October 2004 Archives

Anirvan and I spotted this mural on our way to Monina's housewarming on Sunday. The woman with a red bindi was what first caught my eye.

The mural is on a wall at the intersection of York and 24th in San Francisco. The mural by Berkeley artist Juana Alicia is called "La Llorona's Sacred Waters" (The Weeping Woman).

The theme of the mural is woman, water and globalization.An article at Chicanas.com talks more about the concept and symbology. The mural replaced a different one by the same artist called "Las Lechugueras" (Women Lettuce Workers) which lasted for 10 years. This photograph shows the same wall, different mural.

The part of the mural depicting the woman with the red bindi is a depiction of the "Narmada Bachao Andolan" -the struggles faced by the people of the Narmada Valley who are being displaced by Narmada dam.

The Mural was completed in June 2004.

Turns out the artist had her own struggles making the mural. The city wanted to keep all of her drawings leading up to the final piece among other things. It took one year of negotiations with the City Attorney's offices to get her a contract that protected her rights. In an interesting interview with the artist, she talks about these struggles and her inspirations and motivations as an artist and activist.

I am reading "The Jaguar's Smile", a non-fiction travelogue of Rushdie's visit to Nicaragua so her mention of a mural in Nicaragua struck a chord with me. The mural she mentions called "Dawn" was one of the few murals that wasn't greyed out by the right-wing Nicaraguan government. The teachers' union was still maintaining the mural at the time of this interview.

I went. I saw. I survived. Meeting my cousins and their kids was fun as was hanging out with Anirvan's parents.
The food was good inspite of being free though I did complain about the quantity. My niece didn't want hers so I got to have her share too. That left me satisfied but also reminiscing about the food they I used to have at the pujo tola in Bangalore. We would to sit at these long tables, and people would serve you khichuri, tarkari, chutney, rosogollas on shalpata.

The line snaking to the food

While we were out......getting married
Savita and Pramod had a son, Mukundan.
Satya and Anil had a son, yet to be named.
Julie and Umit bought a house.
Pratibha and Raj are expecting in December.
Sofi and Zach are too, next year.
Gabe and Emily decided to get married.
Stefan and Julia were already on their way to the altar.

New babies, houses, jobs, hopefully a new president?
Life goes on...

This weekend should be fun. My friends Krisztina and Bryant and their baby Miles are staying over this Friday night. They are in town for a wedding. Our first baby guest.

Saturday is durga pujo. Though I always looked forward to it, I never was very excited about actually going to pujo celebrations. I am not sure what it is but it might be that I was always a shy person or maybe homogenous crowds freak me out. This is the first time in at least 6 years that I am going to a durga pujo celebration. We'll see if anything has changed.

Also while we were out, Monina bought a condo! Her housewarming party is Sunday afternoon. I am excited to see her new place, eat her mom's home cooking and see her perform taiko.

In other news, this week's media consumption consisted of the movie "Mean Girls", the book, Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses by David Lodge, the third presidential debate and the Bill O'Reilly show.

Anirvan and I went to Porchlight yesterday. Porchlight is a story telling series. Story tellers tell their tales based on a theme. Stories are less that 10 minutes long, unscripted and told without notes and memorization. Anirvan suggested we go knowing how much I loved the "This American Life" format.

Yesterday's theme.
"Throes of Rejection: Writers Tell All."
Tamim Ansary; Josh Kornbluth; Regina Louise; Eddy Joe Cotton; Joyce Maynard; Jack Boulware; Ianthe Brautigan; Kirk Read; Dave Eggers and Holly Payne.

Josh Kornbluth thanked us Swedish Americans for our generosity (the event was at the Swedish American Hall) and spoke about the rejection he faced in New York and D.C when his film Haiku Tunnel was released and went on to plug his new fim (Red Diaper Baby) and monologue (Benjamin Franklin)- Oct 22nd at the Roxie. Funny, funny man.

The funniest story by far was Kirk Read's story about the time he took clothes to Crossroads to sell them. If you have ever been to Crossroads to sell your clothes you know what he was talking about. The humiliation, anxiety and rejection all brought to life by his extraordinary comic timing and delivery.

Dave Eggers was pretty good to and lived upto my expectations. His story was about the time he left his notebook on the plane. In the notebook was research that he was doing about refugees from Sudan. The notebook had mentions of Osama Bin Laden (who had stayed in Sudan for 6 years), Colin Powell, sketches of fire (his doodles with a crayon), the GOP, with a question mark next to it (Eggers was deciding if he should use his press pass to go to the RNC) and a list of words for inclusion in "The Future Dictionary of America". This potent combination led to his notebook ending up in the hands of the State department!

The last story that evening--touched, confused and disturbed me all at the same time. Joyce Maynard's true story about her relationship with Grisly, a convict in maximum security prison in Folsom, CA. Their relationship developed through letters that they wrote to each other. Letters from him that made her almost fall in love with him. The relationship that she decided to end when she found out what why he called Grisly and what Grisly was in for--the muder of his parents by beheading them. There was so much there.

I am definitely planning on going back...Next month's theme--Imposters:Identities in Crisis

We also saw Shaun of the Dead, the zombie satirical romantic comedy --funniest movie I have seen in a long time. Highly recommended.

Also good, the movie Saved--a coming of age satirical story about a girl in a christian school who becomes pregnant and learns about life and love.