Now Don't Ask Me Any More

The prodigal chand returns! - in response to all the requests for a new post (=1) (That wasn't a typo for a +1, so stop clicking on it).
I've been living on and off in Bangalore, India, for the past 12 years, and since the world isn't going to end any time soon (facebook.com will put their billions into averting it), I thought I'd share this map I had created some time back to help hapless visitors to the city find their way around the central area. This is by no means exhaustive, but definitely exhausting for a half day sightseeing trip. Regular beer is recommended as a pick-me-up, and you could boast that you drank the popular Indian beer, Kingfisher, in its city of origin.

If you don't drink beer, maybe you should open your pristine gob and suck in large amounts of the best year-round metropolitan weather in India.

Click Half/ Full day in Bangalore for a larger map with legend

I'm open to collaboration, but if you wanted more things to see, here's my response:

A hotdog shirt in return for my services would be nice

Comic Stripper 04 - Ironic Comic on Antarctic Economics

Ah, fateful last minute! The sweet nectar of work it extracts from me, mix'd with the bitter syrup of delay it delivers me into, are like the yin and yang of my creative process. 

Yet another comic competition lit the proverbial 'thing' in me to get to work. The theme was 'Rich and Poor', so it's only obvious I'd come up with something abstract like this:

Whale of a Problem

I guess some of my obsessions with composition are manifesting without my thinking about them - the whale's mass being balanced by the iceberg, and the frame divided into 1:2 vertically - but I didn't really think about sharp perspectives and suchlike because I was more focused on the organic characters and conveying the underwater scene satisfactorily in black and white. I've noticed my humour combines simple\slapstick with obscure\ironic, but that's if you even get to the point of understanding the joke, seeing how hard I make it to do that.

Unfortunately, the idea and final spur to do this came at the last minute, and by the time the comic was submitted, the competition had closed (Your mouth should strike a match about now). Ah, well, the fish was probably sour.

Any title would seem pretentious

Being asked to write 'creatively' fills me with the urge to be clever with language in the wrong ways.

I juggle with words/ In struggles with haikus/ And get cut off abr-

Acrostics Cause Reactions Of Similar Type In Contemplating Sentences.

Limericks challenge me to be clever

But though the rhyme scheme is forever

A-A-B-B-A,

It, to my dismay

Doesn't improve the text whatsoever.

My dissatisfaction with my attempts at poetry leads me to try my hand at hackneyed prose replete with words that don't 'sit' well together, and long sentences; the use of pretentious punctuation is also a temptation I fail to resist. I'm just lucky I've so far escaped the clutches of the Dreaded Capitalization of Important Words.

Attempting humour in creative writing is perhaps the hardest. Self referential text can only be funny for so long. After that, it is the style and timing that carries it forward. Too easily can something aimed at being funny start to become instructional and boring. Reading other greats of humour only demoralises me, which is as far from a humorous mindset that one could begin writing with.

Sometime's I try to isolate lines to make the sentence look profound, or just to make a fresh stab at the whole process, but that doesn't seem to work very well.

Then I try to turn back to using alliterations as taught to me, but it turns out I'm doing that wrong too. Thnak heavens for spellcheck though. With experience, I've learnt that sarcasm and obscure humour works best for me, and my best writing has elements of both. Now you know why this post is such a laugh riot. I've contemplated the use of emoticons in formal text as a new element, but it seems kind of preachy to suggest the desired reaction; I'd have the courage to get away with it in sneaky ways such as:(before parenthesis). 

Generally, I try to structure the body to flow from one sentence to the other, but I seem to have abandoned the basic benchmarks I set for myself in this case. This is an attempt at creative writing with a humorous bent. 

It is for the sake of it, and not with any subject in mind; perhaps therein lies the rub. Using quotes I'm not fully sure of the meaning or origin of is another trick I employ, come to think of it. Thus the whole thing becomes a confused mishmash of techniques, so I've effectively crossed out the 'style' and 'timing' that I just said carries humorous writing forward.

But I guess the best way we can deal with our failings, whether in creative writing or anywhere else in life, is not take them too seriously, and keep on going. Which is why I will never stop trying.

Comic Stripper 03 (Not in 3D)

Since no one's really counting, I guess it doesn't matter that you're going to be treated to three comics I've drawn at the price of one blog post! This doesn't, of course, save you from the long drawn out technical explanations that accompany each of my comic posts, multiplied by three. (The lack of fireworks and celebratory pelvic thrusts upon my return explains my lack of motivation in putting up new posts, but a quick glance at the first principles reminds me why we're here)

The first comic was drawn in August 2011, and apart from being a competition entry, is a tribute to one of my favourite cartoonists, Gary Larson, and his Far Side series.

Fatal Attraction

Unfortunately, the theme of the competition was 'No to Narcotics' which for some reason I subconsciously equated with 'No to Nicotine', which may be why it wasn't considered (What a load of horseshit, the drawing just sucked  compared to other entries).

The second one was actually made after  the third one, but on the same day, so I've taken the liberty of rearranging the order of presentation for dramatic effect, which I know you love. (Is it a coincidence that there's piles of matter in the comic and I've made this one number two?)

Sand Pit

I take an unhealthy pleasure in working with perspective and dividing the frame into components on this basis. In this case, the vanishing point (for all you perspective geeks) is at the top centre of the frame. I used pens with different tip thicknesses; not usually my style, as I prefer fills to line-work, but much faster when you have a deadline; the competition ended the next day. 

Third and final, the idea was simple, albeit executed in order to make it hard to understand. The only thing I will disclose is that 420 is a common term in India for a  crook, because the section under the Indian Penal Code for cheating is Section 420. Now to get to the drawing specs:

1. The drawing was divided into three equal parts, and each part was (roughly) divided into thirds vertically and horizontally. This obsession with threes is nothing new; in fact it'll probably explain my sock drawer a little better.
2. More perspective play; the vanishing point was at the centre of each panel in this case.
3. Different elements of the composition helped build the symmetry of the composition - the sun/moon locations, the building faces, the ladder location in each panel, and the slouchy black-t-shirted guy walking by to balance the poster-poster (What else can you call someone who puts up posters)
4. The shadows are for the most part wrong or unfinished, but I could just as easily blame the laws of optics and play a wave/particle duality card in my defense, so let's just let that one pass. Because I'd be wrong.

AM PM CM

Before you let your fingers fly on your keyboards about the complexity or unnecessary distraction from the main plot, let me play the modesty card and inform you that this one Won The Competition, so move those fingers to W-O-W-Shift+1-C-O-N-G-R-A-T-S-Shift+1, or some other cliché, in the name of social convention.