Thursday, April 24, 2003

Just up the road from where I sit now in Bibwewadi, Pune, is the building where the D’Silva’s stayed until three days ago—that is, until three members of the family were identified as the first official cases of Sars in Pune. The spooky feeling I got as the news broke seems a little alarmist now. Still, even now I’m not fully cured of the intermittent thoughts of falling victim to this newest of mankind’s scourges. There was even a moment when I felt a semblance of relief at the thought of sure, if not imminent, death.

Camus’ The Plague keeps coming back to me:



‘Other men will make history... All I can say is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims - and as far as possible one must refuse to be on the side of the pestilence.’
...

‘We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them.’
...

‘The plague bacillus never dies or vanishes entirely... it can remain dormant for dozens of years in furniture or clothing... it waits patiently in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs and old papers, and... perhaps the day will come when, for the instruction or misfortune of mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some well-contented city.’



And those scenes of the plague-infested town in Buñuel’s adaptation of Benito Perez Galdos’ Nazarin. And Scorsese’s bleeding-black tale of death and redemption Bringing Out the Dead“I came to realize that my work was less about saving lives than about bearing witness. I was a grief mop.”—with that soundtrack of Van Morrison’s ‘TB Sheets’.



Monday, April 21, 2003

slg

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

slg

I havent painted in ages. And I am suffering from demons within me.
Yesterday I read the essay Arundathi Roy wrote in Frontline about american aggresion in Iraq. As always it is pure H2SO4.
Again she proved the fact that she is the only one in the whole of Asia with balls. Shame on you fobbin.

Life is a slop
and i cant stop
got to keep rolling
to save my skin from peeling.

Monday, April 14, 2003

Hey Fobbin, like I told you when I saw for the first time that last painting you posted, it reminded me of a classic album cover. So I went searching for it, and here it is:



It’s the cover of In the Court of the Crimson King, the first album (1969) of the prog-rock band King Crimson. The painting is by Barry Godber, who died a year later at the age of 24—this the only cover he did.

Saturday, April 12, 2003

slg