Aahsome

ISSUE #2 Theme BEAUTY

ABout

Aahsome is a quarterly, free PDF magazine from India made possible by readers
like you. Aahsome showcases the human spirit, mind, ethics and morals.

For this issue, we asked you to interpret beauty any way you like. You amazed us with what you
think is beautiful!

The cover is Lady Godiva depicted by Pre-Raphaelite artist John Maler Collier. The legend goes that
Lady Godiva had a dispute with her husband Leofric, the Earl of Mercia, over taxes he levied on the
developing city of Coventry. He challenged her to ride naked across the town, promising to reduce
the tax if she did so. Godiva took the challenge and became a local legend. Townsfolk had stayed
indoors to show their respect but one person peeked at her anyway, the character we now know
as “Peeping Tom”.

Aahsome was founded and initiated by Anand and Arun, two designers with a shared passion for
art, culture and free expression. Anand’s initial brainchild, Aahsome’s mission is to showcase both
the outwardly and the inhibited alike.

Let us know what you think at hello@aahsome.com.

K.A.Anand is a User Experience Designer J. Arun is a designer at SlideShare. He

by profession and blogs about design and dabbles in art, sketching and typography.
everything else here: http://rega.in He’s on Twitter at twitter.com/SimplyArun
intro
E
veryone knows beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. That implies as
many definitions of beauty as there are eyeballs. How do we even
start to define beauty? Can it even be defined?
Many cultures have tried to. Some have even marginally succeeded.
Bringing down beauty to a set of formulae, as is the wont of western sci-
entific method. Maybe those formulae can even help by making beauty an
assembly line product. But is it really so simple? Going eastwards, we have
the Indian rasas, out of which the most important is the Shringara rasa.
Though it encompasses beauty only as seen by the eyes of a lover, still it is
the closest we have to a rule, regarding beauty. It is, as it is with most In-
dian philosophy, without strict rules, more in spirit than form. Moving fur-
ther eastwards, you begin to hear the sounds of one hand clapping. Wabi-
Sabi is the beauty of worn down things, which still have a charm and grace
about them. This is the beauty coming out of imperfection. Imperfection
leads to uniqueness. A clay bowl slightly misshapen is thus beautiful.
Coming to human beauty, does it have any anything to do with skin
color? Why do some gods which are supposed to be dark skinned shown
not as shades of black but of blue? The argument that their aura is blue
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and hence they are shown in that color doesn’t hold. As in are those the
only gods who have their auras in blue? The dark skinned Goddess Kali
came back as the fair skinned Gauri. There are various versions to this story,
the changes being in why did she do this, but that is not important. What
is important that she came back as fair skinned. Maybe there is some link
between this and the fact that fairness products account for more than
50% of the skin care market segment in India. This is the only segment that
grew at more than 10% even in the recession of 2009.
Why is body hair being unwanted like mongrel puppies? Of course more
testosterone has the side effect of more body hair, so some might want to
remove hair to look less masculine. But still there is hair in specific places
of our bodies for specific biological reasons (increasing the surface area to
spread pheromones, being one of them). Isn’t it worth considering that
their only fault is that they are unwanted? Unwanted by you (or by your
lover).
— K.A. Anand
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art

“Adam and Eve”

From when he can remember, Rajesh Babu remains an art

enthusiast. He is currently an Art Director in UAE.
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free verse

Iyer and Irene

The names matched
The personalities didn’t
Yet they had an intangible something that held them together

From his veshti to her sleeveless dresses

From his temple to her church
The smiles on their faces
Made most hearts melt

One wondered how it had happened

Where the story lay
It had begun many monsoons ago
A stalled car. Rain pouring down in sheets.
A smile did it all.

— Kirti Manian
Title credits to Ravi Sivaraman

Illustration: K.A. Anand

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Photography

Prayer Wheels Near Rumtek Monastery, Nor th Sikkim

Kirti Manian

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Photography

Lehrate Hue Rangeen Kapde, Nor th Sikkim

Kirti Manian

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Photography

Gurudongmar Lake at 17,100 feet

Kirti Manian

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Photography

Kirti Manian

She writes. She takes photographs. Sometimes she does both together.
She’s 28 and lives in Mumbai. Kirti enjoys travelling, having travelled to
both South and East India in the last couple of years. Ladakh is the next
destination she has in mind. Life is meant to be lived — corny but true
and each day lived with joy.

View more of Kirti’s work at http://lifeaseetees.blogspot.com.

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story

The Elephant Kid by Alok Mohan

S
o I’m walking down the road and this young guy, not more than 12, short
of breath, runs to me, “Uncle, Uncle what’s the time?” The question took
me not so much by surprise as it did of being called “uncle”. “12.30” I said.

He ran off again but not without uttering that “U” word followed by “Thank
you”. Now what difference does that make? Curse me first and then follow up
with a thank you? Or you’re thanking and cursing at the same time. Children
these days! No morals I tell you. And there at 22, I was feeling old.

I’ve never been happy about growing old. Why, given a choice I’d stay four all
along — days when my dreams and ambition revolved around being an elephant.
Why I wanted to be an elephant, though, is beyond explanation. But that I want-
ed to be one remains part of my family history. For all I remember I never said I
was six and a half or will turn 12 next month. I’d have been happy not aging at all.
But then life doesn’t roll that way. So as I crossed 13, I began hoping against hope
that growing old could be a good thing. How hard could it be? Everyone I knew
was growing old. My grandmother was always smiling and shes 72. So I thought
let’s not jump into conclusions, let’s take aging one year at a time. I pretended to
act mature.

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story

I wanted to go out and play and mom would say “just wait till you finish your
tenth, and you can play all you want.”

I complete tenth and I’m playing and she would call again, “12th is all that matters.
Everyone will want to know your marks, besides getting into a good college. Play
as much as your want after 12th.”

And before I know it I’m in college. And 18. I soon realized to my horror I’ll have
to wait till after college to start playing because if I played then I wouldn’t get a
good job and then what would Sita’s uncle’s wife’s brother’s nephew’s father-in-
law and his wife, daughter of P. Krishnankutty say?

Out of college and I’m free! No more classes. No more exams. I can play at last! Alok Mohan is a copywriter based in Abu Dhabi.
And then a relative who does not wish to be named says, “Is this the age to be When not caught between saving the day and
playing? Guys your age already have good jobs and are settled in life.” and I’m
being a Gemini, he blogs occasionally at
onelessthought.blogspot.com.
like WTF???

Today, at 22 and a half, all I have to look forward in life is another 40 years of
work. And then I’ll be 62. And I’ll commence my cycle of being a child again.
The Elephant Kid photo by Koka Sexton. He
Being a child I always wanted to be an elephant. Elephants are beautiful. Being a blogs at www.kokasexton.com and you can find
child was beautiful. • his pictures at http://www.flickr.com/people/
ikoka.

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tribute

Live in Concert

The Fender wails…

High on psychedelia;
Higher on love.
Wood and steel in unison
Sculpting air. Visions.

Smoke everywhere,
Sweet, full of breath;
Asphyxiating all care uncalled.
Ghosts of the living,
Albatrosses, hopes, flying.

Gods in Act, acting Gods.

Stirred and shaken,
Perfect blend, Amen!
Touched by the Metatron
Sonic N-Bombs, a zillion Ktons.

The river of sweat,

Sound bytes and more,
Ambrosia over a setting sun in Eden.
A bend in time. A Big head Bang.
A furious mix of sweet and tang…

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tribute

…Marshals, frenzied, roll.

The equalizer set to equalize
Ranges beyond the console!
As geographies melt,
Iron and Gold smelt.

Roger and Dave serenade,

The Wright-Mason duet made.
The lunatic smiles overhead.
The dark moves into the light,
Quivering hearts & stage fright!

She glances & smiles.

Pompei, in my head.
Flatlined, wonder-eyed, in bed.
There she was, my flower child,
My elusive Floydian wild.

Art by Harish Shankaran

Left with no choice, Harish Shankaran has fallen in love with

music. He also loves movies, theatre and enjoys writing. He
blogs at www.oxygenflow.net and tweets at
twitter.com/spikedelik Psst… he’s single now!

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admiration

Beautiful Stranger
by Mukta Raut

T
his morning, as I crossed the road to catch an auto, I saw an
exquisite woman. She stood in the shade of a mango tree. I think I
found her remarkable because she was so comfortable in her own
skin. Didn’t seem rushed. Didn’t seem uncomfortable without any of the
modern-day accoutrements we use to avoid eye contact with strangers —
mobiles, magazines, iPods. She just stood there, simple and beautiful.
She was fairly tall, and her straw-colored linen dress fell a few inches
above her knees. Her calves were sinewy and her arms were shapely. Her
arms were toned, sure, but they didn’t look like the over exercised walnut-
crackers that some women have. She had shoulder-length hair that seemed
to glint of honey-hues when the sunlight shifted through the leaves.
Everything about her seemed to have the delicate fading of timelessness
— like the edges of a beautiful, heirloom sari, maybe. Her dress was
almost white, her hair was almost brown, her eyes were cappuccino but
again, almost so. From head to toe, her seasons in the sun seemed to have
lightened off some of her demeanour, but admirably so.
The only thing that seemed to be in stark contrast to this bleached
perfection was her complexion. It was strong and beautiful and… in some
ways… emphatic. She looked like she bathed in the finest cognac to have
the color softly coat her skin and make it glow. There was such a gorgeous
sheen about her.
As I left in my auto, I turned back to see her again. Around her, the world
had gotten busy, and the Monday had gotten manic. But this lady just
turned this crazed little lane a background for her portraiture. There she
stood, with a wonderful glisten reflecting off her — in the shadows, in the
spotlight. •
Mukta Raut Veni, vidi, wrote. Sometimes, I just wrote. reve3.blogspot.com

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essay
The Mathematics of Beauty
T
he word beauty conjures up something
for everyone. An artist may be remind-
ed of the beauty in nature; a writer re-
lates to it with his poetry, a layman thinks of all
the sizzling hot stars on the big screen. Beauty
means something to everyone.
Since ages, wise men from all walks of life
have not only attempted to define beauty, but
also tried to relate it to their field in some way
or the other. To understand what makes beauty,
well…so beautiful, a class of men set it upon
themselves to unravel the secrets of beauty.
These were the mathematicians and they set out
to prove that beauty could be determined by
mathematical relationships and formulae.
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The thoughts of this is very well reflected in
Bertrand Russell’s words:
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not
only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty
cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without
appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without
the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet
sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection
such as only the greatest art can show. The true
spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being
more than Man, which is the touchstone of the
highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics
as surely as poetry.”
From beauty in theorems and geometry,
they went on to suggest that physical attraction
by Arvind Subramaniam
increases if that person’s body is symmetrical and
in proportion.
Leonardo Da Vinci plainly suggested the
beauty of objects depends on a ratio, known
as the Golden Ratio. To understand what the
Golden ratio is, draw a line, and bisect it in two
unequal half’s, a long segment A, and Shorter
segment B. The Golden Ratio appears when the
ratio of A to B is equal to the ratio of the entire
line (A+B) to the longer segment A.
If objects relate to the Golden Ratio, called
Phi and which roughly equals 1.618 in various
proportions, the physical affinity towards that
object increases. This fact is very well illustrated
in the Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
17
essay

Vitruvian Man
by Leonardo da Vinci
Galleria dell' Accademia,
Venice (1485-90)

Original drawing
photographed by Luc Viatour
www.lucnix.be

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essay
According to Leonardo’s preview in the
accompanying text, written in mirror writing, it
was made as a study of the proportions of the
(male) human body.
From this diagram, Leonardo, summarized
some interesting facts…
• The length of a man’s outspread arms (arm
span) is equal to his height
• The distance from the hairline to the bottom
of the chin is one-tenth of a man’s height
• The length of the hand is one-tenth of a
man’s height
• The length of the ear is one-third of the
length of the face
• The length of a man’s foot is one-sixth of his
height, etc…
The mathematics website www.intmath.com
has come up with a mask of a human face based
on the Golden Ratio.
The proportion of all facial features
correspond to some aspect of the golden ratio.
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Thus in Theory every face that has a “good fit” stirring, beautiful music. 
in this mask is Beautiful. 
Someone said that a mathematician is one
The human body is not the only object, which who understands the beauty in the mathematics
if it corresponds to the golden ratio makes it as an art form, funny because none of us would
beautiful. In fact, mathematicians have noticed have contemplated math as an art form. Galileo
the golden ratio in every aspect of nature, said “Math is the language in which God wrote
including for example in the petal arrangement the universe”. We will have to understand that
of a sunflower.  math gives structure to the whole universe and
Having understood the beauty of the Golden
this is the beauty of mathematics. •
Ratio, architects and engineers all over the world
have strived to constructs monuments and other
structures in a attempt to make them beautiful.
The Pyramids of Egypt, The Pantheon in Greece,
The Notre Dame Cathedral in Europe are all said
to have been built based on the Golden Ratio.
In modern times, photographers may relate to
the Golden Ratio with the Rule of Thirds, which
emphasizes placement of the subject in ways
Arvind Subramaniam is a Strategic Brand
pleasing to the eye.  Consultant and Web 2.0 Evangelist, an
amateur photographer, founding member of
If you thought the application of the Golden
Coimbatore Photowalking, and a complete
Ratio ends here you are wrong. Even in music, foodie. He blogs at www.beingarvind.com
the Golden Ratio can be applied to the intervals and tweets at twitter.com/arvind_p
between different notes, to bring about soul
19
Social promotion
photography

Day of the pots!

Seema KK
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photography

Day of the pot sellers!

Seema KK

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photography

To a rainy day…
Seema KK
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photography

The boat, sky, beach and the pier

Seema KK 24
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photography

Good Friday!
Seema KK 25
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photography

A graphic designer by profession, Seema keeps a keen interest

in social documentary photography. She almost likes any
subject under the sun, happy when traveling and eating good
food. She hails from Kerala, currently pursuing her Masters in
Communication Design at Pratt Institute, New York.
A year ago… www.seemakk.com
Seema KK
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 observation
Chai Wali T
he word beauty conjures up something
for everyone. An artist may be reminded
of the beauty in nature; a writer relates
by Anjana Jambunathan to it with poetry, a layman thinks of all the siz-
zling hot stars on the big screen. Beauty means
something to everyone.
I stayed only for a very short while in
Hyderabad; my favourite time of the day was
the early morning hours when Aparna and I
would go for long walks admiring those
sprawling bungalows on Banjara
Hills. It was during one of those
walks that we came across a
roadside tea stall.
There was quite a crowd
there which drew our atten-
tion. A woman squatted on the
floor pouring tea from a kettle and
washing the glasses. She was a middle
aged woman with a slight frame and
not the conventional on-the-face beauty
but it took just a minute to observe her
at work which left you completely en-
Illustration: K.A. Anand thralled. She worked with such grace and
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dignity. We watched her beautiful long fingers
move about, the movement causing her glass
bangles to jingle. Her lovely kohl lined eyes had
the most serene and content expression, her long
dark curly hair was loosely braided and she was
dressed in a simple parrot green cotton saree.
We drank a glass of delicious tea while observing
her or maybe it was just her persona that made
the tea seem like it was the best we ever had.
She was surrounded by a bunch of men
gawking at her and I don’t blame them at all
who wouldn’t want to start their day with such
a lovely sight. I realised then that beauty lies in
simplicity, in everyday aspects of life and is all
around us but we just have to look. •
An avid reader and
dreamer, occasionally
getting confused between
the two, Anjana is an
MBA graduate often heard
quipping — “Life, in spite
of all the shit you put me
through, I remain, O so in love with you.”
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Social promotion

Sanchali
by Dakshayini Gowda

Based on Varanasi’s rich brocade silk collection.

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Social promotion
Varanasi. Kashi. Banaras.
The old, oldest, the legendary city, the eternal
city at the banks of the mighty Ganga River.
For ages this place has been radiating a strong
mystical image both within India as in the west,
marveled at for its never-resting life around
Mother Ganga, where Religion melts into
Magic as well as for products like the traditional
Banarasi hand-woven silks. This collection aims
at bringing to you along with a small piece of
this precious material, a small piece of the age-
old magic of this holy and worldly genuine piece
of Varanasi.
I personally oversee and train rural women, but
encourage their individual creative explorations
for any design. Currently, I have trained women
from Karnataka villages, and aspire to train more
rural women all over India as part of the women
empowerment project is being pioneered by
Sanchali. These designs are my personal creations
out of textile scrap and such other material which
has the potential to be recycled. The intention
is to recycle this precious material to the fullest
using leftover that is thrown by tailors, weavers
or an old sari which is out of use. These scraps are
transformed into work of art or an expression of
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the craftsmen of today. This
jewellery is sequenced with
stone, glass, clay beads. Or
bark of a tree, wood or seed,
which are naturally found, to
add to the aesthetics of the
craft in its traditional way.
Recycling has been part of
our tradition since the time
one can remember. This has
been handed down for many
generations. Without any
training, Indian grandmothers
have creatively conjured up
designs and crafts out of this dying tradition lost to modernization as well
everyday excess scrap materials like broken as encouraging art novices and connoisseurs to
bangle fragments, textile scrap, seeds or any draw upon their proclivity for nature.
other such materials. A lost tradition in today’s
The jewellery is eco-friendly via the re-utili-
world of recycling plastics and other man-
zation of old sarees, leftover bits discarded as
made wastes, salvaging natural remnants from
waste by tailors, weavers. Especially the old dis-
like tree bark shed during seasonal changes as
carded Banarasi saree is a museum piece because
sources of artistic mediums, is a dying trade. Not
it is difficult to get a genuine Banarasi sari these
only saving artisans a trip to the market for art
days. I have preserved my grandmother’s dam-
supplies, but also these mother-earth provisions
aged sari into jewellery. It just got an extended
are readily available at no cost at all. Inspired by
life. :)
this novel system of waste management, which is
part of our age old tradition, my goal is to revive www.sanchali.org
30
city

Dilli.
Beautiful?
by Malvika Jain

A
s Khushwant Singh said — Delhi is like his
hijda mistress Bhagmati. She is ugly to
an outsider but reveals her charms only
to insiders. If you can look past the squalor, you
can enjoy the Sufi-ism, the sandstone domes and
IHC.

He also said that no one belongs to cosmo-

politan Delhi. If a person says he is from Delhi,
people ask “No, tell me, where are you original-
ly from?” To which he may answer “Arrey, I am
from pro-par Delhi.”
Pro-par = Proper
I realized how Delhi grips one, when I hit
South India for a long trip and started missing the
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blingy jordaar tube-lit dhabas on the highways vehicle of choice) and feature in the newspaper-
— the Las Vegas strips of Dilli. headlines the next day.
So again, is Delhi beautiful? Only if the Old-world Chandni Chowk with streets
following makes it so: stocked with spare auto-parts. Grease and black.
Food lanes stuffed with beggars on haunches.
Dilli ki sardi. The invigorating brrrr of winterrr.
Animated halwais. Stoned sadhus. Qutb minar.
The Sin-Cityness of Dilli. Dark alleys where Ghost town Tughlaqabad, accursed by Saint Niza-
you’ll be yanked in a Maruti Omni (kidnapper’s muddin. Nizamuddin Dargah. Pigeon specked
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city

Jama Masjid. Dirty Yamuna with glorious yestyeryears. Dilli darwaza.

Ajmeri darwaza. Bullet-marked Darwaza. Horseshoe darwaza. Rashtra-
pathi Bhavan. Wide avenues on Janpath road. Embassies. Fat ambassador
cars. Hauz Khas (the royal bath). Haus Rani. Lutyens grandeur.

Bohemian jaunts in Janpath, stories of Paharganj chemical drug con-

coction explosions, strangers I meet at Blues and TLR.

The dude-ism of Delhi. Guys who you know are MCPs just by looking at
them, designer gloss, rash driving.

Café Turtle + Book shops.

Insomnia and house-hunting. Real estate brokers with aquariums.

Greedy shopping at Ambience/ Select Citywalk.

***

Dilli. Too much personality to be called beautiful. •

Malvika Jain is a copywriter at an advertising agency in Gurgaon. She

also does freelance branding, graphic design and illustrations. She blogs
at blog.malvikajain.com.

Photos:
1. Delhi II by KRRISHwTrampkach 2. Chandni Chowk by Gorgoro
krrishwtrampkach.deviantart.com gorgoro.deviantart.com

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 snapshots

Facenotes and footnotes

Gudalur, Nilgiris
J. Arun

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snapshots

Facenotes and footnotes

Gudalur, Nilgiris
J. Arun

J. Arun
twitter.com/SimplyArun

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fantasy

Elf with earrings

J. Arun
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