A third of a hundred yaadein

1. Sandalwood powder in a lidded bowl of repoussé silver   
2. Black block-printed birds flung across red khadi cloth 
3. Modest celebration of long knotted fringes at ends of stiff peach-colored watered-silk shawl
4. Salt air stung nose and slidiness of seawater mixed with sand underfoot
5. Sweet silky-soft fescue grass
6. Pink silk damask dress
7. Weight and slip of long white linen dress lined in white silk
8. Toasted marshmallows ash outside and cream within
9. Steamy velvet of sautéed just-picked eggplant / brinjal / aubergine
10. Umami and tanginess of spareribs slow-braised in sauerkraut seasoned with black pepper and brown sugar
11. Delicacy of fresh spinach steamed with flecks of water and sprinkle of sea salt
12. Soft warm familiar roughness of wool tweed being sewn by hand
13. Foal's eyelashes, soft nose, hungry teeth
14. Walnuts, oranges, cut rock hard candy, balsam fir, snow at night
15. Two cats, one window, one tree to climb, maple bedstead, plum-colored comforter, guitar
16. Incised copper vases, stone hearth, Persian rug, walnut and bronze table, wrought-iron tools
17. Onion-skin typing paper's resistance to all art mediums
18. Painting at night
19. Freezing all winter for vanity's sake in fuschia and persimmon double-faced wool jacket 
20. Anonymous safety of woman wearing man's long, dark trenchcoat
21. Snuggly comfort of boat shoes
22. Steadiness of riding boots
23. Lipstick-red calfskin slingbacks that weren't suitable anywhere but looked so good
24. Summers of long cotton skirts, linen blazers and blouses, Chanel-style flats
25. Underwater somersaults
26. A penny a beetle, never paid 
27. Raspberries
28. Blackberries
29. Fritzi's pale-mauve grape jelly
30. Fritzi's scrambled eggs and toast
31. Sunshower in an arch of elm trees
32. Sculpting crusts of snow
33. Jade and coral treasure

Dream: blue dress

Lately I've been dreaming a lot, good stuff that I usually can't remember, to soundtracks of various Korean serial dramas and historical movies.

Early this morning there was a joyous, honest dream, its main character a dress, its songs the dialogues and music of the film Hwang Jin Yi.

The dress wasn't an ordinary one. It was an wedding dress in three parts: skirt, blouse, veil, made of aqua blue tulle. Now I don't like the color aqua for cloth. There's no natural cloth dye that makes the color aqua. Thus, aqua says "chemicals," to me. And I don't like tulle, either. It's a scratchy, flimsy, trite kind of weaving. But somehow that dress made me happy.

I wasn't wearing it. I was on the run. A sister was with me. I carried the dress pieces loosely, in my hands, where they floated out, flag-like. The skirt had three tiers, a small bustle, a small train. Tiers, bustle and train? It should not have worked for me. But it did. And despite its late Victorian-era features, it was quintessentially modern, of the moment, and very much about me.

It was my femininity, sculpted in light-green-blue translucent threads, lofting in the breezes I made with my run, streaming out along earth's groundwinds.

Jai hum

They say the victors write our history. But everyday people make it. They say the elite tell the stories. But the rest of us are the stories. And we have voices, now.

Two movies, not fantastical, told from everyday points of view, made by individuals elite enough to have tools and dreams enough to make films... but yet not so elite, since they haven't lost their connections with the rest of us:

• Prarambh (2004), starring Vijay Raaz and Gauri Karnik.
• Valley of Saints (2012), starring Gulzar Ahmed Bhat, Neelofar Hamid, and Mohammed Afzal.

Another, though developed and filmed from an elite culture point of view, is as honest about our emotions as anything I've seen:

• Elegy (2008), starring Ben Kingsley and Penélope Cruz.

Prarambh, being about beggars, and very raw, doesn't even have a Wiki page. The Valley of Saints stars don't have Wiki pages. Wiki is how we're recording present-day history. Us, the everyday people, enabled by tools developed by the moderately-elite techno class.

That recently published paleogenetic research from Britain, about how the biggest genetic event of the Common Era was never recorded in history, how elites write about themselves but don't intermarry widely, while common people migrate slowly, persistently, don't write about themselves, and do intermarry: that, too, is about the importance of everyday lives.

Everyday people matter. Victors and elites bob up like corks thrown into water, but after time, they break down, crumble, and sink. It's the ocean of our collective selves that makes history, and stories, real, possible, persistent. Jai hum.

Photoshop-Wacom-Kyle Webster PS Brushes practice.
Or, Hanuman playing with our hearts' dualities.
Or, a world-map of love.
Or, that, over eons, seas and countries fracture, split, and recombine, like our hearts.
Or, a study of color, value, edges, texture and composition.
Or, an exploration of contrasting energies.
Or, calm and bounce.