Saturday, July 31, 2010

Sabka Malik Ek: Monologue 1

When I met Sai Baba in the Spring of 2010, I had no idea who he was, what his story was or where he came from.. I wasn't equipped with a fancy camera, lights, mics…

When we met, there was an instant karmic connection. Like we were destined to meet. I had to document it. There and then. And to stay true to the material, the film is presented as simply as it was shot. I have tried to map a man's soul, his essence, a set of lessons from a man's life...

That spring in the Himalayas, I listened to Sai Baba talk, he made kawa (chai) and dinner for me. I was introduced to a life of acceptance, of happiness, of love and devotion, of sincerity… and in that seeing and being present, the I-carapace disappeared.

In Sai Baba I found a friend. For life.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Research: Corpora Callosa

Benway

Of all good things, sun-yogi's, kundalini, the tobacco-death ceremony in the Andamans, living on that island next to the forbidden North Sentinel island, of tripping on acid in Gokharna and swimming with dolphins, of all things herbal, of all things organic, of the heart, of the soul, of the spirit. The Benway to life, englishman, organic farmer, dashal village, himachal pradesh, the heart of the hinterland rests in his eyes.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Monday, July 12, 2010

A Time And A Place

Kerala Chapter

The Floating Man, , Wayanad, Kerala (2009)

The Floating Man from Hinterland Films on Vimeo.



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Ghosts, Wayanad, Kerala (2009)

Ghosts from Hinterland Films on Vimeo.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Sabka Malik Ek

Psy-Baba now swooping down like a bird of prey. Video footage ensemble cast, silver-line, floating cloud. Sabka Malik Ek. See to the eye, catch to the mind. In his words. Later shot horses by the Beas grazing. Like being back in the lute ages. Synchronised serendipity, electric clock ticking backwards, a man out of time. Then, spring, then subodh, angry one-eyed baba, subodh's quiet friend ajith, the eeriness surrounding the dhuni at the temple, angry baba yelling, then subodh breaking into song "ye bhagwan ka maunder" and before that some light music to ease the atmosphere, "ud jaayega hans akela" and "papiha". Strange exposition, hand curling to venus-shape around neck, uncoiled or coiled serpent I don't know, I could only guess that he has a mind full of porcupines. And those strange scenes, three of us sitting one behind the other facing angry baba in silence, the 50-ruppee quarrel on scoring enough hash for one joint. The quiet chaos of the unsettled mind breaks through the unflinching leash of the winded soul.

And then it hit me…

Friday, July 9, 2010

Lamo


I can have moments crushed in turmeric paste, I can have the concept of infinity, the kinetic sumatra painting strange shapes in the sky, each one a different colour, a different tone, an ascent to the seventh.

Monday, July 5, 2010

You Can't Have It All - Barbara Ras

But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven year-old finger on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love, though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys until you realize foam's twin is blood.

You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs, so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind, glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness, never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you all roads narrow at the border. You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead, but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.

You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's, it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.

1600, 050710, Hinterland




Pretty Ms. Magpie posed for me on film today. File under "Wildlife Analysis".

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The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie or Gold-billed Magpie (Urocissa flavirostris) is a passerine bird in the crow and jay family,
Corvidae. It forms a superspecies with the Taiwan Blue Magpie and the Red-billed Blue Magpie. The species ranges from Pakistan to Burma with a disjunct population in Vietnam.

Blue upperparts with very long, graduated, black-and-white tipped tail. Separated from Red-billed by yellow-bill, and white on head, restricted to crescent on nape. Juvenile has olive-yellow bell. Broadleaved and coniferous forests. Resident; breeds 1800-3300m, winters down to 1000m.

Earth-realisation Pt. 1


Butterflies, apples, rain.
Apples with raindrops, pine's stretching through the passing clouds,
Those mountains, looking

I think there is emerging the need to document the nature in Hinterland using the music of Boards of Canada. Today morning I was shooting the apples in the rain as they get ready for the harvest. They look beautiful, half-red, half-yellow like that duality in man.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Strange Meeting: Mouli Marur

He spoke of locational micography, about moving the sound, about aurality as a means to typography, about the Chicago art scene, the need for an artists village in Naggar, a collaborative design programme that is art and sustainable at once. His name is Mouli Marur, Dean, Design Faculty, Art Institute Chicago which apparently houses the second largest collection of Renoir originals after Louvre. Strange meeting at Chai shop, Naggar. Chance, je taime. The visceral path is illuminated, Sumatra is home. x

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Architecture

The architecture of an aunt
Made the child dream of cupolas,
Domes, other smoothly rounded shapes.
Geometries troubled his sleep.

The architecture of young women
Mildly obsessed the young man:
Its globosity, firmness, texture,
Lace cobwebs for adornment and support.

Miles from his aunt, the old child
Watched domes and cupolas defaced
In a hundred countries, as time passed.

A thousand kilometres of lace defiled,
And much gleaming and perfect architecture
Flaming in the fields with no visible support.

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Dom Moraes
Thanks M.