If you're following me on Instagram & Twitter, you'll know that I'm back in India just about 10 days back! One of the updates that I did was about my mixed feelings - the sadness of leaving a country where I did crazy things and the gladness of coming back home. There's nothing like travelling and there's nothing like doing crazy things and more importantly there's nothing like living alone and learning responsibility. That said, Home is always where the heart is! Recently when I saw the video of Asian Paints, I saw myself in it! While there are way too many things, here I'm listing out 10 that reminded me of India & Chennai & Home, when I was travelling.
After leaving India for 6 months I didn't see a beach! In Chennai, beach happens twice a month. I missed it terribly and my happiness knew no bounds when I soaked my feet into the cold water of Dorset, England and kept remembering Mumbai's secret beaches & Pondy's secluded beaches!!!
I have an unique feeling when I go to places associated with human civilization. I get an emotional attachment coz our forefathers once walked about in that very soil. When I walked in Caerleon in South Wales, a Roman Civilization site, I was reminded of Dholavira, the Indus Valley Civilization site back home!!!
The Antoni Gaudi craziness in Barcelona, Spain most definitely reminded me of Nek Chand's Chandigarh. Antoni Gaudi's idea of using broken tiles to broken glasses to create masterpieces of art was definitely seen with Nek Chand & Laurie Baker as well. Did they intern with Gaudi?
What made the Edinburgh, Scotland visit a hit was definitely hiking up to the Arthur's Seat & Calton Hill. Till then I hadn't climbed hill after leaving India. It was one exhilarating experience. The view from Arthur's Seat reminded me of the view from atop Tada and climbing the flat terrain of Calton Hill most definitely reminded me of Savanadurga!
No where, not a single country that I've visited so far in my life can beat the sculptural marvel of the Cholas & Pallavas. I couldn't help but mentally compare one of the oldest churches in England, the UNESCO World Heritage site of Canterbury to our own Pallava rock monoliths at Mahabalipuram, again a UNESCO site!
They say India is crowded. I know India is crowded and I didn't think any place would be as crowded as India, given our humongous population. But was I wrong! I felt the same crowd of India at Italy, thanks to soooooo many tourists! Well, the road side hawkers too reminded me of Mumbai & Chennai!!! Unlike other pics in this, both the above pics are from Italy!
One thing that often reminds of home when travelling has to be food. Eating those yummy world food incl Gouda cheese burger in Italy and Waffle in Belgium or healthy superfoods incl chiaseeds & multi grain breads, I always terribly missed the good old Idly!!! Ask any south Indian - nothing can beat mom's Idli & Chutney!
Berlin has a very rough history with the infamous Berlin Wall literally tearing the city into 2. Today bits and pieces of the wall is still left and that's beautified by gorgeous murals painted by various artists. Modern wall art always takes me back to my own work at home. Remember my post on how I painted my home, myself??? Here's the Asian Paints video that I told you about. What reminds you of your hometown or home when you're away from home??? Let me know!
A few posts earlier in some of my OOTDs (here, here & here) the wall behind me had some interesting wall arts. I told you then, that I will do a dedicated post on them! Here it is.
Well, a few months back, my dad suddenly decided that he's gonna paint the house, or atleast a few rooms himself coz he wanted a new hobby!!! I felt, he's behaving like the heroes of Hollywood movies where they have hobbies like carpentry, welding things, tree house building, white washing etc!!! Sounded incredible indeed. So yeah, a few of his weekends were spent this ways...
After he finished off the living room with 2 coats of white, before he could decide on the color, in one of the weekdays, I stood in the centre of the room and felt it was one big canvas and I had to do something on it. A wall art??? 2 options were in my mind - one going neutral with browns & beiges, another going colorful with bright multicolor. After breaking my head for something I headed to option 2.
Fleur de Lis has always been my favourite icon, so I opted for it on one wall. With 4 bright colors of emulsion paint and after cutting up an OHP sheet to the pattern, I did this wall!
On the next wall, I wanted something else. A woman with flying hair was what came on my next wall. I call her a Medusa!!! Yeah, you're right. Medusa is freaky with snakes as hair. But doesn't every evil woman have an innocent and a seductress version of herself?! So this is her innocent version...
Her hair is wavy and flying and is filled with all things nice - flowers, bows, butterflies, swallow birds, music notes, hearts, hibiscus, stars, and some dots & circles!!!
When 2 walls are so heavy and filled, I opted for something much much simpler in the other 2 walls. On a wall behind furnitures, at the joints, I opted for smaller, golden Fleur de Lis.
Yet another wall, which has a window, I opted for the same multicolors, in just thin stripes along the window pane line. That's with the living room... How is it??? Coming back soon with the other rooms!!!
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