My humble abode..

My computer room. It might look professional though I must admit that before I started blogging, I didn't even know much about computers.

My tiny book shelf housing just a fraction of my books. Most women have clothes and
shoes in their closets, mine are literally bursting to the hinges with books!. The painting called 'Yin and Yang', is one of my earliest works.

Some of my early pen and ink drawings which I -using my not so evolved photography skills, have tried to capture in an artsy shot but I don't think it has worked out as I expected. O well, as they say, practise makes perfect..

I have painted the door in my lounge. It leads onto the balcony..

Working on Pots...

A tribute to my mother..

'My Mother and I'

Acrylic on canvas

Ink and Threads

I have a fear of clowns!

A fish (you can see the eye and the slightly open mouth if you concentrate). Actually, I think this fish is smiling!

The whole picture...

One of my weird, floating creatures. For my kitchen....

I decided to combine my love of drawing and stitching and ended up with the pieces above. These are inspired by the colors of Rajasthan. Moreover, every tiny bit is hand-stitched. Since I put my sweat and blood into these (quite literally! You have no idea how many times the needle managed to pierce my fingers. On the other hand, using a thimble never crossed my mind), they are very precious and I have refused to sell them despite many- in some cases- highly lucrative offers!

A man might be able to fool the world, but he cannot fool his wife!
-Zaina

Poem

Paranoia
by Zaina Anwar

She cleans and cleanses
everyday,
armed with a flannel
dust-cloth
and a homemade vinegar
concoction
as well as an improvised
surgical mask
to protect her unusually sensitive
sinuses.
She is engaged in a battle against
an enemy
which retreats for a day only
to return,
with a more determined
vengeance.
O endless, perpetual, everlasting
drudgery!
She knows it but can't help it
since,
she is a victim,
another female victim,
of domestic
paranoia
and an obsessive compulsive
personality...

Painting..

"The Universe is within Me"
(click to enlarge)

Verse

How I wish I could take,
all my anxieties and sorrows
shove them in a garbage bag,
seal it with a plastic strap,
and wait for dawn when
the great yellow municipal truck
would arrive to collect my mental rubbish
and toss it out somewhere
on a dump-heap far,
way far, beyond the city limits,
out of sight and out of mind,
forever.

Poem

Untitled
by Zaina Anwar

In the dark she gropes,
searching for the match she hopes,
would set the damp molding logs
in the grate,
on fire.

In the dark she wraps,
her grey woollen shawl perhaps
thinking that it would hold
the meagre heat,
of her shivering bones.

In the dark she bathes,
in an old iron tub caked
with flesh atoms
of myriad bodies,
spanning over decades.

In the dark she cooks,
on a stove which looks
new, but is indeed very old,
given by a dying aunt,
many haunted memories ago.

In the dark she looks,
for her favorite treasured book
of poems written in braille
for she,
amaurotic she,
has never been able to see-
she was born that way.


(The image above has been taken from Verhext)

Painting

'Matrix-Red'

I made a series of paintings along the same theme but with different color combinations. Currently, I am only left with this one since the others are now hanging or carefully preserved (I hope) in friends' homes.

A candlelit evening

New work- what does she see?

'Prescience'
Acrylic on canvas.

(Please click on the images above to see enlarged versions for a clearer view).

Poem

'The Scream' by Edvard Munch

City of Crows
by Zaina Anwar

I want to run away
from the city of crows-
a city where the smog,
perpetually hovers,
thick and metallic smelling,
swirling- stubborn and self contained-
through nooks and crannies
and narrow, boisterous alleys
criss-crossing and overflowing
with communal sewage.

I want to run away
from the city where it never rains.
A city where carcasses
of dogs routinely languish
beneath the scathing sun,
in the middle of roads
that lead to nowhere and everywhere.
Where canines are the maligned
inhabitants of a land devoured
by rabid humans.

I want to fly away
from the city that never sleeps.
A restless metropolis,
where humans hunt
with saliva frothing mouths
and blind cataract eyes
for their bit of
personal heaven or at least
a temporary respite.
But why plead for acquittal
in hell?

I want to walk away
from the city that never forgives.
A Medusa with flaming eyes
and a Serpentes gorgon head,
fostering phantoms aimlessly wandering
through anonymous barricaded streets.
Where the scorching sun never repents
of burning the very skin
and leaves me claustrophobic
and panting with a futile wish-
'To be able to breathe, to be able to run',
pulsing through
my renegade veins.

Strains of Nostalgia

Listening to 'Nightmares on Wax' makes me nostalgic. Why and for what, I don't know...

Down the memory lane...

Acrylic on canvas
(a painting I made for a friend of mine)

Master Photographer- Sebastio Salgado:

Gourma Rharous, Mali 1985

Refugee from Gondan, Mali 1985

Refugees in the Korem camp, Ethiopia 1984

Going up the Serra Pelada mine, Brazil 1986

Transporting bags of dirt in the Serra Pelada gold mine, Brazil 1986


(Sebastio Salgado had been originally trained as an economist. Born in 1944, it was not until 1973, that he took up the camera to build a career in photography).

Further reading: 'Taking the Espresso Train'- TimesOnline

Poem

Streetwalker
by Zaina Anwar

The streets she roams at night
are etched firmly
on her brain.
The routine mapping
of Hades,
makes a horrible engraving.

The post where she waits
night after night
is so familiar.
The smell of cold metal stays
with her
in bed at dawn.

Every time a car draws near
slithering
like a poisonous snake,
her body instinctively shudders
and a silent plea escapes
her garish painted lips.

Every atom in her body
protests as she gathers,
the shards of her broken soul
and settles herself
once again,
in a blistering leather seat.

There are times when her mind,
reveals familiar faces
of a childhood spent,
carefree and innocent
in a land she tries to erase
from the annals of memory.

Stricken with hunger,
stomachs contracted,
they handed her over
-naive and cheated-
to the man who changed her life,
forever.

And now when she finds
an alien body heaving
desperately
over hers,
she stares out through the window
at the moon which hangs
resplendent,
but altogether indifferent,
alone and aloof-

like her.

('Human trafficking has reached endemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about US$ 42.5 billion'- Council of Europe.
The United Nation estimates that nearly 2.5 million people from 127 counties are currently being trafficked around the world.
Trafficking victims are typically recruited using coercion, deception, fraud, the abuse of power or outright abductions)

For more:
COALITION Against Trafficking in Women

Would you like some color?

Latest work...

Some of my favorite films...

THE SHINING/1986, Director: Stanley Kubrick

THE SEVENTH SEAL/1957, Director: Ingmar Bergman

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY/1966, Director: Sergio Leone

TAXI DRIVER/1976, Director: Martin Scorsese

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST/1975, Director: Milos Forman

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN/2007, Director: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE/2000, Director: Wong Kar-wai

FIGHT CLUB/1999, Director: David Fincher

FARGO/1996, Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

(all the images above have been taken from The Auteurs)

Why?

Questions plaguing the post-modern mind:
How much sleep did you get last night?
How much did you party last night?
How many drinks did you have last night?

What have you heard from the boss today?
What have you seen on the television today?
Did you forget again, what your wife said today?

How many times did you do the laundry last week?
How many times did you make love last week?
How many times did you exercise last week?

How much money did you make last month?
How many shoes did you buy last month?
How many kilometers did your car run last month?

Questions that rarely bother the post-modern mind:
How many hungry mouths have you fed in your life?
How many times have you stood by your children in your life?
How many times have you taken a risk in your life?

How many times have you shrugged at a homeless man passing by?
How many times have you really smelt a flower?
Have you ever had the time, to just lie down and look at the clouds go floating by?

How many times have you hurt your spouse?
How many times have you really listened to someone?
How many times have you reached out to those, living on either side of your house?

When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone?
How many times have you lied to yourself?
How many times have you searched desperately for company,
just because you can't stand being alone..

What are you waiting for?

Once upon a time, I was a baby...

A friend's mother lovingly made this frame by hand.