Friday, December 30, 2011

Beaches

After a long, long time a post for the Sunday Sketches. I drew this while i was on a vacation to Mumbai & Goa (India).


The next picture shows you the size of the drawing! :) It's my first time drawing this small, hence its a little distorted! (hehehe)


Sunday, June 26, 2011

MJ

 

A tribute to the man himself… the King of Pop.. and on his 2nd death anniversary, a little attempt to bring him back to life!

2011-06-26 20.48.41

To share with all the lovely artists posting on Sunday Sketches! Smile

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Blast From The Past!

 

For today’s entry of the Sunday Sketches, I go back to one of my old posts. It is a collection of the sketches made by me during my school days mostly. I understand that people posting on Sunday Sketches are amazingly talented artists but please do appreciate the fact that these sketches were an amazingly satisfying and fulfilling attempt of this girl who lacks any professional training in sketching whatsoever.

Here is the link to that post: A Blast From The Past!

Enjoy! Smile

Sunday, May 29, 2011

College & Teachers!

 

So I am in this college where we have very little number of students and enough teachers, maybe even more than there might be required. Personally I believe I have had some of the most intelligent, and not just in their particular subject but as a whole, the most sweetest, very smart teachers (teachers who have patents!), some teachers who are, well, excellent teachers i.e they teach nicely, some young, some old, some handsome, some pretty, some not, some smiling nice faces that just make you smile with them, and have been taught by professional psychologist too (obviously the subject – Psychology).

But for some teachers I just have the face Smile with tongue out and a few lines said by the director of our college. “our teachers are novices……****(college name) needed to start something to help our teachers.” I am not really sure what our respected director meant by “something to help our teachers”, but apart from the excellent members of the faculty, there are some for whom I would want to believe that this something is Psychiatric/Psychological help.

PS. not trying to target anyone here, just the pent up disgust that every student at least once in his/her life has toward any of his/her educational institutes, may then it be school (primary, secondary or senior), tuition/coaching centers, colleges or some other kind of institutes.

Monday, May 9, 2011

The Magical Blue Rose

 

Inspired by the Disney Cartoon Series – Aladdin. This rose was the one that could make you forget everything, who you are, who you love etc, but the magical feeling of Love could break the spell and bring you back to yourself.

Drawn in ink, here it is, another addition in my journal of The Sunday Sketches!

Image0936

Sunday, May 8, 2011

IP Infringement - 2

 

So I got to know from where besides Facebook (the social networking site the pic was posted on) could the guy have taken that picture from. My Picasa web album, its been posted there also for quite a long time now and its open for all to see.

Here’s the link to it:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mannika29sol/FavPics#5515309580972940690

Now one can also read the specifications about that pic and be sure that I own the rights to it.

And by the way I asked the guy who posted it as his own, from where he got it and he claims to have clicked it. (‘Besharam’ = shameless)

Here’s how the conversation went:

Awaiting Reply….

(will update the post on any further reply…also I will include all details about this pic on my final post on this topic)

Saturday, May 7, 2011

IP Infringement

 

Intellectual Property, say.. a picture I clicked come under that right? I used my intelligence to spot something worth capturing, the angle and the device to capture it with. So yea, the picture wasn’t planned, taken by a simple mobile phone camera, but the concept was worth capturing and I guess worth displaying as your own or something. I wonder from where the person found the picture, as I deleted it much before he uploaded it. Maybe it was circulating or maybe he saved it long before.

A look at the picture:

 

And a look at how it was portrayed as someone else’s on someone else’s wall:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=202920893080322&set=at.177488235623588.33549.100000872388049.100000031804544&type=1&ref=nf

Now I didn’t know it was such an amazing picture that people would use it to describe flavours of India though that’s what I thought when I hurried to take out my phone from my pocket to take this picture. It was amazing how this girl’s dad or grand-dad was carrying her back from school on this cart where other kids were coming on cycle, walking or buses and cars.

Now this I took in a state in India when I was in vacation near some museum or park the taxi driver dropped us, its been a year since I took it. And if the guy who has posted this on his wall got it from Google or somewhere I’d be glad to know that I possess some photographic talents.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

It’s Me!

mannika

An interpretation of me, drawn by a close friend of mine……

(& btw that friend of mine is 19yrs old)

Put up by me especially as a part of Sunday Sketches!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Travelling Painter

So there is this man I saw one day, sitting along the road, selling his dreams, his paintings. There was a story behind each of his works and what brought him to the streets. The guy loved travelling, as a boy whenever he watched TV, he would watch all those travel shows which would take him on a virtual tour around the world. His urge to travel places grew extreme. He also had a talent not many possess, to draw what he had seen or thought just as he had been there himself, and that’s how his journey started. As he grew older, he saved all his money to paint ‘cause he knew no matter how much he saved he wouldn’t be able to save enough for travelling, but almost enough to fulfill his dream of painting. So this dreamer started to paint every place he had been through books, radio & TV, and the places he visits now in his sleep. Pheww…so much of travelling, how the hell could he ever get a good sleep with all this travelling? He sat in his chair, his hat pulled down and dreamt, travelled actually…all the places he had been were revisited and new ones were explored and then made to come alive on his canvas. And by the time he was a Man, the boy had visited so many places, he had run out of space to keep those memories and the desire to actually be at a place and paint it had grown stronger somewhere at the back of his head.

So one day as he stands in front of an ordinary light pole and draws the Eiffel Tower, an old lady comes up to him and sees the wonderful Italian Piano, green and golden in color and offers to buy it. The traveller is a bit hesitant about selling off his memory only when it strikes him if he could sell all the work of his life so far, he would have another life to actually visit places to draw. At once he stretches a smile and what pleasure, he says, but to give a gentle lady like hers a piece of his memory. He makes a big profit on it, after all the lady was generous about someone’s efforts of painting his dream alive. Now that Mr. sells his paintings at a reasonably high cost, so much after all for all the beautiful hard work. Sure I can’t buy one, though its just being sold on the street, but guess what I can draw one just like it. Soon he will make enough money to start travelling for real and see his other dream come alive. For all I hope is that he is able to make plenty of such memories and never have the need to sell them again.

 

This post is written as a part of Thursday Tales.

Image Courtesy : Painter Montmarte.

Sketching All The Way

 

Image025

 

Butterfly-Eye!…………….bloooooooooo Butterfly-Eye!

Posted Especially As a Part of Sunday Sketches!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Saturday, January 22, 2011

And That is How I Remember You…

There are a few to whom I say
Hi, some say the same,
Some keep walking by ,
There are some who say
How’d you do to me,
And I forget to reply…..
Some who just pass by,
Leaving me a subtle smile.
Some come along & pat my back,
Some push me and say Yo!
Some just shake hands,
With nothing but a simple Hello!

Then there are some with whom
I love to hang out,
Some boring people
I get bored with,
Some interesting ones,
With whom I do too.
Some fun people I have fun with
Some boring silly ones too.
Some been with me,
When it rained, some when
The sun shone so bright……
Some in my head as I laughed,
Some in my eyes when I cried.
Some made me feel all empty,
Some made my life complete,
Some taught me to want,
More from life, whereas some
Taught me to live contempt…
And that is how I remember them…..

You gave me happiness,
You made me cry,
You’ve been with me,
On my sad days, and,
Through the good times,
The sun, the rain, you kept
Me warm when I was cold.
When I said I wasn’t hungry,
You stuck the spoon to my mouth,
When I was tired of walking,
You offered me a ride on your back,
You did magic and made,
All my misery disappear,
You made it go when,
I couldn’t take it anymore.
You kissed my face,
When I had a flu!
And this is how I’ll remember you…..

This post is written as a part of Carry On Tuesday Tale #88

Monday, January 17, 2011

My Tattered-Battered Teddy Bear

When we first moved in our new house, I got a very amazing Teddy as my welcome gift. The tag didn’t say whom it came from, but it came with love. I started believing it to be a present from God and with each passing day I loved it more than ever before. Now I never really hugged or kissed it, though I slept with it next to me on some nights… but there was something about Ted that gave me comfort just to look at him, just to look at his cute smile below his adorable li’l black nose! Had I been a lady Teddy, I would’ve fallen in love with Ted.

It wasn’t an exquisite one though and over the years I had had it, it had really lost its shine…all the dirt, the rough times it went through with me, it looked much older than it actually was…all tattered and out of its tight shape as it came in the gift box. But I liked it that way, its blue-red checked bow-tie, tilted right by a few centimeters, its glowing face now a li’l tired which made the gleam in his eyes even more pronounced…and his ear…I bit it off once when I was angry and sad, it had to be put together by a red patch of cloth..which now with all the dirt had turned maroon. Its light brown fur, which spiked once was now as soft as could be. I fell more in love with it to realize how it was so special to me, how it was always there sitting on that shelf and after a rough day at school, one glance at him, his gleaming eyes and his sweet soft smile and I could just lie down in my bed in front of the shelf and go into my sweetest sleep. How it always helped me do my homework, and helped me sing out loud and danced with me. It was lovely, such a bliss!

Then the boy who lived across the street came to play with me and eyed Mr.Teddy…I couldn’t say no, so I let him borrow it. He took it home and for a week didn’t come to play…it was okay, no-one had seen a teddy like my Mr.Ted, no wonder everyone wanted to play a li’l with it… I didn’t mind, I would still have him forever, he was my Ted. Boy had never seen such a gleam in a bear’s eyes nor had he seen such a beautiful smile, but he wasn’t pleased with the fact that Ted looked so worn out, so he decided to do some good with my Mr.Ted. The boy washed him, sewed him with a matching fur over his maroon patch, gave him a new bow-tie, combed his fur so once again it was all spiked and fresh. My heart sank when Ted started to look like a complete stranger, his fur shined so much that the gleam in his eyes was almost gone, the smile was covered with spiked fur and his brown eyes…seemed dark…not glowing the way they used to. It was just so perfect, I didn’t like perfect. More importantly, it was changed, it wasn’t the same old Ted, Boy gave him many new names too…I wondered if he could decide for himself, would he choose the fancy names the fancy boy gave to him? Would he like to be always tucked in my arm like Boy kept him…wasn’t the fact that I gave Ted his own shelf important…did Ted want to be carried everywhere 24x7, didn’t he enjoy looking important on that shelf, passing me that smile? I had never had so many questions in my mind at one time, never before, and mum still used to say I was a curious child. Had she known what a thunder it was in my head right now, she’d be blown off!

But then I made myself believe that it was still my same old Ted, so what if some part of him had changed, nothing will change between us. Well I was doing a great job at telling myself each day, like a trapped squirrel hopes that the storm will pass sometime soon and he’ll be able to return to his home tree again. I hoped incessantly that I still will get the same smile, the same comfort from his eyes. But I was wrong, the new looking teddy just didn’t fit in my old shelf, no it didn’t fit right. The new bow-tie was too much in place and the maroon patch gone, didn’t remind me anymore of the days when I had no-one but Ted to get angry at, in fact it reminded me of the boy who had ruined my bestest friend of all time, my dear Mr.Ted. What a pity it was, I would look at him and no comfort it gave, but a constant un-easy feeling of having had such a foolish boy as my friend. Before it was just a look at him, and now even a bear-hug from him wouldn’t comfort me when I had bad days or stupid school fights. It totally screwed my head when I looked at him, he wasn’t mine anymore. Unless one day I decided to put him away…I keep it in my cupboard now, I get a glance of it every now and then, I still smile at him, but I never get the smile I used to get. I still hope that someday it’ll come in its same old shape, but I know one thing for sure, I will never bite off its spikey new ear but rather cry in my bed when I get angry and sad.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Dark Nights, Dark Days

It was sunny at first, but as time passed,

It grew windy, dark and cold.

I was scared, perhaps terrified,

But I tried to maintain my cool.

I had heard the birds sing,

I had seen the bees fly,

But never in my life had I,

Seen the poor trees die,

Little kids cry, animals march in fear

And fight their guts out to survive.

I had heard of friendships,

And the fairy stories,

Of lovers and their glories,

To what extent a friend sacrificed

For another, and how

The lover always rescued

The Princess’s life,

But what I saw as I entered this kingdom,

Were inhabitants full of vanity,

Who found joy in giving pain,

Where friends believed

in ill-treating each other,

And lovers took undue advantage

Of the holy sacrifices one made

In his/her name.

 

Where when sun shined it meant,

The heat was to burn, and not

To provide aching hearts the

Warmth of the day,

After a long dark night.

And when it was dark,

It didn’t mean it was time

To retire into a beautiful slumber,

But to plot ways to hurt many

More in the time of the evil night,

And the gory time of the day.

It wasn’t the spring time I had

Experienced in my childhood,

It wasn’t the sunny days my parents gave,

Even the days were like a long black night,

Waiting to engulf all my life’s happiness.

Looking for help I went to my mother,

Who softly whispered in my ear,

And gave me great hope as she said,

“Do not worry my child

For every dark night, there’s a brighter day!”

 

This Post is Written As Part of This

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Truth? Dare?

My school wasn’t so close to my house so the bus ride meant torturous boredom, while in the mornings people stuck to sitting silent, sleeping maybe, listening to music or just looking out of the window, talking sometimes, even shout maybe, it were the afternoons that used to be filled with fun.

Among the many games we managed to play in the confines of a small green and yellow RTV, Truth n Dare was a fine one. Now we all know nobody speaks the truth until they are drunk & in a school bus full of teachers, it’s stupid to even imagine anyone drinking or coming drunk. So we basically stuck to the dare part. Among many some of my favourites are as follows:

  1. One of the guys who was rather quite before we all had started playing so vehemently enacted The Great Khali (wrestler). It was awesome how he would raise both his hands to shoulder level and put all his effort in saying that he was the great one!
  2. Then there was this other time we made this other kid’s pony tail, he was a li’l embarrassed but he agreed to keep it that way until the next traffic light.
  3. There was one time when I was supposed to wave at this really hideous and gunda-type uncle and he was such a chep one, I mean he kept waving back until I bent down & all the boys started waving at him instead. I guess the bus was turning or at a red light or caught in a jammed junction ‘cause it was going pretty slow.
  4. Then there was this one time that this other girl had to pass a flying kiss to a random woman, I mean this had been tried on men by the boys but the men always got dazed or pissed by such ‘gay’ acts, but the lady seemed totally happily expecting it or something. I mean she was walking down a footpath talking on phone and she not only smiled back, she waved and returned the flying kiss! Some pleasant woman she was, happy to see school kids. And the bizarre thing is that she might have appeared crazy to the people on that road.
  5. Now acting gay was the trendiest and almost the best, you know to see how people get so amazed at having being showered unexpected affection by the people of the same sex. But Oh my God, this particular one was awesome. Our bus is standing at a red light and this really poorly-afraid-of-something guy is crossing the road, not only did all of us start shouting ‘hotty’, ‘handsome’ etc at him, the same kid who played Khali actually pats that guy on the shoulder as he passed  by the RTV  to make him look up, & then blows him a flying kiss! Omg, that poor guy was baffled! The look on his face!

Also we used to squeeze orange peels in each others eyes and sometimes simply threw them at each other, threw paper balls which we eventually had to collect from the RTV floor ‘cause our driver was also the owner of the RTV and he wanted no mess from our side. We played Red Hand & Aloo-Chholey Garam, teachers were not very fond of watching these ones as they found these games so stupid ‘cause we always ended with red & clotted hands after the game. We also had arm wrestling matches, sung songs aloud in chorus, showed middle finger to random school boys on the street who were acting smart Open-mouthed smile, hurled really insulting comments on the famous MMS Scandal creator promising school of South Delhi as their school bus passed by and waved and smiled at little kids in other school buses.

All that made the 45mins-1.15mins pass by pretty smooth. And when we reached home, we used to be tired in a good way.

If You See Me Walking Down A…Footpath

First day of college it was and I could as much catch a glance of people but not my immediate friends, obviously except for the people who were right in front of me when I was sitting idle & I couldn’t help but register them in my brain. So after a little while since the classes ended I left for home and while I was on my way home I saw a bunch of my college mates walking down the footpath probably headed for the market. Now it was a lot of people walking so the only two things that could make me realize that it was a bunch of people I knew was the fact that one of them was the person I had seen in the bank when I was sitting idle and couldn’t help but register her strangely patterned sweater, which by the way I liked and this another guy whom whenever I look at I get this feeling of having seen him before. But that’s least likely ‘cause he’s a year junior so he couldn’t have been in the same standard even in tuitions and there weren’t many extra-curricular I had joined to keep me busy.

And as I passed the market they were probably heading towards, I remembered how it used to be where I lived before. Just like CP, here is Delhi is considered to be the Central Place indeed, so was my tuition center there. My tuition center introduced me to so many people, some simply amazing while others simply amusing. My life was largely restricted to school ‘bus-school-school bus- home’ kind of a schedule, apart from some paid visits by some college girl who would come to solve my doubts in Maths. I used to be sleeping when she would come and I showed nil interest in whatever she taught and soon she left Smile with tongue out. I remember once I was colouring a  dog I had previously drawn and though she earlier got irritated but then ended up complementing it Open-mouthed smile. But she left anyway. So mum decided it was now time we (I have a sibling also!) started going to a place where we would be forced not to sleep but study – Maths!

Then it was like my world just expanded, and by the time I was in 11th, I like knew some kid from each area of the whole stretch of our bus route. When the bus would slow down to stop at the next bus stop after I had boarded, I always (mostly) saw this guy Shivam walking to his stop. The when the bus stopped at the stop, I would get to see Kanika standing right in the opposite direction. Then our bus would proceed, it was easy to catch a glimpse of others also, but these were the people I saw almost everyday. Then it would be the stop near the market (A hint for Delhites – near a hospital with a clock tower) and then there were so many people there. Sir came to drop his daughter, Sir  looked awesome even so early in the morning! Smile Ananya was always there, she stood in the same posture day in and day out! Open-mouthed smile Then farther it was sometimes Sagarika. Then there would be some new set of people in the afternoons.

And then of-course there was this slim girl with re-bonded  hair always wearing this white uniform which I thought to be a mix of PT and the everyday uniform but was actually their real everyday uniform. Always came with her hair left untied for drying. She was Nandita!

I mean  after having lived there, the place where I live now just seems empty, devoid of people, devoid of places to visit, devoid of activities, the hustle-bustle of traffic, and devoid of friends. If there was any place I enjoyed thoroughly being in was my tuition center (not a coaching center that promises to get you in Engineering & Medical colleges). And it was so pleasant to live in such a known place.

And it was cute to see the people of my college as I passed by, it gave a homely feeling after such a long time.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Battle Wages On….

No more talks of darkness,

Forget these wide eyed fears.

Cup your eyes, its all dark,

Expose it off, all will brighten up.

Let go, don’t hang onto the past,

Start afresh, forget the pain,

Don’t let the emptiness remain,

In your heart anymore.

Point your four fingers to the front wall,

Now curve them inwards

To get a thumbs up.

 

If seeing too much scares you,

Then shut your eyes for a while,

Take your time to relax,

But work on the will you lack,

For only the blind does not see,

The light at the end of the tunnel,

Never do make believe,

That it’s not even there.

And if you’ll for once not care,

About the darkness that scares you so,

And forget the wide eyed fears,

That you didn’t let go of,

Then is the time, you won’t

Be blind-folded anymore,

And see that ray shining bright

somewhere, at the end perhaps,

But existing for sure. 

 

Written For : Carry On Tuesday