Where am I?

         Ever wondered how big our Universe is? I do that a lot of time and every time I do, it always takes me back to where it started. They say it all started with a Bang and then never stopped. Now even our most brilliant scientist finds it almost impossible to even study. Of course, I will not describe how big or how unimaginable its size is or what’s happening inside. Leave that to Stephen Hawking, I am no expert. But yes, my love for the Universe goes way back, just that, I never had in me to become a scientist. Whatever!!! I just wanted to show you how big I am in this very big vast space that surrounds us. Maybe I am wrong.

Title: On The Horizon

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size: 36x24

Price: Please contact the artist directly.

Signed and dated at the right hand bottom corner.

 April, 1912.

 

          Four days after she left Southampton, UK, on her trip to New York, US, she hit an ice berg and sank. The date was 15 and yes, it’s the Titanic story. It was her maiden voyage and she carried with her 2,224 passengers and crew. 1502 people died just because there weren’t enough life boats for everyone. Yes we have seen the movie and some of our girls cried the whole North Atlantic Ocean out of the movie. But this isn’t Titanic’s story remember? Okay then, we continue…

          Our scientist estimates that our Universe might contain as much as 500 billion galaxies and among one of them is our very own “The Milky Way”, which is supposed to contain approximately 200-400 billion stars. Whatever that figures means, I’ll just take it as something that we shouldn’t even try counting. Now, I’ll not even try to get into light years, I might end up getting exploded (lol).

          Figure says, Titanic was 882 feet and 9 inches long and 92 feet and 6 inches wide (wow!!! That’s huge). 106,400,000 km² is the size of the whole Atlantic Ocean (That’s where the Titanic sank). With this numbers in mind, we take The Milky Way as our tragic Titanic and the whole of the Atlantic Ocean as our Universe. Now, our Solar System, wow!!! It’s almost invincible. Earth!!! Where is Earth? Oh! There it is. It’s visible only through the microscope. Yay!!!

          But wait!!! Where am I??? Where am I??? Where am I???.............

          That’s the fact. I am nothing at all in the whole universe and so are you. Still we say, “I’m this”, “I have done that”; “My name is”, “My father was”; “Who are you?”, “You are nothing”. That’s our ego and we are even proud of it. Does this make any sense at all? Yes it does and that is shame.

          Last word: I know it was not the perfect metaphor. The Universe is still expanding and we are getting even smaller. Ahahaha… Be blessed :)

In another's world

Colors are what I use as a medium of telling my stories, but my first love was “words”. And it’s a shame that I never got mastered enough over my first love to merry her into a book, but my respect for writer’s had and would remain immense. As an artist, to me, to create a fictional character and win hearts at the same time is the most perfect form of art. Creativity can’t get any better than this. So, just the thought that I got the honor today to introduce two such awesome writers on my journal is too much for me to contain. You can say; I am as excited as a little kid over a new toy to play with. Honestly, I am sitting on edges now as I write this and my mind playing haphazardly. I think I am losing my mind (Not joking). But before I introduce these two very sensational writers, let’s first see what surprise we’ve got in their recently published book “Ten Yen True”. (A synopsis of the book by the author herself, wow!!! we can’t get any luckier than this).

You may also purchase the book by Clicking Here.  (The writer’s would have really appreciated it).

Synopsis:

Ten Yen True tells a story of hope, love, forgiveness and miracles.

Through the mystical ways of a monk in Japan who, following the recent tsunami, finds himself questioning the work of the gods, four people each receive a ten yen coin.

Initially, none of these people understand why they have received the coin, nor do they recognize its purpose.

Each recipient has a different background and a story to tell: we follow their lives, learning what made each of them who they are today.

Tommy is five years old and dying of cancer: he has not seen his father since he was a baby and is desperate to meet him before he dies something his English mother Holly has tried to make happen.

Paul Somerville, Tommy’s father and former Hollywood actor is campaigning to be governor of Kentucky, his natal state. Having battled drink and drug addictions in his past, he is keen to show he is reformed, but his motives are not purely unselfish.

Caitlin, a strong-minded career woman has closed her heart to everyone after the loss of a sibling during her childhood and the subsequent desertion of her father.

Joseph Jackson (JJ) former nurse in the US Military has for years struggled to tolerate his oppressive pastor father. He relocates to Louisville Kentucky to work in a Children’s Hospital.

Eventually, the lives of these characters become inter-linked as they come to terms with what happened in their past and they learn to accept their past grievances and to forgive.

The story takes us from Japan to England and onto Kentucky where the characters come together to witness a miracle.

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The book is dedicated “To Anyone Who Ever Lost Hope”

And I think it’s already falling in love with me. Oh God, I am such a romantic (lol). Well, I wouldn’t keep you waiting any longer to meet this two awesome people and artist.

Amanda Armstrong: 

A friend and a sweetheart, Amanda has been writing since she could hold a pen. What was I doing at that time? No clue!!! In 2011, she had her first debut book “Rose” released. Ten Yen True is her second book. Amanda lives in Bexley, UK, with her husband and daughter. The last time she invited me over dinner, I ended up cooking and doing the dishes, so it might not be a very good idea to invite her over a dinner (hahaha…I was just kidding). However, you can follow her on twitter @mandymia and maybe say “Hello”. You will not regret this, I will give you my word (and she doesn’t bite back). But on the serious note, she is one of the sweetest and very cheerful person’s I have met and it’s always amazing to catch her up over a chat. No surprise, I call her sister now. And, she has the cutest daughter in the whole world, Mia. 
And now for our next guest, I will let Amanda herself introduce her to you.

Do visit her website and read more about her at http://www.amandaarmstrong1974.co.uk/

You may also want to purchase and read her first book “Rose”,  ClickHere.

Christina St. Clair:

 

Hi, I’m Amanda, the author that my good friend Zhoniu has mentioned. He has kindly allowed me to intrude on his blog, so now it’s my turn to be honoured!

I just wanted to tell you a little about Christina St. Clair, my co-author for Ten Yen True.

She is also my aunt and she lives in Kentucky, USA. She has written many articles, essays and fiction, of which you can take a look at on her website www.christinastclair.com

Christina and I had so much fun writing this book, the idea of which came about from a very strange reality. You can read about this on my blog entitled Ten Yen True – The Reality Behind The Fiction, which is available on my website.

Ten Yen True was such a journey and an experience for us, so much so that we are currently working on the sequel, Ten Yen Forever. 

We also continue to work on our own separate works, updates and previews of which are also available on our websites.

Ok, I’m going to stop blabbering on now! Thanks for listening and (hopefully) reading our book. Thank you also to Zhoniu for having me as his guest on here.

Bye for now :)

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Thank you Amanda dropping by and also it’s such an honor to have you as a guest on my blog. It seems now that my blog is taken to the next level. Be blessed.

One Cold Winter Night

          The place where I come from, we never get to see the snow and the minimum temperature it can drop during the winter would be around 4°C. And now it would be unfair on my part to even try to explain how cold a winter can get and by the way, our winter here is almost over when I am writing this. So I will not even try to do that. But yes, I would want you to come with me on a walk through some streets one cold winter night.

Title: The Sleep 

Medium: Oil on Canvas 

Size: 30x24 Inches 

Sold to a private collector from UK

Signed and dated at the bottom right hand corner. 

           If you ever have had the opportunity to walk through the crowded streets of New Delhi before, you will know what I mean. But if you haven’t, here is what it looks like. As you would have already guessed it, it’s always crowded and honestly, it’s not even very safe to walk but the irony is, you are even at your worst if you are driving. It’s almost like a circus show where a person throws knife at an apple placed on another person’s head as the bull’s-eye. You are never safe. One moment, a car will honked at you when it’s almost about to hit you and the next moment you realized a beggar is pulling you from behind (you can even say molesting) for just a two rupee coin. Don’t fall for that unless you have a million in coins. One moment you will realize that you just got hit by a motorbike on a bicycle lane (Yes that happens) and the next moment, someone just pulled you to a corner to show you branded Ray-Ban goggles that you can buy it at “Only For You” price. Of course it’s a fake. And if you are a foreigner or a tourist, God himself will find it hard to save you from all the Auto Drivers and Rickshawpullers (but this I will leave it as homework for you to find it out for yourself). But then, the winter night sets in. Now we walk.

          The streets become deserted; fogs rule the roads and some stray dogs cuddle up somewhere in the corners for some sleepless night because of the cold. It’s just the starting. Soon, another layer of coldness will swipe over, that will be near enough to wipe out anything on its way. And then another layer, that will leave the bones of the stray dogs to chatter. Now the show starts and until the first light of the morning takes over and wipe out what just happened last night. You know these layers I am talking about. You have had the taste of its chill even with your warm clothes on and beneath the roof. But somewhere down these streets where we are walking right now, in some corners, someone is taking the same cold with a different degree of coldness as a cut on their skins. Another person is trying hard not to chatter his teeth because it makes him feel even more colder. One kid is shivering so bad that it might even wake up the person next to him. A mother is trying hard to warm her child, but she seems to run out of heat herself. What they need? No!!! They don’t have the strength to think right now. They are too busy trying hard not to be in the list of people who, “Seven people reported death last night due to the cold wave that swipe through the capital”. 

          Now, my painting doesn’t tell the story of any this people. Nor does it tell the story of what their suffering is or what they need. It was a painting I did here in winter when the cold was at its lowest and a theme based on a winter night when sleeping inside the warm blanket seems like the only comfort left in the whole world. But, that doesn’t mean, their story is not worth telling. It’s a shame that the government seems to be doing nothing for them and even these filthy rich are too busy attending late night parties. And it’s even a shame on me that these are the people who had pulled me for a 2 rupee coin, overcharged me for a rickshaw ride and enticed me for “Only For you” price for some fake Ray-Ban goggles during the day. I hope you like our walk. Stay warm.

Last Words: An original piece, but I must admit, certain aspects of this artwork is inspired by another work, in terms of positioning. More than that, it's an original creation.