Desire And Despair

20.5x28.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)

Those cards

Boxes of chocolate

Smell of your soap

On my birthday

The touch

Under the blanket

A strand of your hair

On my pillow

The movie ticket

Our hands

In the dark

Mouths

On the roof

Sultry afternoons

Rain drenched

Like the crows

Sound of

Punctured bicycle tyre

Of pleasure

Maybe guilt

Surely Pain

Caught under

The mosquito

Net

Of desire

To learn French

Do French

Seduction

Wine on our

Skin

Thin veil

Of modesty lost

Liberation

In a bathtub

Dancing

Naked and sticky

‘Baby skin’

Whispered

Tickling my ears

Leaving behind

A trail

Sorrow

Of holding

Hands

In public garden

Eyes flirting

Mouths watering

A shared cup

Of ‘Irani chai’

A bite

Of jealousy

On my nipple

Dripping

Honey words

Poetry

Of laughter and

Longing for

Despair

Heart break

Distrust

‘Dry your tears!’

Bitch

The world

Never ends

To the music

Of dance beats

Sweat

Circling

Measuring

Teasing

Pulling each other

Groin to groin

‘kambakht Ishq’

Old monk

In my vein

Passion

In our loin

Kissing

Till the faithful

Are summoned

Morning prayers

Warm embrace

Enchanted sleep

Deception of

Separation

Distance untraveled

Unwanted

Complications of being

Uncomfortably numb

With failure

Dejection

‘What went wrong?’

Nothing went right

Expectations

Stifled and buried

Dreams

In between

Right and wrong

Flows a river

Of longing

Infested with

Ghosts

Drowned possibilities

Piranhas

Of guilt

And a leaky boat of

Salvation is slowly

Ferried by despair.

- Rudra Kishore Mandal

Fluff

 20.5x28.5 inches; Pen drawing on acid free textured paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)
SOLD. In private collection

Every year after the rains are gone, and the autumn sunshine announced the arrival of Durga Puja, with the chill in the air indicating that winter is near... during that time my mom used to bring out all the pillows, cushions and mattresses up on the terrace, to sunbathe them. She insisted on doing this like a ritual every year, to get rid of the musty and unhealthy smell that the prolonged rainy season left behind on everything. She will carefully, almost lovingly, fluff up the pillows and the cushions till they looked like square or rectangular ‘Phulkas’, puffing up on a ‘tawa’ and turn them over at regular intervals. The pillows and cushions will soon become warm and cozy and that is the time when our pet cats, a family of five we had for over six years, will make good use of the soft fluffy playground! The young kittens will play hide and seek among the cushions and roll around, as if the cushions and pillows had been laid out for them. Slowly the warmth will make them drowsy and eventually they will fall asleep. I used to love watching them perform this little drama, and sometimes join in their game with a ball of wool or some other prop. All I have now are the memories of those afternoons, which manage to bring a smile of contentment to my lips, even now. It is like the taste of some delicious jam or pickle you had stolen and tasted once and the taste still lingers in your memory, bringing you pleasure mingled with nostalgia. I still remember the smell of those warm pillows, the feel of the soft fabric, the fluffy fur of the cats, their soft lazy ‘purrrs’ of satisfaction, and the smile on my mom’s face...  Happiness was so easy to find, once!! Yet, many may find it to be nothing but ‘fluff’!

Guilty As charged 7 - Gluttony

8x8 inches (unframed); Watercolour and Pen drawing on Executive Bond paper (Click on image to enlarge)

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

-Peter De Vries, American author and editor

Guilty As Charged 6 - Avarice

8x8 inches (unframed); Watercolour and Pen drawing on Executive Bond paper (Click on image to enlarge)

Greed's worst point is its ingratitude.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist.

Guilty As Charged 5 - Vanity

8x8 inches (unframed); Watercolour and Pen drawing on Executive Bond paper (Click on image to enlarge)

‘Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.’

- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Guilty As Charged 4 - Envy

8x8 inches (unframed); Watercolour and Pen drawing on Executive Bond paper (Click on image to enlarge)

'The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.'

- Rabindranath Tagore