wrote about his father’s death. His lament about not writing a novel. His depression after being ignored for the position of the Vice President. He wondered what would taste worse. The days (months? years?) old human flesh or ancient uncertain sad memories? He ate the pages after a long time. He would not become a dog. Those memories in the journal were that of a man. He would die a man. 

The rescue boat found him. A brown skeleton. Barely breathing. A tattered journal cover wedged between his hands and chest. The rescuers saw the rotting carcasses on the sand and understood.

They fed him.

“How did you survive?” they asked, fearing the answer.

“On my memories”, he said.

credits - MANYA AHUJA

Watch Odyssey On Writerspoint

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And the interviews-

Raghav Arumugam, writer -director

Q1) What is Odyssey for you?

Odyssey is a very personal project that we wrote specifically for the actress, Khyati Trehan. It’s about a journey. The basic idea is taken from one of the many Hindu stories of creationism, which is that the whole world is a dream of Vishnu, which is why everything around us is an illusion, or Maya.

Thus, Everything is nothing, And the Beginning is the End. And that is tale of the Odyssey.

Q2) How is Odyssey different from any other film?

Well, it doesn’t make sense. What I mean by that, is this film is a very open ended project, it gives the viewer a basic idea of the world and those who inhabit it, but the meaning is up to you to decide, there are many levels in this film, some people watch it and take away one level of understanding and some people will take away 42. It’s different because it doesn’t tell you what the story is, it lets you discover the story for yourself.

Q3) What was more difficult to be- a director or a writer ?

I don’t find either to be difficult, since I truly enjoy making films. Being your own Writer/director allows you a whole lot of freedom you wouldn’t normally get when working for someone else. Of course, having said that, there is a whole lot of pressure of taking the responsibility for the entire film on my own shoulders, it’s my vision and my own execution, so if the film turns out to be total trash and I’m unable to visually communicate my intentions, I cant blame the writers or producers or anyone else but me.

Q4) What kind of challenges did you face as a director?

For a film like this, where the story is about an idea, an emotion, its difficult to find tangible objects and locations that will successfully communicate that. There are a lot of sets and backgrounds that we created completely out of scratch on the computer because we simply couldn’t find real locations that would fit our requirements. That was a big challenge, to make the CGI so seamless with the real so that it communicates the same level of emotion we are trying to achieve.

Also the special effects in this film are some that we haven’t ever tried before, so doing those took a good amount of my time.

Q5) How long did it take you to complete the entire movie ? After all the hardwork and efforts, you expectations ?

We wrote, planned and set up everything within a week and filmed in the following week. This was in the summer. Then the film fell to the back burner because the special effects were becoming more and more complicated as we started working on it in post production. We shot the title sequence in four different ways until we got the one that we used in the final film.

We sort of let the project sleep for a while and worked on other things, built our abilities to the level that we needed for this film and then returned to it last month. By then we were confident we knew what we wanted to do with this film and then we just sat down and pumped the whole thing out. It’s been a long journey, but I’m happy with what we have, and this will be a stepping stone to bigger and more ambitious films in the future.

Dhruv Ganguly, Writer

Q1) Who came up with the abstract idea of Odyssey and how did you put it to words?

     

We didn’t really put it into words, it was Raghav’s idea to start with a face painting video. He’s done one before called Happy Faces and he wanted to do another. We sat down over the phone for an hour and a half just talking about it, working out a story from an elemental and creationist point of view. We had a whole different story in the beginning, with a bunch of various characters and complicated but beautiful story, the thing with that story was that it had no basis, we felt like we needed to create the world the story inhabits first, so we ended up heavily simplifying it and the plot fell into place organically.

Q2) How difficult was it to write a film that is focusing on a visual and emotional narrative rather than an actual plotline?

If you’re keeping a sort of distance from the world and having an existential premise, you have to count on basic elements and emotions and one strong feeling of omnipotence, there was no question of a story. It was an awesome exercise for us to bring it out. It has to be simple enough to create a world, and have her interact with things that are two steps above primeordeal.
What was tough was to get past the ideation point, at the ideation point we came up with everything she goes through, all the emotions and ideas we wanted to express. The problems arose when finding locations and sets and visuals ideal for the emotion we wanted to portray

Q3) How would you define Odyssey for our readers?

It is a chronicle of emotions of the mortal versus the omnipotent. The lack of emotion as far as omnipotent is concerned, a sort of bland expression leading to creation, the juxtaposition of what the omnipotent otherworldly person expects after creation.

The whole point of the thing is birth and rebirth, and then we moved slightly beyond that to a dreamlike existence, creating a world, making it beautiful, then turning it into a nightmare, and then snapping out of it.

Q5) How was the whole experience of working on Odyssey ?

Pretty easy going actually, the writing process was simple for me, and Raghav did most of the technical work.