Worshipper.

This is one painting TheLoneWolf is not going to forget in a hurry. In fact, if things turn out the way he has been dreaming of since last September/October, he is not going to remember this painting long after he ceases to be TheLoneWolf. Now, this is giving away way too much about TheLoneWolf's fantasies in public. So, we will just get on with the name of the painting.
" Worshipper" it was, and all it had was a Brahmin with his choti wala head turned towards you, while he was doing his job - Worship.
Just the name, and the painting had stirred so much excitement in TheLoneWolf that he had to use his rescue tactics to pretend to be excited only upto optimal and socially acceptable levels :)
He had already decided that he will at least request for the price, and he did exactly that.
Its another thing that speaking to Seema Jindal, the painter herself, lead TheLoneWolf onto thoughts beyond that one painting, but then, talking to artists, always makes one think!
Except that, as he would discover/realise a coupla days later, artists are smart businessmen too. He just had to speak to another artist to realise :)

Seema Jindal was good; and being no art critic (not just yet!), I can only recollect and briefly recall the names and themes of other paintings of hers on display that day:

Smiling Flowers
Sage
Awakening
Faith
Celebration of womanhood
Contemplation
Determination
Action
Unmukth (This one was brilliant too, but I am obviously not going to be favourable to any other painting than The Worshipper for purely personal reasons!)
Together but lonely (This one was excellent nonetheless! But then again...)

And many others...I made a note of only the names that caught my attention..Yeah...Even the names are important as I begin to realise!)
A common thing to quite a few of Seema Jindals paintings are her fascination for the sunflower, and I must say that the sunflower is not out of place in any of the paintings; so it seems to be a smart move anyway! Its better than an obsession with horses or any other controversial idea! ;)
Yeah, they were all oil on canvas, and with less than 15 minutes to spend in an arts gallery, one always feels incomplete!!!

Worshipper - Of (not just) paintings; Final Solutions (not really; only a play!)

"I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 1

Certain thoughts, patterns and thought patterns are so absorbing that one begins to fear being completely absorbed, leaving behind very little, if at all of the “Self”.
To describe such situations, TheLoneWolf often uses quotes, and Oscar Wilde very often, does the trick.

Another Saturday evening visit to the India Habitat Centre although for another play, will be remembered more for the painting at the gallery than the play itself.

Final Solutions

Mahesh Dattani’s “Final Solution”, performed in Hindi by the Asmita Group was brilliant only in bursts, with the overall effect not being intense enough to provoke thoughts or force one to reflect upon the thoughts that pass by as a side effect.

The play (script) itself was very well thought through, especially in the way the story moves between the past and the present, with a diary written by a young girl before the partition being the window between the past and the present. The two times have not been very different, with communal violence still being a reality, often finding its justification in the unfortunate reality of the Partition.

But, somehow, the overall effect the play had on Him was not something He would describe as being “thought provoking”. Yes, we, as a society still do not easily accept Hindu-Muslim marriages. Inter caste marriages are only beginning to be accepted, and even this, only among the sophisticated, elite classes who are somehow, more often than not, more broad minded than the economically backward masses.

The audience for plays tends to be more often than not, the social elite and people from what are called “the upper middle classes”. So, it may just be that the context of the play is quite lost on the audience, in that, no one in the audience would have indulged in violence anyway!

But then, He does think, that as a society, and as a nation, we still have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves truly secular, and there were a few acts in the play which brought back such thoughts to the fore.

The point where Babban ( a Muslim) takes a Hindu idol and places it on his hand, with all due respect and watches it in awe, only to demonstrate that the idol was not revolting or reducing him to ashes was well portrayed.

Bajrang Bali Singh, who played Babban continues to impress, and He can only recollect how he (the actor) had been brilliant indeed as Basavanna in Rakt Kalyan (a previous weekend).

Javed, a character one would love to hate at certain points of time during the play, and at other times would sympathise with, was very, very well portrayed by Susan Brar, and he is one man to watch out for. With a movie release in the pipeline, he had come down from Mumbai only to perform in the play, and as TheLoneWolf finds out later, most artistes have such dreams to help them survive and sustain. For, they don’t get paid anything at all, and not all shows even cover the costs of the stage.

In all, a watchable play, no doubt, and definitely an evening well spent. Only that, if you were expecting to be moved and provoked, you may be in for some disappointment.

Worshipper: – Of Paintings and Off Paintings alike. (Coming soon!)

Of Mangoes and "Man goes" ; and then Man grows and Mangroves.

Selfishness is a virtue, or so Ayn Rand had implied, and after reading The Fountainhead, TheLoneWolf had even thought that a title like "The Virtue of Selfishness" was perfectly alright for a book. Well, may be, it really was!
But, TheLoneWolf, demonstrating the human traits he had invariably picked up, had come to interpret Selfishness in a way totally different from what Ayn Rand's idea of selfishness did.
Driven by self interest, he had failed to understand people around him, and had sometimes wondered about how and why people cannot be comfortable lonely.
He was TheLoneWolf himself, and he often showed off his comfort and composure in being lonely - so much so that people around him, actually bought into the impression that he had so successfully created - of being comfortable alone.
Loneliness is a funny thing really.
You can call it solitude and dismiss my English as not being polished enough. But then, I never claimed to speak or write spotless English, and often excused myself with the State Board schooling and its imperfections. Blame games are easy after all!
But yes - One reason why this post talks about solitude although veiled behind a funny looking title is this - that solitude and loneliness are indeed quite different.
Solitude was what TheLoneWolf had often preferred, even when at home, or when surrounded by people/friends/colleagues/classmates.
But then, he had never experienced loneliness to be able to appreciate someone else's loneliness.

Yes, Mr. Delhi, this is about you, and for you!
I am really sorry, for having realised rather late that loneliness can be quite painful...Well, I guess I did enjoy being friends with you, and come to think of it, I have never before become such good friends with anyone as I did with you...And I do know, that all this can sound so melodramatic and senti, but then, it is my blog, and as long as I am protecting identities, I can say what I want! Even Mr. Aamir Khan is taking guarded digs at his competitor under the pretext that the former's dog and the latter share the same name!
So, yes...the only Mangos (save my own home of course!) I had this season, were directly or indirectly because of you - and I am just connecting the Mangoes with the Man goes for effect ;-)
It's totally another story that solitude can be the result of Woman goes too, but then, I have already spoilt a Barista evening talking about the latter ;-)
For now, although you have come and gone, leaving more than just me behind, alone ;-) - I definitely cannot and will not hold you responsible for my loneliness - even you know that ;-)
And since the rather long and very much enjoyable dinner table conversation ended with that perfect combination - Ice cream and Mangoes, I must say I was fortunate to be part of such a conversation as well as the Mangoes!
As for the Loneliness and Solitude - well, since when did we start having easy solutions for human problems? ;-)
Not that I or TheLoneWolf have any problems now, but by even coming to understand someone else's problem, although quite late in this instance, may be it is a step taken in the right direction? So what if it is in the direction of Mangoes and its homophone(?)


And then the Mangroves and how Man grows...

Hidden behind this funny looking phrase is a deep thought, or so I would like to claim ;-)
"It is high time people stop watering mangroves and behave like grown ups" - was what TheLoneWolf thought the following evening, after all that had happened and not happened over the weekend.
But then, my point is as simple as this - I beg to ask you, "Say just how do grown ups behave?"
Having made my point, I will proceed to publish this post, with a sense of "enlightenment".
Yes, "Enlightenment" is what I call my blog, although I confess to using this and most other words in a twisted sense.
If blogging is a way of offloading, so be it...

Encryption and encapsulation were thankfully not superficially learnt programming concepts meant to be forgotten any time soon! ;-)

I thank that one man or woman who first conceived the idea of a journal or blog - and then, although I dont claim to have learnt programming or anything else for that matter, I thank those men and women who inspired the ideas behind encapsulation and encryption ;-)

Home is where the heart is!

Does one actually exclaim thus (Home is where the heart is!!) only on returning home to find the heart one had either lost or left behind?
Steering clear of all argument, let me request you to consider the following argument.

Having returned home, if one doesn't stay at home to one's own heart's content or to the contentment of others' hearts, what does one say then?

And then, if one keeps running in and out of home all the time before leaving home again, whatever happens to the heart?


Enough confusion for the first post I guess. This post, along with the blog description and title, is enough confusion material to start with.
And whoever said encryption involved a lot of mathematics? :P

Using words to express an idea by itself often changes or degrades the quality of the original thought behind the idea. To use words to describe ideas, thoughts and feelings is to draw boundaries. Language is an imperfect communication tool. Encryption, in this context, is often a side effect of language. And when encryption is intentional, the effect is compounded ;-)