I am Creation

 (I think this needs some more work, but keeping it here for the time being)

I am that wild thing that races in the wind.

I have spit out the bit. I have shaken off the bridle.

I cannot be harnessed by mundane punctuation grammar structure syntax.

I’m the laughter in a child’s eyes, I’m the wing in the bird’s flight, I’m the call of the wild.

I’m the chaos of erupting lava. I am the abstract in the rainbow colours.

I am music without harmony. I am the incongruity in nature’s wanton.

I am the river in spate that obeys no binding boundaries. I gush. I rush. I break my banks.

And spill all over. Swirling. Gouging. Devouring everything in my path. Yet creating new life.

I am disorder. I am revelry. I am the rejoice in the birds’ chorus. I am the undomesticated in Mother Nature. I am the child of liberation. I am celebration.

Not for me the well ordered gardens of governed minds with neatly trimmed hedges. Give me weeds. Give me gorse. Give me thickets. Give me undergrowths where creatures wriggle struggle survive die.

I am the voice that blunders in Life. I am the burst in the star’s birth. I am the lucent remnant in a celestial death. I am the cosmos whose motif cannot be contained. I am form without form. I am song. I am Creation.

-by Rita Putatunda

Flower Pot and Three Oranges

I just don't have the heart to colour those oranges orange, or make the flower blue, or the flower pot a brick colour, as had been my original plan when I began painting this. It just looks so perfect and intriguing like this, at least to my mind.

Woman Wanted ; Woman Found - (Edited)

An Internet friend of mine sent me this poem for some laughs.. My reply follows below his poem :)


Woman wanted

I’m looking for
a pleasant female.
Looks and size,
don’t give two hoots;
more long than wide,
usual attributes;
two of them,
one of those,
tapering legs,
diminishing toes;
b-flat voice,
not f-sharp,
some hair on top,
no moustache;
mustn’t guffaw,
a normal laugh;
call me love,
rather than honey;
old,
poor health,
bedridden,
no benefactors,
is ok ...........


....accompanyed
with
lots of money.

- by my Friend


My Reply:



Woman found


I’m pleasant most times, except when I’m not

I’m long most times, except when I’m wide

I have diminishing those and tapering that

So their numerical counts do fit your needs

My voice is flat, except when it’s sharp

I have plenty of hair, but most of it not on top

I laugh normally, when I don’t guffaw

Honey, I’ll always call you love

Glad you don’t mind my dentures

And my crutches

A moustache I haven’t,

Except when I forget to shave

And I’ll get lots of money, honey

When I dig into your till


So, hon, come on over

And have a look,

And don’t forget that

cheque book.


- by Me :D

Strange Still Lifes

Every morning starts off with such great potential. The sun is shining, the birds singing and the sky seems to be waiting. Unless I’m in the middle of a painting that I’m engrossed in, every morning begins with the question ‘what am I going to paint today’, which fills me with great excitement and anticipation. By mid morning, I realize the day is moving on and I haven’t put a stroke of paint on my canvas. I wrack my brains – what is it that will excite me enough to actually motivate me to put it on canvas. You see, unless I get enthused about a subject, I just don’t feel like painting it. Some of my artist friends say they don’t break their heads about this – just take a flower or a bush or a mountain and paint it, they say. I can’t. I have to be in love with my subject, I need to find joy in it, to want to explore all its mysteries with my brush, paints and mind.

Anyway, desperate for something to paint, I decided I’ll just do some still lifes, you know, fruits, flowers, vases and jars sorts of things. And suddenly now I’m fascinated by them all, because, even though I begin with the idea of painting them as realistically as I can, they are ending up in these strange still lifes.

Oh, must tell you.. one of my non-artist (haha, he'll love that when he reads this) friends read the 'what's the point' post and chided me, saying, you artists are such spoilt brats, I wish I could draw/paint like you, I would have been the happiest person and never ever complain. To which I retorted, well, you can. Anyone can draw and paint. Children draw and paint instinctively. Only thing is most children don't get the opportunity to develop the inborn skill further - in our country because of the pressure of studying in order to get a job taking precedence. But, given a chance, it's a craft like any other craft or skill, which anyone can train herself/himself on. Look around you, practically everything you see can be reduced to their basic shapes; cylinder, sphere, cube, cone. Draw the basic shapes, getting the proportions as accurately as you can, which is also easy to learn, and put it on your paper or canvas. As for the colour, they're just basically various compositions of the three primary colours, red, blue and yellow. A little practice and you can create a huge variety of hues with these.

The question then of course is when does a drawing, a craft, become art. Will talk about that in my next post. I had wanted to upload another strange still life, but it's just taking too long today. I need to paint.

Well, I decided to add the background to this one and also coloured the flower pot. Still pondering whether I want to colour the flowers or not. Trying to upload a couple more still lifes I've done over the past couple of days - taking very long.. slow internet today :/

BTW, this has been painted on an unstretched canvas, hence it has been stuck on a drawing board to keep it in place. Once dry, it will be mounted and framed.

Nirvana Moksha Paradise Peace

I live in my foul breath
I breathe in my fetid fumes
I walk on my stumbles
I bumble over my hidden treasures
I’m humbled by my wonders
I fall into my potholes
And break my bones
I deafen in my din
I’m enthralled by the intricacies
Of my soul’s ragas
I writhe in my aches
I ooze in my untended wounds

I rejoice in the gathering clouds
I drown in my monsoon tears
After I burn in my summer blaze
I shiver in my tattered winter blanket

While I warm my hands and feet
On the fires I build in my throbbing heart
I fling the colours of holi
Into the green leaves of my spring season

I pay obeisance to my Gods and Goddesses

Krishna Rama Durga Kali..too many to name

While I flow in the slime of my gutters
I choke in my clouds of dust
I wrap myself in my flies
My garbage my rags
My stray dogs my beggars
My famished children with
Their empty hands and empty eyes
Staring from my staring eyes
But I teach my children
To unshackle their hands and minds
I put wings on their feet to fly free
Even though my holy rivers flow with black refuse
Littered with leftovers from my venerating masses
Bits of flower petals mingling
With plastic bags industrial waste
And half burnt dead bobbing up and down
Refusing to leave my banks
Over which fat dogs snarl and snap
And yet my waters flow with life giving green
Where striving people dare to dream
My crowded streets are death traps
Yet flowing with smiling faces
Mixed with sweating people
Belching cars crapping crows pissing cows
Dogs trucks rats buses hovels
Brown bowel movements
Withered fornicating flesh
Left on broken sidewalks
Over which incessant
Unseeing feet walk by
Tossing me a few coins
Without even a sideways glance
Where I sit cross-legged
My eyes shut tight
My street crawling through
My grime encrusted eyelids
Into my gritty eyeballs
Erupting into leaking blisters
My crowded lanes swarming
All over my filth coated limbs
Festering with pus-filled sores
My flesh infested with
Living breathing biting things
Laying eggs in my knotted hair
Hatching out into tics lice worms
Maggots mosquitoes monkeys monks
Speaking the language of 

Sadhus saints corruption
Festivals funerals roadside
Cursings laughings bickerings
Squabbling human flotsam
Caressing killing kicking screaming
Whispering jostling gouging
Juggling shoving thrusting
Shopping malls street stalls
Their ware hanging out
To be fingered fondled fought over
Factories fortunetellers fundamentalists
Ecclesiasts eclectic non-conformists
Conforming conformists philosophers
Human traffickers women’s abusers and libbers
Rising concrete constructions

Lowly corrugated dwellings
Trading haggling buying selling
Human blood bank notes rice dal roti
Struggling stragglers warring waking dying
Me myself bursting
Into my gasping windows
In through my gagging doors
Right into my retching
Bleeding heaving room
The walls of which are painted
With the rainbow colours of
Hushed heavenly hibiscus hues
Burning incense wafting wispy perfumed smoke
Bird song papaya fruit jackfruit
The mangoes of my childhood
Narayana Allah Buddha Christ

All seeking --
Nirvana moksha paradise peace

-by Rita Putatunda

The "Guruji" (according to some)

(the other day that lump of lard, that fathead, who is paid obeisance to as “guruji” plonked himself into my favourite evening news show, thenewshour, and spouted his usual mindless inanities, which is regarded as great wisdom by some. He began with “this is surreal” – wonder if he actually knows the meaning of the word, but phonies like him like to impress their slavering acolytes with highfalutin sounding words. As he screeched “let me spik, let me spik” I composed this little gem.. heh heh heh! Sure had fun writing this one!)

As the sun sank into a dark horizon
The ants and the termites emerged
The centipedes and the millipedes
The roaches and the crawling maggots
Creeping worms and flurries of fleas
All with deadbeat brains as large as a pea
The crawling denizens of the dimwitted world
Lead by their leader 

An ugly flabby ignorant vile creature 

Also referred to as "Guruji" by some
Who thought he had the wisdom of the sages
Little did he know that with every word he uttered
All he displayed was the vast emptiness of his tawdry fat head
Filled with rudimentary inanities and boorish bullshit
He was the one who held aloft the flag of their realm
The kingdom of fawning flatterers
And lead the way to gorge on the squished butterfly
Tearing her delicate diaphanous wings to shreds
Like flies converging on putrid flesh
They engulfed the gasping dying butterfly
And after crushing her to death
Went back to their kingdom of Foolsland
Deep in some dank dark daft interiors of a cave  
Rejoicing over their conquered bounty

-by Rita Putatunda