i cannot believe i missed it

now i know i am really bad with dates...but to have missed celebrating the 1st birthday of my blog is shameful!
its been more than a year since i started blogging people...and i am really pleased with the slow but sure progress that i have made. :) on this happy realisation that i missed the date i would like to introduce a co blogger(who by the way doesn't miss anything)...if you will allow me... to keep the activity alive on my blog. the co blogger however is not related to any aspect of design.
he'll be here talking about movies!! what do you think? is that a good idea? why not? lets try it.
Vivek (my boyfriend remember... and now my co blogger) is an avid film watcher and critic. he watches a whole lot of movies and needs to share what he feels about each one of them.
somehow i feel it justifies film watching if you can share the reviews with somebody doesn't it?
so how should we do it...fix up a day...every week to give you a weekly dose of movies? let me check with him and we'll take it from there...do let me know what you think about the idea ok?
cheers
kanika

!!!HOLI HAI!!!

the festival of colour beckons and i am so looking forward to celebrating it with my family..well my mom dad are in gujarat while my brother is in bombay..but i will be at my maternal grandmothers' and have a whole lot of cousins who don't let me miss anyone too much :)

but i'll miss my brother...he's always been very enthusiastic about all the festivals....when we were kids he'd wake up early morning..before anyone else in the house to fill gubbaras (water balloons)!! he loved doing that and hitting everyone with them gave him such joy! he's always had a naughty streak in him. my dad would make amazing shammi kababs ooooh being a kid was so much fun :/ :)

so i have made a list of sorts of the essential things you must do to liven up the holi celebrations:
1.

Eat and share lots of Gujiya, it is like a pastry thats filled with khoya, nuts, sometimes coconut (the naughty ones fill it with a little bit of bhang) and sugar deep fried and then dipped in sugar syrup, yummy! even though gujiyas were not a big part of holi for me as a kid it is a very UP thing and not so Punjabi i guess:), but i love them and cannot stop after eating just one!

2.
buy lots of Gulal. gulal is the dry colour which is sprinkled on one another to play holi. organic/herbal gulal is always a better option as it is skin and earth friendly! learn how to make some at home here.

3. get your hands on that Pichkari(water gun) now!

i prefer the old steel ones, like the picture above, to the new chinese plastic guns. the steel ones can be used again next year while the plastic ones usually get spoilt. the water come out with more pressure in the steel ones too and travels a great distance:)

4. fill those buckets with gubbare....what fun!5. must play Rang Barse song from the movie silsila. i love that song so much! listen to it right here .

6. make lots of thandai.. i am having lots of fun already.

7. don't forget to oil yourself properly (face and hair). it doesn't let the colour get absorbed and so makes that painful post holi bath easy.

8. buy some holi art. i love miniature paintings. the perspectives the details and intricate design the colours and themes the gossamer fabrics and costumes the size. help preserve this dyeing art and buy some today. this art comes from various parts of india and largly draw themes from the mughals, radhe krishna, rajputs and ramayana. kangra school of pahari paintings is among the more famous.

some holi inspired miniatures.
miniature painting showing Lord Krishna and Radha celebrating the festival of Holi!
this painting is from Orissa, again showing Radha and Krishna playing Holi.

i hope you have enjoyed my list. please do share your holi experience and let me know if i have missed out on a holi must do!

have a fun filled holi!

A Secret Garden

i was lucky to have visited Chandigarh recently, if only for a day! the trip was quite hectic but i managed to see the famous rock garden and the Capitol building:)
so let me begin by sharing some info about the city and the Rock Garden ,which i fell in love with..the sculptures were so surreal and quaint!

Chandigarh is the capital to both Haryana and Punjab and so is an important hub for education etc for these two states. The name translates from Hindi to English as "the fort of Chandi", Chandi being a Hindu Goddess. Known internationally for its architecture and urban planning, Chandigarh is home to numerous architectural projects of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Matthew Nowicki, and Albert Mayer.
Commissioned by Nehru (1st Prime Minister of Independent India) to reflect the new nation's modern, progressive outlook, he famously proclaimed Chandigarh to be "unfettered by the traditions of the past, a symbol of the nation's faith in the future."


The Rock Garden project was secretly initiated by Nek Chand around 1957. the garden came into being at the time when the city of Chandigarh was being planned and reconstructed. (it is the first and amongst the few planned cities of India). Rock Garden has been established in the form of an open-air exhibition hall. The garden houses sculptures made by using a variety of different discarded waste materials like frames, mudguards, forks, handle bars, metal wires, play marbles, porcelain, auto parts, broken bangles etc.

Nek Chand, the creator of the Rock Garden was a an employee with the Public Works Department as a road inspector and continues to reside in the city.
He formed a collection of rocks, gathered from the Shivalik hills and the seasonal Sukhna Cho, Patiala Rao and Ghaggar rivers. In addition to the rocks other materials were collected. The material came from the villages destroyed to make way for the new city of Chandigarh. Certain fragments of these villages caught Nek Chand’s eye and he began actively searching and collecting particular discarded objects. These fragments were the remains of the villages, and consisted largely of everyday mundane possessions such as broken pots and bottles.


With the PWD stores acting as a suitable decoy an alternative Chandigarh was being constructed behind the shuttering and scrap materials. The salvaging of scrap by Nek Chand is well reported, however, less mentioned is the pilfering of building materials. The PWD stores provided Nek Chand with a free supply of cement, bitumen, steel reinforcement bars and oil drums that he needed to develop the site. He was also able to second labourers who should have been building the roads, to work on his project instead (see Bhatti 1982, p224 & 234).
The massive construction site that was Chandigarh provided a suitable decoy for Nek Chand’s covert hobby. Provided everyone was ‘working’ or ‘looking busy’ it seems that very few questions were asked. After four years work, involving daily commitment to the project working evenings and ‘by the light of burning tyres’ (Bhatti 1982), Nek Chand started to become nervous about his actions. It was possible that his employment could be terminated should his garden be discovered. However, this awareness did not stop the project or prevent Nek Chand from building and expanding the garden.


In 1969 Nek Chand decided to visit the city’s chief architect, M.N. Sharma, a disciple of Le Corbusier. Although M.N Sharma should have arranged for the garden to be demolished, he claimed that his admiration for the work and Nek Chand’s ‘creative potential’ conflicted with his position as Chief Architect and Secretary of Chandigarh Administration because the work was illegal and unauthorised. He didn’t have the heart to go by the rules and advised him to continue his work in secret. It was an unusual position for the architect to take.

and so rock garden stands next to the Sukhna lake, like a maze that leads you into a world of fantasy!

JAI HO!

about time i say!
Rehman's music is best! he's ruled the Hindi Cinema and now i hope to so more and more english and other foriegn language films with Rehman score!

oscar for
best score-Slumdog Millionaire
best song- Slumdog Millionaire

Ganpati Bappa!

i offered my prayers at the Siddhi Vinayak Temple in Bombay on my recent trip there.
the visit to the temple wasn't very pleasant as it was full of people pushing each other to get a glimpse of Lord Ganesha which turned out to be quite a struggle for me and my family.
sometimes i wonder if we in India will even learn to stand in lines!
when i think about it more..then i feel that its the presence of people (so many of them...more like a mob) and all their pushing and struggle is what made me feel like i was in a temple, in the middle of religious faith, where just a two second glimpse gave me the immense sense of achievement. it made me concentrate only on the supreme Lord with a furious passion if only
for those two seconds..


on my way out i had to had to buy these bright and colourful idols of Lord Ganesha.
they are so in tune with the raging 'colour blast' trend in the home and fashion markets right now! i'd love to know what you think of these..


kanika

friends lost and found

i had a great start to my day today..i got back to being friends with neha paul..yes i have always addressed her by her full name..since school..even when i was in class V.

so this is how the story goes..

we met when we were both in class V and were friendly from the start..(thats what i think maybe neha has a different take on it..i was known to be a snob then), but its only after class VII - VIII that we became great friends...i mean inseparable.

we lived not so far away from each other's house and so i was forever being picked up and dropped off by her mom and dad..we went to art events, craft melas, competitions..i mean i always went with her and her family (i grew up with working parents both of them..thank you)

i'd stay many a nights at her house...and watch her fight with her kid sister all the time..i mean they just won't get along and i'd think how nice it is to have a younger sister (i have an older brother who's only job was to complain to my mom about me).

we both wanted to grow up to be fashion designers (and then i thought i wanted to be a journalist and then a graphic designer and then i thought i wanted to be an anthropologist and then i got back to being a designer..by now i was unsure as to what kind of designer..thought i'd try out design school..got in..i was lucky...it gave me a year to decide and finally i went on to become a textile designer..oho..why i took up textiles is a new post..that i'll talk about later)!

all illustrations of muffin by http://niffum.blogspot.com

sorry..where was i? haan back to the story..

then we grew up she switched schools in class XI and then a year later her family moved to US and we became from best friends to only friends and then to acquaintances.

i didn't even know that she is getting married this year..how her family is, what her kid sister is up to, that she is now studying law....nothing. all because i didn't care. sure she's on my facebook friend list but i think she realised much before me that i didn't care to find out about her and so she stopped responding to my occasional message on her facebook wall.

i was on my own ego trip. kept thinking that she's being a baby, that friends don't stop being friends if they don't call or see each other often. i thought that friends remain friends even if i talk to them once in six months..or in neha's case once in a year (i only called to wish her on her birthday).

i still believe somewhat in the fact that friends remain friends no matter how much time passes, but i know now how hurtful my attitude can be. i have grown up to be a casual, uncaring, selfish person. i know if i want to keep my friendships alive i will have to change that.

i wish to tell all my friends.. Neha Paul (you'll always be addressed like that), Jasmine, Lima, Manju, Divya, Neha Gupta(now Khorwal:), Vivek(!!;), Pulkit, Anuj, Ravi, Amrita Bhui, Shivangi, Sudhir..and all of you..(please don't kill me if i have missed your name) I VALUE YOUR FRIENDSHIP..i am a richer person because of you.. thank you for the labor you have put in to bear with me and to keep the friendship alive..i never ever want to lose YOU! sigh.

Some E Cards

so i landed on this web page a few days back and am totally in love (looking at the above postcards i'm sure you know why) . this is a site where you find a great variety of these vintage e cards with a cocky sense of humor for any occasion...and whats great is that you can even make your own! there is also a blog :)