APRIL 2024
Our Cover Art for April 2024 is a self portrait by MPV Editor, Ruati Chhangte. She describes the photograph as below:
“I clicked this self portrait in my room in Bangalore with my gorgeous clunky workhorse of a camera, the Mamiya C330. The film was developed by the lovely Surendra Patel in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
It was the early 2010’s, another lifetime ago. I had bought this 40+ year old camera off of a seller on OLX, and I immediately fell in love with it. I used to lug it around with me all the time, on long walks in Lalbagh and Cubbon Park, bookstores, cafes, neighbourhood gullies, lakes, and even on my travels across the country. I also tortured/cajoled my sister, cousins, friends and even our maid to pose for portraits. It was a nightmare to get it past airport security though. I eventually lost the lens cap when I made the mistake of flying out on a Sunday from the tiny super crowded Dabolim airport.
We had a good run, the camera and I. I still have it with me, though for the life of me I can’t seem to take any half decent photographs with it anymore now.”
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JULY 2024
Our Cover Art for July 2024 is a painting titled ‘A Girl from Mars’ by artist Hriati Ralte. She describes the artwork as below:
“A Girl from Mars originated from a very vivid dream that I once had. In this dream (which felt like real life), an UFO was hovering just above the ground on our frontyard. I was standing on the verandah, and I was frantically looking for my phone to click a picture of the UFO. When I woke, my hands were flailing around looking for my phone. When I found my phone and opened it, I went looking for the picture, but it was not there. Years later, I imagined myself being abducted by the UFO and taken to Mars from where I had a vantage view of the world, and watched all the ugly side of human nature which I have depicted in the painting. It is a mirror image, so you can only read what’s written on it when you hold it on front of a mirror.”
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OCTOBER 2024
Our Cover Art for October 2024 is from The Sea Within series by Pondicherry based photographer Nelson Viji
The Sea Within is a collection of photographs taken between 2017 and 2022. Nelson captured these images during long evening strolls along the sea, mostly to clear his head, as he was, in his words, “going through complete emotional numbness and fatigue” at the time. And from these strolls were born images of stunning, meditative beauty—capturing life and the elements in all their wild glory, and people and their intimate relationships with the sea, revealing moments of solitude, connection, and reflection.
At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons. There is nothing in the Tower that has not grown into its own form over the decades, nothing with which I am not linked. Here everything has its history, and mine; here is space for the spaceless kingdom of the world’s and the psyche’s hinterland. – Carl G. Jung
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JANUARY 2025
Our Cover Art for Winter 2024-25 Issue is an artwork by Lunglei based artist Lalhruaitluangi (Hruaii)
This is what Hruaii tells us about this artwork:
“These flowers are called Senhri…in my painting, these Senhri flowers represent human beings. The woman (if I may call her “Mahni”) embodies The Self, and the elements surrounding her—hope, happiness, and perseverance—reflect the positive aspects of human existence.
Everything we have in life, especially the light that we each carry, is something that we create for ourselves, and this is what my painting seeks to convey.”
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