Jagannath Temple - HSR Layout - Bangalore

 

Sketching at the Jagannath Temple in Bangalore yesterday ... the first HSR group meet. Hoping to schedule more of these in the coming weeks.

While this temple cannot hold a candle to the one in Puri, this particular road is clustered with four to five temples and is bustling with activity on a Sunday morning.

In A Quiet Moment

"We tend to go through our days with our noses to the grindstone, completing tasks, staying on top of household chores, jumping from one thing to the next. The days blend into each other. (especially during this pandemic!)

What makes some days special?" From my LEO BABAUTA newsletter. 

Watching the sunlight does it for me. This morning I sat in my favourite tea shop - snacking on vada pav and sipping hot ginger tea. Out in the street life unfolded - leisurely and predictably - the same person I saw last week walked past with a yoga mat. The auto walla sunbathed. And cyclists and runners went past. 

These Sunday morning sketching sessions are what I look forward to all week. There's no goal. No plans. These quiet moments, maybe a tree shedding leaves, people all around me - that come close to the spiritual. The meditative. 

Hoi An In A Glass

 

Yesterday, during my night walk on the terrace, I was listening to Travel and Leisure India audio stories … having run out of my usual fiction podcasts. The episode was about Hoi An. As the author spoke about the delicious coffee, I was taken back to endless drinks that peppered my stay in Vietnam. From green tea and black coffee to iced beer and cocoa. 

Having stayed at home most of this year, I can't wait to travel again. Surrounded by trees. Away from my laptop. With just my sketch kit nearby. Till that happens, I've decided to open my travel sketchbooks and get transported to my favourite places. Sketching and travelling are so entwined, that unless I sketch in a city I feel I haven't experienced it.

One such memory is of the refreshing herbal drink at MótHộiAn. Adorned with a lotus stem and lemon leaf it was a welcome respite from the drugging heat. I can still taste the sweet floral notes of the drink and it brings back all the joys of strolling along the lantern-lit lanes flanked by yellow houses and flowering bougainvillaea trees. Now, as I paint it from memory and some photos, I think … there should be a 'Hoi An Yellow' shade of watercolour out there …