Reality Bites

The sequel cannot top the original

Panache comes but once, c'est droll.

Space, the final frontier

Astropohotography- uniting art and science- was the subject yesterday evening. Shutter speed, length of time the aperture is open and exposure are the parameters one can play with when one wants to shoot celestial bodies. A tripod with something to keep the shutter open is required, as one may need to keep the shutter open for 6 hours- stars move slowly across the sky.

The stars trails is visible as a curve. The partial solar eclipse at sunrise in Delhi 2007, with joggers in the foregound, had people thinking that the ones in the photo were running from the eclipse:)

Other out of the box ideas were leaving the parking lights on to get a reddish shade to a monument in the foregound of another photo of a star.

22 July 2009 ( maybe June) is when a total solar eclipse will happen in India. in Delhi, 85% of the sun will be covered. Patna, Vishakapatnam etc will witness a total eclipse of the heart.

Bepardah

Pardah Bagh in Daryaganj is the lone women's only park in Delhi. Quite an experience, a female utopia, the kind perhaps Atwood wrote of.

Morning Walk

Sultanghari, where Iltutmish built a tomb for his son, was very majestic. Recycled stones with rough carvings of feet were the discovery of the day. Also, a well dating from 1418 & an inscription mentioning it's being built.

Bahadur Shah Zafar hunted hares here- the villagers did not let him hunt nilgai and later even deer. He would come from his palace in Mehrauli. Looks like Delhi's farmhouse custom is ancient:)

Indian Art Summit 2008

The Indian Art Summit of Modern & Contemporary Art at Pragati Maidan was a slight letdown in terms of content. I liked Paresh Maity's giant sculptures. Overall, Indian artists still seem to be searching for apt idioms. I'm tired of looking at goddesses superimposed on female figures, skeletal men and psychedelic colours.

Rememberance of things past now

"Kairos" (opportunity, time, chance).

The original bronze allegoric statue made by Lysippos stood at his home, in the Agora of Hellenistic Sikyon.

Epigram of Posidippos, on the statue of Kairos by Lysippos:

Who and whence was the sculptor?

From Sikyon.

And his name?

Lysippos.

And who are you?

Time who subdues all things.

Why do you stand on tip-toe?

I am ever running.

And why you have a pair of wings on your feet?

I fly with the wind.

And why do you hold a razor in your right hand?

As a sign to men that I am sharper than any sharp edge.

And why does your hair hang over your face?

For him who meets me to take me by the forelock.

And why, in Heaven's name, is the back of your head bald?

Because none whom I have once raced by on my winged feet will now, though he wishes it sore, take hold of me from behind.

Why did the artist fashion you?

For your sake, stranger, and he set me up in the porch as a lesson.