Bhairon Vilas, Bikaner, Rajasthan.

Down the memory lane & into my Rajasthan trip archives. In Bikaner we stayed at this grungy old world heritage Haveli called the Bhairon Vilas.We reached this place at some ridiculous hour at midnight and walked straight into the bedroom we had booked for the night. This leg of the journey was to be short, we were to set off the next day to Jaisalmer. So we walked in with eyes not quite wide open & quite tired into the bedroom and our eyes widened, and widened... what was this?? One look towards the moth eaten old fabric draped near the headboards and we cracked up!!! This bedroom certainly had a lot of charachter. In anycase we were seriously tired & this wore down the shock of the room quicker than we imagined.

 We woke up, stepped out for breakfast & and what we saw really charmed us. Bharon Vilas had more going for it than the interesting bedroom we found ourselves in, we had a nice breakfast with a musician playing live for us. And this place was gorgeous, without wasting words, see for yourself the unintentionally funny bedroom & lots of sunlit Rajasthani beauty. Bhairon Vilas was a brilliant mix of grunge, quiet charm & dramatic stunning.

 

It feels good to be back here. I really miss blogging when I don't manage to make time for it. How have you guys been? I'd love to heat whats been happening at your end :) and what is it that you wish you could make more time for?

OLAF HAJEK's art.

Does it happen to you that when you see someone's work you just become happy, like you feel like singing happy? It suddenly makes you want to pick up your sketchbook if you have one & makes you want to buy one if you don't. It makes you feel you can have fun, because someone has had it & it reaches your heart & you are smiling like an idiot. This doesn't happen often to me, but when it happens its like a turning point & can change or put a full stop to or begin an entire phase that could last months. It is that point that changes everything. So suddenly when I saw these images in pinterest pinned by Quratulain Ahmed whose boards I follow and find immense resonance with, I stopped & I HAD to see more of this. The art I discovered belonged to one of Germany's most renowned and frequently awarded artist, Olaf Hajek. "Hajek focuses enthusiastically on wonder, heroic acts, hallucinations, and fairytale motifs. With artistic virtuosity and intellectual calculation he relocates and recombines various captions of reality, planting them within new and exciting mystical connotative frameworks." as quoted in Johanssen Gallery.

 

 And any artist who does such beautiful typography is a man after my own heart.

 

Bonus on bonus! I stumbled on his home on The Selby, which is such a kickass site anyway.

 The dishy artist at work. 

An image like this is so precious, because (I don't know if you feel like this) the art you see has so captured your imagination, almost unreal & you are constantly trying to think of how the artist works. And here you feel like you've suddenly entered his studio are looking at him bent over his work, working in solitude. Its just killer, isn't it?