dog days are over

Overworked. Numb. Disappointed. Dazed. Hence, need for an upbeat song that beats the blues away!

Hope you are having a smashing week!



photography workshop 101

I attended a workshop on ' photography- indepth study of exposure and composition' last friday. It was a full day course sponsored by 'canon middle east'. This are few images that I thought were among best. Mind that this was first ever trial for me and I was more nervous than the models.. who were as cool as ice.

Looking forward for another workshop session soon. Till then I gotta practice practice and practice.. :)

Exams on from next sunday!! Almost done with ' Introduction to Cinema' and ' Photojournalism'.. but still four more books to go!

See you soon with the development on the story..

Much Love,
- The Warrior Poetess

Update No.3

This update is about the protagonist of 'the book'. Let us call her Ms. M for now. I have been building her up in my brain. What she likes, how she laughs, her small quirks and mannerisms. She grows a lot over the span of time in the story. One could say, she lives two life times. One as an average next door girl, another as a member of underground militia. 

Now, I don't want to give away too much here, you guys will have to bear with me while I pen down the whole story, which is going on albeit in slower phase. I might be a gone for a bit longer from here, though I will try to post the Sunday ‘photo journal’ and at least one poem a week. This week has been dry though. I got exams coming up in 2 weeks so been pretty heavily dosed with the text book contents to let my imagination run wild 'up there'.

On top of that, I got a full day photography workshop this Friday sponsored by Canon. I am hoping to learn a lot more about photography in near future, for which I have immense interest. Perhaps, you will see the results as better photographs in this blog after the workshop.

If I don’t drop by again for this week, ‘Have a good weekend people!”

Much Love.

-The Warrior Princess

wood carvings

Was talking a walk around the creek during the weekend. Saw this beautifully lit window down the old ' Bastakia' area. That place is considered as the heart of old ' D' Town, the cultural hub, I plan to explore it more and post more images in future for your eyes only, my dear 'Phantom' readers.. ;)

I Wade Through

( This poem is for the street kids. They have this specific spot in the entrance of a tourist hub, back home. They live with a wall, actually, they live with only the wall on their back. They sleep on the dirty pavements, empty dendrite tubes and dogs lay scattered about, with nothing but rags and newspapers on them. And behind the wall, there is some high class bureaucratic office. Very apt situation there. I do not want to say that they are the sole responsibilities of the government, and from what I have read and heard from friends who work in development sector, NGOs, street kids are the most difficult to deal with. Sometimes even more than the children affected by wars. I think it is because, these kids have already given up hope of life... they sort of live like zombies, but I would also like to believe that there is hope for them. I want to work with them in future, first I have to finish my own education, earn a little, be financially independent before I venture out. But once I do, they will definitly be where I will start my work. May be run a workshop where I can bring them in and teach them poetry and art... I do believe that poetry and art can heal human souls... may be not entirely, but it could... I believe words have magic. Lets see what the future holds.)

In this country of faceless gods and goddesses,
where the history has crumbled away,
like the layer of cheap white wash they put
on decaying walls of ancient palaces every dashain,
the future sleeps on stinking coarse pavements
stick thin tangled limbs and mangled heads with no dreams
with nothing on but soiled clothes and occasionally a dog or two.

These are paper flowers with newspaper thrones on them.
These are aborted lives living in live carcasses.
These are abused sons and daughters;
childhood recklessness of runnin away gone bad
Hunger for food and love gone desperate,
now they exist, stomach full with smell of dendrite and shoe polish,
heart filled with empty emotions. 
                              
I have no wish when it comes to them,
I am not strong enough to love them or rich enough to feed them all.
But I will, may be buy them a packets of noodles or Glucose Biscuits,
May be even 25ml tetra paks of mango juice.
With this, I have done my good;
I become impermeable to the infinite sadness in their eyes.
These open wounds of humanity, stop bleeding for me ( for the time being) to wade through.

hope

Still discovering the pictures from my vacation. I took so many of them and haven't been able to go through them. This was a freshly painted boat, but the tip shows that it is actually a really old one.

This picture makes me think, ' As long as there is hope... there is everything."

Update - 2

So, it has been almost a week and I am at the point of start. Mr. V is in the airport, waiting to board the flight to Nepal. He lives in US of A and is travelling across the Atlantic with a secret.

I am still a bit fuzzy when it comes to describing the airport, it is an international airport in US. Now I have never been to US, so I do not know how the airports there look like, and does every state have international airports? I guess most of the airports look similar, the waiting area with those attached seats, ceiling high glass windows, the usual coming and going of people... To be more 'in sync' I have decided to go to the airport here in 'D Town', I know they won't let you in without the air ticket, but may be I will just hang around in the lounge outside the 'departure' area and write the rest...

Mr. V is getting more clearer in my mind. He likes to drink coffee with very little sugar and milk; he always has a nervousness around him, a sense of insecurity though he has a good job, a Green Card ( thanks to his US born wife). He is being modeled after someone I had a crush ( HUGE BIG TIME CRUSH) on. With thick somewhat messed hair, I even gave him a pair of  myopic glasses. He is a sensitive man but a bit selfish and opportunist at the same time. Sometimes he bits the inside of his lips, when he is nervous, or thinking too much or reading an interesting book.. his childhood habit. He comes from humble background, has paid his dues to be where he is. He has a past, as in P-A-S-T, and a secret that catchs up with him in his present and drags him back to where it all had started.

Well, despite this... haven't been able to move on with the story.. I know the sequence of events, but everything is too mixed. Should I start with Mr. V in the bedroom, thiking about the day when everything changed. OR, from the airport?? Right now, I am opening the scene at the airport.. lets see what happens..

Gotta get back to the story... Ciao my phantom readers!

a closure and a new beginning

        Could not sleep yesterday, spent the night making list of things I need to do and it goes like this:

-   Need to visit the airport terminal no 1 and 3 to have a look at the seating there. Also to observe what happens, how people interact etc

-   Need to read more about suburbs in US… how do I do that?? May be ask certain Mr. J? Or better Ms. P or Ms. S?

-   If you are travelling ( pretty far for pretty long), would you make love to your wife/ hubby on the night before leaving? Who could answer that??

-   Should I get more sticky pads? More colour, more fun! Right?

-   Need to know more about inter-racial love marriages

… all this to write the alternative version of the chapter 1 for ‘The Book’. By the time I was done and over with over thinking about the list it was 3 am. So I have practically slept for less than four hours… they say you can live with three hours sleep, so I should be fine. And there is always my double dose of coffee mixed with green tea…

And guess what, my dear readers ( if there are any out there… HELLOWWWW!! BIG WET CAFFEINE DRENCHED KISSES) I met an old friend in a mall while browsing for shoes, after almost 5 years… At first I wished that I hadn’t because you see I have got a past, very topsy turvy lowest point of my life past, and she is a part of it. So, I cringe every time I meet someone who reminds me of that certain someone..

But at the end of the day, actually I spent the night at her place ( her hubby had to sleep on the sofa for the night ), I felt pretty happy that I met her. We talked about what happened, and I got to know more of the other side of story. She used to work with 'that' certain someone here and she knows the accounts of his actions and we matched our information ( mine had sort of hit me now and then out of nowhere like phantom bullets in course of the first year I arrived in 'D' town and never from the mouth of the perpetator).  

This led into a better understanding of myself and where I stand, and I stand in pretty solid ground now, than then. I thank god that I met this lady, she was the one who taught me the importance of smile then, she showed me the importance of self love now. I am so very thankful for the fact that we crossed path again..

I got my much need closure that night. And I cried my last tears for something that had died way way back… three years, is a lifetime sometimes..

The Warrior Poetess

waiting

Update No. 1

' The Book' is shaping up. The sleep deprived writer is hugely in debt with her local shop for buying tonns of coffee and cheese croissants in her mid night run for inspiration. Certain Mr. G has been bombared with copies of first chapter ( more than one version) and hopefully he is being able to read them despite his thesis works.

I was fine with the first version, the story opens up with a statement that is the key to the whole plot of the novel. However, while I was sitting in the kitchen ( this is where I like to work, I like having my stash of caffeine near me) another version popped up. Well, one could say that it had been loitering in the back of my mind for sometime.

There is a male character, let us call him Mr. X for now. He is one of the major characters and I know that he was having issues with me giving more attention to Ms. Y ( she is also one of the major characters, well you could say that ' The Book' is about her). How I know this? Because, he has been visiting me in my dreams and bribing me with all this different prespectives to the story.

He is like, " Hey, you know what.. you could begin with such and such event, that will give more depth to the story.!" and he would give a sly smile and add, " If you did that, I would take you out to so and so (Grand, posh, filled with beautiful and rich people) and give you a taste of how life is on the other side."

Mockery, he mocks me for my pauperness ( if there is any word as such), he knows what ticks me because he lives inside my head. He knows that I want, as in W-A-N-T, for a change, to enjoy a beautifully cooked delicious meal than my poor experiments at the stove.

Take a note here that when you decide to chose to be a writer, everything else in your life takes backseat, cooking skills among one of them. My mother says, I will not be able to save my life if there were a faceoff for the 'edible food at least'.

You might also end up a spinster! With no cooking skills, unplucked brows, random sleeping hours and tendency to go, ' Aha!' in middle of a kissing that might lead to more interesting things session and running to the kitchen to write down the next twist in the plot. Unless you are Sophie Ward( I adore her!). Then, you can have a wonderful bunch of friends, invites to all the cool social calander events, a career as a model ( ROCKSTAR!) and a love life... I found her accidentaly and she has come to be an inspiration, though our writing style and interests are totally different.

Hmm.. this is turning out to be more of a confessional rather than an update on the story. Well, but to think about it, if I give away too much of the story here, who is going to stick around when I find a publisher.. Well, who would even want to publish a book that is already half published over the net...? Still, I am not a cruel, money minded, cold person who only thinks of making profits and not her readers. Why, I write for the readers, I cannot say " I WRITE FOR MYSELF!" That is crap. That is shit!

When I write, first it is because I want, I love to and I have to write. But I write also to share; I share my soul with my words as I am not good when it comes to speaking. If I were to stop writing, it won't be long people will see a certain asian looking woman with mangled hair and baggy eyes in her PJs running around the 'D' Town raving mad. And I bet that won't be a pretty sight!

As for the update on ' The Book', keep coming back to this page, you might get snippets of it in the near future.