we can begin our conversation from this dog. This was a photo taken last night as i saw this dog for the second time LOOKING. Looking is an art, and i realise when i walk, i maybe seeing that i don’t get run over by the traffic next to me, or i am trying to get somewhere but i am not aware of most of my body parts till pain arrives.

Yesterday i had seen him looking inside a metal shop and today i saw him looking at the city. He looks and he does it so well. I think the dog likes to see, just see things and from the back i felt it was looking also, that its gaze was doing looking and seeing.

Sketchbooks

yesterday afternoon was day 2 of spending time with sketchbooks. And i realised that sketchbooks, once we start to see them, tell us the different paths of thinking we have been taking. One part which created interest for me was how i was making an effort to do something in my sketchbook, in a sense i was involved in something where as other sketches reflected an end, but this particular page was not an end, but an internal of something.

How do we distinguish the sketches. Is it something they communicate to us ?

Yes, i feel sketches do communicate, or i should say we can see the difference, like seeing a samosa and a sock. you can think of putting a samosa in the mouth but not a sock. If a samosa wala is making samosa, you will pay to eat the samosa but not his socks. If you were buying socks in a socks store ( there is no socks store that i know of ), then you will not pay to eat it. The socks and the samosa communicate something different to you. It’s not so much about the sketch or the samosa / sock communicating as it what we know about them. Samosa is to eat, socks is to wear and the sketch in the sketchbook is to see. And when you see, you are driven to the intention of the drawing. And the intention leads to what was the drawer thinking while making this ? what questions was he exploring ? At least that is what i felt while looking at the work.

Marshall

Marshall is the name of the dog which my brother owns. Today in goa, we discovered that he has bone cancer and one leg needs to amputated. I drew him in 2019 in his rented home in palam vihar. a colony next to the railway tracks. And today marshall has been told that he will live for another 1 year after amputation and few rounds of Chemotherapy.

Seeing, just like the dog in the first photo at govindpuri seeing the city, and not just the water tank in front of its head, i am also seeing this photo that i drew him looking at its meal and now the body, the bones are decomposing themselves. Its a saint bernard, 7 plus years of age dog. now 54 i believe.

Concluding thoughts

what is so common in all the three things i shared. The image of the dog sitting, the drawing of the dog and notes on sketchbook. All of this happened on the same day. Thats all 🙂