If this was paper, it would be damp and salty…. needless to say some words would have drowned themselves in a tiny little puddle of tears before trickling away – quite dramatic? yeah! i think so too – kinda like it actually… a little different than the way i usually write.

From the day i arrived in melbourne. there was no doubt in my mind that leaving this place would be hard. The vibe of this beautiful city is what i would miss dearly… well… thats what i thought. But it wasn’t until the last one month, I realized that what i was about to miss most was the dear dear friends i was leaving behind – friends who had in the past one year become so close to me that the very thought of them not being around the corner seemed wierd.

Met Dzul, Won, Hee and Kirrily before i left the city – it was quite hard to let go of dearest Kizzie. Ardessa, Stewart and Michael sang along to Bohemian Raphsody on the way to the airport.

We had coffee and muffins after i checked in, Ardessa drank milk instead and hugged me tight, smothering me with sweet kisses goodbye. I love you guys – i am touched truly.

Took one last glimpse of Melbourne from the window and turning to the attractive blonde sitting next to me – decided that it was time to move on.
Where are you flying to? asked i
London ! replied her mom appearing from the seat next to her……

Arsemonkey!…she was a little too young for me anyway. and i’d better be thankful that i wasn’t sharing my sixteen hour flight space with anybody who was any less prettier than myself.

On arrival, the baggage inspector pulled me to the side in a manner that had almost become a ritual over the past one year of travel and searched all my dvd’s for pornographic material —- ” thats right! not many of you know how much of a badass i am – i used to be a big name in the adult movie distribution circuit before i sobered down and decided to become an animator.”

The australian fella behind me was asked whether he was carrying dvd’s
- he said ‘yes’ –
- they said ‘no problem’ and asked him to move on -
- and i whispered to myself ‘i might have a masters now but i forget that the color of skin hasn’t changed’ – a sorry state of affairs.

On a more cheerful note – Home made food has never ever tasted so good before.. yummieeeeeeeeeeee!. Its taking a little getting used to – to talk about everything in the past tense – ‘the house that i used to live in’ rather than ‘the house that i live in’

Today was the only day when i got around to catching some of the animation festival action and ended up sitting through three shows – The Jan Werich’s animated film ‘fimfarum’, the international program ‘four’ and the John Kricfalusi Retrospective.

Jan Werich’s animated feature length film – Fimfarum. A delightful collection of five fairytales based on the legendary book of the same name by Jan Werich. The film was in the making for 17 years and was completed recently in 2002. The many themes that run through this collection deals with depression , gamblins, alcoholism, wifebeating, attempted murder, devil worship and incontinence. I personally thought it was very entertaining and adhered to Trnka’s rich lineage of Czech puppet animation. Its great to see work of such sort being carried on over time and not showing any signs of losing the very essence and beauty of storytelling and design. This site has a couple of videos and mp3 tracks of this animation www.fimfarum.cz

The International program no.4 was pretty cool. The film ‘the wallet / le portefeuille’ by vincent bierrewaerts from france/belgium appealed to me a great deal in terms of concept and execution. The idea of ‘multiple solutions and consequences of one situation’ has always raised my curiosity – hence ’sliding doors’ is a personal favorite. The film is best summarized as below

‘A man who has just seen himself refusing work finds on his way a wallet. A share of itself collects it while the other share carries on its way with indolence. While returning at his place, the part which collected the wallet discovers in this one a large money bundle. The character divides once again. Part of itself will spend the money while the other goes in the search of its owner. Arrived at this last, another unexpected event will still cause a division of the character.’ – www.cfwb.be/av/KIOSK/HTM/FILMS/Fleportefeuille.htm

Keeping in practice with the modern adaptation of fairytales and folktales, ‘The Great Ball Game’ by Andrew Horne and ‘Moo(n’) by Leigh Hodgkinson, both had a delightful narrative voiceover quality. ‘Louis’ by N. Bruchet, S. Devynck, O. Barre and ‘Parenthese’ by F. Blondeau, T. Deloof. J. Droulers, C. Stamp, both from France was absolutely deliciously rendered with a rich sense of composition and textures (especially in the latter). Anne Marie’s ‘Fox Dance’ was also a part of this collection and seeing it on the big screen added a different dimension to her work. She has a tremendously superior control over anatomy in every imaginable medium that is highly commendable (and as i write this entry, i remember now that i forgot to leave behind a copy of my thesis for her to read .. crap!!)

John Kricfalusi’s retrospective left me with a sick feeling in my stomach. Its great animation but the content just seems to be loaded with unnecessary inuendo and blatant repetiive reference to testicles, pubes, tits, aerola, pussies. It was funny for a while but i felt it was just used to death. Ren and Stimpy’s alleged gay relationship no longer requires pondering upon in the new series. Malcolm Turner claimed that this screening was the world’s second screening of this rare material that after censor would result in the removal of 15 minutes out of 40 minutes of animation. He said we were privilleged…. hmm… i quite respectfully disagree. Here is the MIAF link that lists the films shown at the retrospective MIAF 2004 – Kricfalusi Retrospective

Stu, Kizz and myself met up with Ardessa and Mike for dinner at Funkfish – conversation was a little melo, i guess we were all a little ‘knackered’ from the late night we had the day before.

well…. almost melo…

If nothing goes exceptionally wrong (fingers crossed) i am th–is close to adding an ‘MA in Animation and Interactive Media from RMIT University Melbourne, Australia’ to my resume. Here is a downloadable pdf file of the masters thesis for anyone who wants to have a read and either compliment me on the work i’ve done or rip it into shreds and tell me what i can change in it —>raj_masterswebversion.pdf

Hand in went quite smooth and i was pleasently surprised by the going away gifts that i got showered by. Rhonda gave me the sweetest note ever along with, a tiny container of vegemite and a melbourne-tram fridge magnet. Ajima gifted me a wonderful picture of Melbourne that she had taken herself – how special did i feel? very special actually!

Michaelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen were awesome as always. www.oninvisiblewings.com>
It was great to see Renato there as well. Anna’s performace was absolutely awesome – she made the cutest chirping noises. Michael signed his CD of ‘Lost Recordings’ for me which was quite special. Kizzy, Stew, the two Michaels, James and myself strolled down to ‘The Duke of Windsor’, ended up at ‘Loop’ in the city and finally at Kirrily’s place at three in the morning. We watched ‘Tortoro’, had Jasmine Tea and whilst the others sobered – i snored msyelf to sleep on the couch.

Its been a month of no blogging, so i am going to try and get my blog upto speed with the stuff thats been happening with me in Melbourne …. quite some interesting stuff actually from a masturbating stage performer, odd encounters on trams, research dillemmas to the latest outcomes of retail therapy.

Bought this t-shirt from ‘green room’, a punk rock pub on Elizabeth St.
Don’t think i would buy a t-shirt of the sort if i wasn’t drunk. Even before i started contemplating the purchase, Eve persuadingly whispered ‘ You should buy it Raj’ and so that is how i ended up being the proud owner of this ’sin city’ t-shirt. Ok now to the main part of the story – The singer at this place went bezerk from all that booze and delivered quite an orgasmic performance that left me speechless and asking myself,

“are people allowed to do ‘that’ on stage? with a microphone? ..?…..?……..?”

She began with undoing the pants of of a girl from the audience and then proceeded to shove the microphone down her own pants and up hers …. well you know what….. IT WAS QUITE A SIGHT !

I finally ended up buying myself a Crumpler.. As always i went a little er..um..eh..until i found the bag i wanted (atleast i thought i wanted) but i’ve grown pretty attached to it, so i am not going to go and exchange it for anything else. Pretty cool huh ? I also laid my eyes on a new bag that i simply have to – have to get.. its called Freitag (www.freitag.ch) and is made of truck canvases – all their bags are uniquely designed with parts of the canvas making it different from any other freitag bag.

A few weeks back i found myself sitting next to a wierd fella on the tram who was only concerned with getting back home safely – ‘The most important thing in life is to get back home safely’ – he said again and again and again. He then asked me what i was doing in Melbourne and when i told him i studied animation – he said he liked his sex 24 frames per second. At that point, i decided that – ‘this stop was my stop’ – thank you very much mr.potentialserialkillerwhoprobablylivesatclubx. Although i must admit, there was a certain sense of beauty to the simplicity and truth to the objective in his life. I mean, at the end of it all, i guess we are all looking for a place to return to safely, for some its at the end of the day and for others its towards the end of life. hmmm…. i stare at the moving clouds and i ponder hard on that thought !

I had trouble with research – major troubles that caused me a lot of anxiety. A part of it was a result of lack of timely feedback. I know David was staying awake all nights workin gon our papers but i would have appreciated more the same efforts for my previous drafts… i consider this semester to be a little badly handled and not quite worth the money. Its no doubt that in a couple of years, the masters would pick up really well and there will be a great structure in place.. but as of now… well.. hmm… .