I know how pathetic they are

Decoration around the frame.

The photo has been masked out as it is my friend's.

Cards with quilling!

Cards with my favourite punch

This is the new card, made in a very simple way, with craft scissors, some basic stamps and stencils along with quilling.

A Card with MS punches

My recent card with a Martha Stewart Punch and stickers from Itsy Bitsy. The card was made with handmade paper.

Merry Christmas Cards

I have been trying to make some really useful cards, and everything turned into vain. Finally, I was atleast able to make some cards that people would atleast hold for a second to see the ways they do not want to make a card. So, here goes some of my tries out there to make a few cards.

I tried using one of the Martha Stewart punches to punch the "Happy Birthday" in the border. THe Happy Birthday stamp, cake and the teddy stamp are the ones that I collected from Itsy Bitsy. All of them comes in a single stamp collection, whereby you can segregate to make awesome cards. The two rose flowers, and the border with roses are stickers that I collected from the same shop. There are wide varieties of scrapbooking materials in Itsy Bitsy, and they do have nice collections of card stocks. Being a novice, I could just think about a few decorations to my card, though, too much of a good thing can ruin the clean template for a birthday card. After I made the card, I realised that I should have stamped the "Happy Birthday" message or punched out the message, but not both. When two things convey the same message, it is always good to use one, which would give a lovely appeal. The "Have a nice day" stamp is a part of Students and Teachers collection stamps/scrapbooking, and I thought of using it in my card to fill the extra spaces that is otherwise empty, because I do not have a great stamp collection. It was my personal opinion that instead of these have a nice day stamps, if I had used balloons to decorate the card, on either side of the bear, it would have given a nice impression to the person who is going to pick up the card. Nevertheless, first few attemps turning out less fruitful, I would try to make other cards little better.

The second card, though, did not have any major decorations, it was my attempt, to try embossing and use glue dots for a 3D outprint. One of the major mistakes that is seen in the card is the colour combination. Dark with dark would not work out most of the times, especially the think purpple with red colour. I cut the Christmas tree from a decorative cardstock, which was initially stamped using cling stamps and little embossed using the Fiskars embossing templates available online. The little snowflakes are from small punches. Ofcourse, I should admit that my handwriting is not that good when I tried using an embossing pen for "Merry Christmas".

Punches make difference to your scrapbooking!

Recently, I have been addicted to Martha Stewart and EK Success punches. They provide an awesome variety of designs to the people who are interested in scrap booking. I just tried a few from some of the online stores and of course, the owners of these shops are very helpful choosing the products. There are almost hundreds of punches from Martha Stewart, but, one should not forget that there is a direct proportion between quality and cost. Though, for crafters, these punches are a feast that they cannot think of their crafting without these punches. I managed to order a few and since I just started making cards, some of them may look very funny to the crafters out there and some of them may look like a person trying to draw a straight line in front of an artist. Some of my cards are below. Not to exaggerate, but to mention, Mansi from Die cuts helped me a lot in choosing a variety of punches. I am really grateful to her because she was the one who helped me with these punches to start my card making.

Second one!

Tried a greeting card for the first time with punches

My second quilling!

My first ever quilling for a greeting card, I know, it is just circles and circles and looks so pathetic

Impressed by one of my very great friends Ramya!

My brother

Thousands of words strike so vibrant
To say about my brother at this moment
I realize my memories getting lost
with a smile on my face that sees the past

A friend, a guide, a super man is he
And the best fighter-cock at least with me
Those beautiful words from him has the miracles
Even though he is away for miles

This one is to say that I miss him the most
because,for me, none other than he is the best
I wish my memories come true again
for which my heart longs every now and then

What irritates in Facebook!

Facebook, one of the biggest media to communicate - yeah, since the time Facebook has become a fully fledged social community site, communication has become much easier between friends, relatives, for any invite, etc etc. Many photographers, whom we do not know at all, have become our friends, through the social network. Though there is an 'other side' of anything in this world, Facebook too, is into the list. But there is something which makes most of the Facebook users to get irritated. Is it something from the Facebook directly? Any features? No :) and absolutely not :).


What I do not like about Facebook is the absolutely boring account and boring comments.



The crap comments (of course, sincerely crap at least to me) if any one uploads photo, a blog-update, or else someone's photo or a photo taken in interest to learn photography.



How sweet, Nice!, Cute!, Cuteeeeeeee :)), Wow!, Super!, Excellent!, Mind-blowing!, So sweettttt!, Can't wait to see you!



and



one of the most irritating is




Is there any Like to Like?



Oh God!. Is there any way to disable all these comments and to introduce any "unlike" button to all these comments that publishes to all friends who have commented any one from the above lines?

At times, I generally log off to seeing one from the above lines. Guys and Girls!, you do not become sweet and nice when you say those above comments, it's just that you are one among people who comment. Say something different. FB world is highly sick of these comments. I admit that I myself was one among those, but these days, no, I am highly allergic saying the same repeatedly, which would just raise anyone's (anyone who hates those comments) temper.


Again, I was in a mixed feeling of frustration, and anger where I saw one of my friends (My very old school friend) asking a question to me! Good that she sent a private message and she is no more in my friend's list. That relates to photography. I, being a novice in photography and learning the art of capturing moments, have been trying out some snaps as an interest towards building my passion. I was seriously asked a question on why am I uploading wallpapers to my FB page. Though I felt good for a moment that my snaps at least looked like photographs, there was a serious question within me as why am I silent hearing this question. My reply was straightforward where I said - Those were my snaps taken with my own camera and the conversation continued and finally reached to a place where I had to mention my camera model. I was shocked to see the reply as - anyone who is having a camera like that would definitely take good pictures, it's not because of the interest, it's because of the camera model. Anyone would definitely show his/her attitude at this point, if not, the other person's words becomes true. So here goes my statement. "Yes! When my camera captures people like you and shows really good, yes, my camera takes good pictures, because I cannot show you so good in my interest on photography". Lol. There was no reply for a long time - may be for three months or four months and finally I got an apology from her saying that she hurt my feelings. Lol.


Something right? Should I need to accept the apology?



No, not. I generally do not accept any sympathy/sorry for a known mistake that was said on attitude. That is the time I decided I should block that person, not because she showed her attitude towards me, but because, she did hurt the entire photography world, including the Masters as well as the people who step into photography as a passion.


You don't have to have a very good camera model that is worth thousands and thousands of money to capture a good photography. A camera mobile would do miracles if you know how to handle it.


People! What we photographers ask from you is not your comments on the camera model. We ask you because we feel that a comment is necessary, to help us grow. We know how to stop you from commenting if you feel that you are not worth it where you do not even try for the one that we are doing right now! We know that out first rule for us is to accept comments and correct from mistakes. But we would have at least learned something when we come to this job! So, please respect someone who is taking a photo for you; he/she is not taking a photo of himself to update his status; he/she is doing a homework to make really good photographs of you/your family, after all! We know how to take photographs. Strictly, we do not want you to guide us. But please do pass true comments to all the photographers, Artists, Story-Writers, Reviewers, Crafters, Poets; everyone who is posting their work! They would not do it just in a matter of second. They do their homework and do a hell lot of work, might be a busy day for them where they may even forget their food just to complete their work. May be they do not have much time to spend with their family as well. Respect them. They are thousand times in a very good position than people out there who comment at their back. Only true comments would make them grow!, Others, remember, they just DON'T CARE!!!

A 0.0000000000000000001% Artist

It would be no exaggeration to say that I have a craze on pencils that dance on papers to render a drawing. I do not remember exactly what made me to start drawing; but, a flash strikes my mind on the first picture I drew. Having a vague memory, I think it is Andal(The so called Shri Rangam Ranganathar's Lovable beauty). Below the picture of Andal, I did draw the picture of Kannaki ( W/O Kovalan, a character in the epic Silappathigaram). Though my first attempt turned out well, I did not sketch any for a few days. Soon I started to show my talent in Biology diagrams. Should I need to say that I was one of the pets of my Biology staff.( In my early days, my mother used to walk to school and complain about the drawing master to himself stating that let him not give any tough diagrams to students, because, the sufferers are the parents ultimately :D. It was the time when I was so bad in sketching). Slowly, the Artist in myself began to grow with so many versions. We had a Krishna Idol at home, which had a very old appearance as the colours on it started showing its own nature. Wow. Now I am a painter. Got some money from elders, ran to a nearby shop which sold paints, got a bunch of colours, got back to home, started painting. 1,,,2,,,,3,,,,,4,,,,5 hours gone and skipped lunch. I was happy that my part was given in something that turned out an old one into new.
Come On :-) ; We humans are always geared up when someone praises and I am not spared too. All my days started with papers and pencils in front of me. And almost in 6th/7th, I had a collection of 70-80 sketches filed. Though I thought myself to give a try on crafts, which became one of my favourites. Slowly, I kept on drawing with no one noticing it and finally I had so many sketches of Lord Krishna in 10th. I still maintain my sketch of Him which I drew before the day of my revision exam. I really do not know any reason, but I love Lord Krishna even now. He was my first friend, he is still my best friend, my guide and everything else. There were days when I used to hug a Krishna picture for a calm sleep. Also, one of my favourite temple is Guruvayoor, the Krishna temple in Kerala. I just forget bout the rest of the world, including my own self when I enter into the temple. Ok, let's not divulge; coming back to my sketching, below is the one.

Slowly, I managed to become an artist through so many people who inspired me(especially,Artist Sirpi and Artist Padmavasan, Artist Veda - the sketches used to come in Kalki DeepaWali Malar). It was in my college, though my dearest friend Vasugi that I was introduced to pencil sketching. Her father was an Artist and she shared a book that her father had purchased years ago which had beautiful pencil sketches in it. It was the time for me to read about them to tenure myself on the right way. One of the pics from that book, which I managed to draw in a paper is below.

Though, I learnt sketching in various phases, I was a bit happy and satisfied when I drew a picture of Goddess Sri Raja Rajeshwari of Jyoti Peetam, the Peetam formed by my Great Grand Father HH Shiri Shri Satguru Abhayananda Swami. Later in this blog will be published his story.
Given is the sketch that I drew. Of course, I was delighted, excited, satisfied, and..... I had no words with remaining emotions when I saw the face and structure of the Goddess to be as exact as the one in temple. Glad that I had a chance(and I am the first one too) to draw Her sketch.

A true Love Story!

Just entered the blog after some time. I pass a few days without doing anything due to lack of interest. Thinking about destiny and passing days does not yield a better feeling; at last, when you see your pages of life that were gone, you could find an empty glass. Though, it is prone to become pieces of irregular shape, you could make it an artistic and an interesting piece when you fill it with something that attracts you towards life. So, I am not spared too, to all kind of mixed feelings where you pass your days without any improvement in anything.
Have you ever walked on some streets without knowing where you want to go?
Have you read a newspaper that is two or three days old and thinking that you have read all news somewhere else?
Have you watched any TV serial in some ABC language?
Have you watched Indian cinema songs in mute?
All the above said ones would be a result of those uninteresting and unimportant days of your life. I was in the same state. Thought to take a break as I know I would go tired if I live in such a way that is of no use to me and my surroundings. So, thought of reading a novel in English as an exercise for improving my communication. Of all the novels that were placed on the platform, the one that attracted me was "I too had a love story : A heart-breaking true love story" by Ravinder Singh. I did not know what magic the book name had on me and thought of reading it. I did not have much feel on that novel, but tried to complete it asap because I did not want to keep reading it for more than a couple of days.
The story goes here.
Four friends who are very close since their college days meet when one of them comes back to India during a vacation. They talk more during one night and the subject goes around Indian marriages and their lives of mutual adjustments. They depart after a day and one of them(Ravinder) registers himself in a matrimonial site after seeing the advertisement in a yahoo page. He tries on so many profiles; he rejects some of them and some of them reject him. Finally he is attracted towards a profile where he gets a reply. They prefer to converse and the talk goes on till a week, within which the girl and Ravi start loving each other. After a week, Ravi speaks to his parents and they become happy to hear that their son has finally shown interest in marriage life. The family accepts the girl and they both continue to fly as love birds. Meanwhile, he gets an assigment to work onsite and the couple start missing each other. He sees her and her family before boarding the flight and after coming to India after which the two familes become close to each other. Their love keeps on growing day by day that they start missing each other even if they donot speak for a couple of hours. The two familes decide their engagement to happen on Feb 14th, as chosen by the girl, Khushi. She is desparate to get married to him and in cloud nine when the engagement day comes near. She starts expressing her joy and happiness by dancing, singing and through crazy activities. Working in night shift, having loads of tickets(a so called support project's bother) in front of her, she wishes to complete all work no later than morning because that would be her last working day before her engagement. The next morning when Ravi calls her, her phone is answered by one of her friend, called Girish who conveys that she met an accident and badly wounded. Ravi just leaves messages to his friends on mobile that the engagement is postponed and leaves to her place. He is restless till he sees her and feels that he lost his life when she is kept in ICU. He plans to stay at his in-law's place till she is recovered. Though everyone treats him as a family member, a few relatives who have come to visit her express their attitude of staying in in-law's home before marriage. Meanwhile, Khushi is moved to a different hospital and her health improves. He is energized to hear that from the doctor and he plans to visit his parents as his mother wishes to see her future daughter-in-law. For some reason, he travels alone back to his in-law's place and he dreams Khushi sitting next to him in bus asking him to take care of himself and not to forget the days which were spent on talking. He spots the engagement ring on her hand, but he probably did not have any more questions to her. He feels relaxed and happy when he sees her next to him on bus. He has a good sleep that night and when he gets up in the morning as his forehead is hit on the grip, he sees some missed calls from Khushi's number. He immediately dials in, after which he is conveyed that she is no more due to a high BP. He rushes to see her(though his mind is not willing to see her dead). He spends some days with his in-laws until the ceremonies get over and returns to normal work. But since then, he is empty inside without his Khushi and rejects all the proposals brought to him by his parents. He plans to live with memories of Khushi and the story ends when he sees a baby girl who says him that her name is Khushi. He feels nothing other than Khushi's love would fill his entire life.
Though the story is well written in terms of human relations and families, there are some places where the book could have been written in a good feel. Being in today's world, where there are so many love marriages happening around, there is no clear picture on why the guy hesitates to say about Khushi initially to his mother just because he loves her(though they belong to the same caste). The story has a very good picturization of youngsters respecting their parents and the family rules. It also depicts the easy going nature of a North Indian family; the responsibility that parents has towards their girl children and so forth. But since the main story depends on love, more focus could be given towards emotions between a couple, be it ecstasy or agony. Most of the important conversations when expressing emotions were written in Hindi, which, a non-Hindi reader would find difficult to understand. Again, the story stresses more on conversation than a written prose. The thumb rule of a love story should be a poem written in prose, which is rarely followed in this book. A person reading this story would think reading a conversation more than reading a love story. A love story should be felt more and read less. But I am not totally against this as it does create the reader an interest to read the novel; the situations and talks between couple.
The author, has tried to show an exact glimpse of what has happened through his lines. Scenes just enter your mind as a flash, but as soon as that it is just washed away due to dialogues of various characters.
But, I felt that it could have been expressed in a more good manner. After all, love cannot be defined by anyone.

The Way Home!

One of the best movies that I have ever seen..

We often tend to watch some good movies at times, of course, we need to - really. At least, we need to know what the other story-writers do , when there are most of the routine-based love and gangster subjects released. One such movie is "The Way Home". It is a Korean movie, but DVDs are out there with English subtitles. In my opinion, it is a very good movie, which describes about the emotions that come from a very old lady, who does not even utter a single word in the movie. The movie starts with a boy and his mother travelling down to a village, which does not even have basic amenities and make its people to walk for miles even to fetch water. During the travel, there are so many other passengers who travel with the boy, who irritate him, which obviously reserves a place for storing negative impressions about the village people in his mind.
The mother takes the boy to the village and wants him to be with her mother for sometime, so that she can look for a job in the city. The boy's mother leaves her son in her mother's home and leaves to catch the next bus. The boy ignores his grand mother, at first and does whatever he can to irritate and annoy his grand mother. His only intent is to leave the village and be in his own city where he would be busy with all his playing-stuff and friends. The village having nothing to entertain him, he passes every minute with frustration and the inability to get to his own city. He simply reflects every child's mentality in modern days where there are lots to keep them busy. On the other hand, his grandmother, who cannot speak, but hear, walks for long to fetch clean water and wash her clothes. The grand mother lives a simple life, which we cannot think of - without electricity; walking for miles, making money for her everyday living; having no means to inform anything about her to anyone who is in the city.
Meanwhile, the battery toys that the boy has got from his city run out of battery. Having nothing to play with, he demands money from his grandmother to buy new ones. There are a series of scenes in the movie that show the boy's frustration towards his grandmother when she does not give him the money as she is empty-handed. That includes he peeing on her shoes, breaking her chamber pot, stealing her hairpin for his batteries, etc. His grand mother prepares a boiled chicken when he asks for a fried chicken. She is pictured as she does not even understand anything from his words, except chicken. This makes the boy angry which makes him to throw his food. But due to hunger, he eats the same at night. She even cuts his hair when he asks for a stylish one and she ends up in a very bad summer crop, which ultimately irritates the small boy. But, there is a positive side in the later half of the movie, where he cares for him by covering her with blankets when she falls ill and helps his grand mother to run thread through the needle.
The boy accompanies his grandmother to market one day where he sees the struggle his grand mother faces to sell all her vegetables. She buys him new shoes where he asks her a choco-pie after boarding the bus. The grandmother goes to her friend's shop who gives her more instead of one, and refuses to take money in return. On account of gratitude and friendship together, his grandmother gives her friend, a melon. When the grandmother returns to board the bus, the boy says that he wants to ride alone. The bus leaves and the boy gets down at his stop, and waits for his grandmother, who does not return for a long time. Later, he realizes that his grandmother had walked all her way alone carrying the remaining which was not sold in the market. But when he starts realizing his grandmother's love towards him and loves her back, he receives a letter from his mother which says that she would come back in some time to take him to the city. He tries to teach his grandmother to write some letters, as she cannot speak over the phone. But due to her age and shivering hands, she fails all attempts to write and he asks her to send him a blank letter if she is feeling ill. He says he would know that it is her if he receives a blank letter and he would come back to see her.
Some of his small acts show how he has developed love towards his grandmother, like threading some needles. His mother visits the village the next day and takes him back. The bus leaves and he sees his grandmother from the back window. We would really get tired to see the grandmother walking all along to her home at the last. If it just makes us feel tired, it also conveys the simple life of most of the elderly who live in remote places, waiting for their children and grand children, and walk miles and miles to get some basic stuff for living their daily life. The grandmother is depicted to be a victim of severe osteoporosis. Out of all, it is a very lovely movie, which would actually be a treat for someone who loves good movies, and want to take a break from action movies - a plain, simple love that exists between a grandmother and a small boy. The boy is depicted to show full frustration at first, and his slow changeover to a loving nature is neatly described in the movie. He has done exactly what could have been expected from the movie Director. We get intolerant with the boy at first seeing his irritating activities towards his grandmother, which makes us to get some hatred towards the boy, but that is actually the one that would be needed for his role. Also, seeing the grandmother, we get a sympathetic feeling on her living, though we forget that it is just a movie. She has done her job pretty well, tolerating all the irritating activities by her grandson and having patience just to love him more. She never forgets to place a thought in our mind that what would have happened had she was depicted to speak. Might be she would been a grandmother who can say bedtime stories to her grandson. Other than that, we get a question as why the lady leaves her mother at village when she finds a job for her living in the City. Out of all, another good movie to watch, which is dedicated to all grandmothers in the world!

Calvin and Hobbes!

Oh yeah! It would be no exaggeration to say that anyone who is a fan of the comic world would not have felt complete without reading Calvin and Hobbes. It was written by American cartoonist Bill Watterson. It illustrates the humorous activities of Calvin and his imaginary and always stuffed tiger. It seems that Mr.Watterson's passion was on cartooning. The cartoonist, though, did not create any strips for Calvin and Hobbes at first and it was just a side character. He developed a new strip centering Calvin and Hobbes when one of the Syndicates accepted Mr.Watterson's work. You can read more of him by browsing through Internet. 

Though Calvin is depicted as a six-year old boy in all the strips, his imaginations that is describes in the strips and the way Calvin treats himself as a matured boy makes us laugh all the way we turn the pages of the book. Oh! When I say the book, there is a 3-volume book out there that has complete Calvin and Hobbes strip collection. It is a treasure for every reader who loves this comic collection.Some of the adventures of Calvin (in fact, it is similar to that of an adventure for a six year old boy to travel in space, though it is imaginary, lol). Most of his activities would reflect our lives, especially his school times and the moments he spends with his stuffed tiger. One of my all time favourites is when he gets into the mood of "last minute" for starting his project work. There are so many strips available for free on net and it would make people laugh and anyone who reads would definitely go back to his/her childhood, not emotionally, but just thinking about the mischievous days.

I am not sure whether any 2D animation has been made by anyone with these comedy strips, but I would love to see them. But any comedy strip/child novels, made into a movie or a 3D animation has not been that good in my experience, when compared to reading novels and comedy strips.

My first post, though

Well, This is my first write-up after I start a new blog. My first attempt was always to get something going on with me, whether it is writing or sketching. But that does not seem to be that fruitful, because I always procrastinate, putting ones that I like at the last and ending up in a situation where I do the one that I do not like. So embarrassing situations are they, while at least it comes to our own way of living life with a high sigh when you do not do something that you really like. Oh yes! Did I forget to mention that I think I am born to create sketches, sometimes. Though I feel I am a very good artist at times, I do think that I am no where near to those amazing people who just create lively sketches and paintings! And now you would have come to know about me. I think that I should write something useful and I go from the southern tip to East, travel, west and then reach North, forgetting that there is a straight line that connects South to North. So, coming back again. Anyone who starts a blog, have something to write at first. I am not spared too, where I cannot think of this without someone very special, my mother. In fact, the lady with the lamp in my life, who said that the best friend of a person is none other than education, and, who believed that education can fight any hurdles in life. This is a small poem(well, I am not a poet and you may not find poetical grammar in my lines. It's just a feel that comes out at times).

Holding our hands, we started the journey together,

Least did I know that it will always be brighter!

Walking with you, didn't the destiny really matter,

Being with you made my sweet memories and laughter.

Fighting with you made me to know your thoughts,

Counting my days made me think that I missed your part.

Seeing a lonely footstep made me burst,

Remembering you in everything made me feel so best.

Passing my days without you made me sick,

And, now, I feel, I am at risk

Missing your warmth, in my days to come,

Wishing you to be here, my mom.

Future without you is really unsafe,

Inspirations from you are my lessons of life.

With you, I never had a clicked moment.

That's because you were inside me as a monument,

Now, I love my moments with LENS,

because I see your world through my lens.

Also, she was the one who gave me the camera in my hands, trusting that I would get some really good pictures. Though, some at my earlier days, seemed really stupid, these days, I at least manage to get something that people would see.