Peyote: Tensegrity And The 3 Witches

The rituals revolving around the psychoactive cactus plant Pyote as much as the cult and controversies sorounding Peruvian-American writer Carlos Castaneda always intrigued me.After reading his books on shamanism, I got interested about the poisonous flower Dhootoora that's been known to the Bengalis for thousand years.I wrote a long verse in Bengali, named DhooturaFM, depicting the fall from grace of the native Bengali goddess, Dhutura!!

Lamia: An Eastern Queen Branded As A Child Eating Demon!

Horace, in Ars Poetica (l.340) imagines the impossibility of retrieving the living children Lamia has eaten:
Neu pranse Lamiae vivum puerum extrabat alvo.

Alexander Pope translates the line:
"Shall Lamia in our sight her sons devour,
and give them back alive the self-same hour?"

Lamia By Herbert James

In ancient Greek mythology, Lamia (Greek: Λάμια) was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. While the word lamia literally means large shark in Greek, Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet (λαιμός; laimos), referring to her habit of devouring children.

The Camus Collage

Suddenly a while back I got hooked with portraits of  Albert Camus and started making collage around them.

Albert Camus, 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960, was a French Algerian author, philosopher, and journalist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He was a key philosopher of the 20th-century and his most famous work is the novel L'Étranger or 'The Outsider".

The Bamian Buddhas And Bengal Sufi Heritage

One Of The Bamian Buddha 1976

Never the name of a place intrigued me more than the name, 'Balkh'!My grandfathers name was Jamir Shah whose shrine is in the Comilla district of Bangladesh. The first Shah to arrive in Bengal from Afghanistans Balkh region in the 10th century was Sultan Shah Balkhi who was also known as Mahishawar or The Fish Rider!Sultan took up the life of a Dervish and embraced the Sufy path.

To Love Is To Be A Bank Robber

My all time favourite couple are Bonnie and Clyde!The abslolute lovers and ultimate bank robbing couple!Look at their incredibly beautiful names: Clyde Chestnut Barrow, Bonnnie Elizabeth Parker!I would die for that Chestnut bit!Down to earth commoners with the extra large full fisty esthetical blows!When they died together in police machine gun fire at the height of pre second world war depression, Clyde The Romeo was 25, Bonnie The Juliet was 23!You can imagine who could have savings in a period of depression!

Art And Revolution

Sleep By Courbet

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819–31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement characterized by the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work.