Aniruddha Saha

Today was another day well spent at Texas.
Oindrila wanted to watch this movie called “Loving Vincent” which was being screened this week at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She had asked me whether I would be interested in accompanying her to the show. I read about the movie and the proposition seemed appealing – “The World’s First Fully Painted Feature Film” and she is a lover of art as well. A nice road trip and a movie, what could go wrong?
Well, how do we go there? We don’t have a car. I still don’t have a US Driver’s Licence. And public transport is non-existent here (compared to where we were born and brought up). She came up with the idea of posting on ZimRide (a carpool service) and fortunately, some nice guy replied and agreed to take us to Houston.

Today morning

She woke up early. I woke up late. Anyway, we both got ready by 10 am. We also packed food for our trip. The guy who was supposed to take us came at around 11. His name was Pulkit and we had another person riding with us, an Iranian girl named Hediya (I guess I spelled it correctly)!
The trip was nice. Oindrila dozed off as she usually does when on the back seat of a fast-moving car.
We reached there by 1 pm. Also, we did some research on Vincent Van Gogh on our way.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

The show was at 2 pm. So, we had some time on our hands. Our first mission was to find the washrooms. 😀 After that, we found out a spot to have your lunch. The burgers and donuts we have packed were gulped down quite swiftly. Then we looked at a few exhibits to make use of our time and went into the theater at 10 mins to 2.

The Movie

All Set!!!

The movie was about the circumstances surrounding Vincent Van Gogh’s death and the most interesting part – all of the 65,000 frames of the movie are oil painted on canvas by 125 artists from all over the world. The movie was shot in a studio in Poland. The thing which was surprising is that the theater was almost full. There were elderly people mostly who had come to watch the film.

For me personally, the frames were so vivid and breathtaking, they made me a bit dizzy initially. The depiction of “Starry Night” which starts the movie was beautiful. I saw a few more of Van Gogh’s paintings, “Sunflowers” and “Wheatfield with Crows”.

Short Museum Tour

Johanna Calle (Colombia)
Obra Negra [Black Opus]
Galvanized wire, copper, and India ink on cardboard
(Looks pretty weird. House headed people.)

Leon Ferrari (Argentina)

Diazotype (from Google, a copying or coloring process using a diazo compound decomposed by ultraviolet light) on wove paper

Beds
(Looks like a blueprint of a house with lots of beds and the bedsheets are folded in a particular fashion.)

Two Streets
(Again, a blueprint of houses where two streets intersect in the middle of the frame.)

Crossing
(Two groups of men crossing causing a lot commotion in the middle.)

(Collage made from scrap material.)

Trip Back

We started our return trip at around 4:30. We met two new faces on the way back and listened to some Hindi music on our way back. At 7 pm, we were back home.

Hi there everybody! This is Aniruddha. Why am I here today? I have been thinking for a few days, maybe weeks that I should write about my experiences – the places I travel to, the people I meet, the food I taste, the music I listen to and lots more. Life is an abundance of priceless moments. What do I feel when I experience such a moment? Maybe a rush of happiness or pure joy or maybe a fleeting moment of calm. Sometimes I take photos to keep those moments safe. But sometimes all of it cannot be captured in a frame. Somethings leave an indelible mark on your mind or your heart. Some people write about it in a diary to keep them safe. I have never been a person who writes about his experiences. But as time passes and I grow as a person, I have started to feel there is immense value in writing as well.

One person has played an instrumental role in making me believe in writing about your thoughts and feelings – all things good and bad. She’s my girlfriend Oindrila. We have been together for more than five years now and to be honest, it’s been a roller-coaster ride. But we have made so many memories that it would probably take us some time to relive them again. But isn’t that what life is all about? Isn’t it about those priceless moments – those memories?

This blog is the result of her thoughts and our efforts. Both of us moved to a new country a few months back. But as destiny would have it, we ended up even further apart than we were back home. But as cliched as it may sound, some doors open when others close. We have been meeting more frequently in the last 7 months than we used to back home. And that feels good – a rush of happiness when we meet, a fleeting moment of calm when we spend time together and a pure joy to plan the next trip together. We have been to amazing places with and without each other. But we have planned to document all that we experience on these pages. We’ll write, we’ll capture the moments and let life surprise us all the while!

Wish us all the best for our journey! We are the two on trail.