Express Yourself!

I love reading (my huge collection of books is a proof of that); I love writing, blogging, watching movies, watching FRIENDS, skimming magazines and just taking in the beauty of tall mountains in some picturesque locale. But I realized, only a couple of days ago, that there is something which I love even more than everything else, something which can make me stay awake for nights, which can make me forget hunger and which can completely engage me for hours and hours. It is making collages.

I remember, when I was a kid, I would diligently cut the glossy newspapers and magazines for the pictures of my heart-throbs or things which motivate me or excite me. The wall in front of my study table would always be colorful with beautiful collages, which I would keep modifying from time to time.

I had made a pen stand with collages. I used to love print ads of these pens called Rotomac Fighter with a byline that said ‘kyunki fighter hamesha jeetata hai’, which used to feature Javed Akhtar. It was actually a series of ads. I found these lines on some website, from one of those ads:

Zidagi Hai To Khwab Hain,
Khwab Hai To Manzilain Hain,
Manzilain Hai To Faasle Hain,
Faasle Hai To Raaste Hain,
Raaste Hai To Mushkilain Hain,
Mushkilain Hain To Hausla Hain,
Hausla Hai To Vishwas Hai,

Kyonki Fighter Hamesha Jeet-ta Hai.


Those days, I had a major crush on Himanshu Malik of Afreen Afreen and Khwahish fame. Those days he used to appear in 'Only Vimal' ads with Milind Soman and no matter where I would be, I would run around the house to catch a glimpse of him. (Of course, I lost all interest in him after watching his pathetic acting in Khwahish and Tum Bin).

My dad had got me an earthen piggy-bank; I had even converted into a colorful collage of pictures. The inside wall of my cupboard, used to be always covered with colorful pictures right from Aishwarya Rai’s Lakme pics to Aamir Khan’s boyish charm, there were Wills ads, there were poetries and ads.

While in college, I converted collage into a form of expressing myself and give a personal touch to convey my feelings for my close ones. I would combine poetry with relevant pictures to create personalised cards for my best friends. They still remember that very fondly.

Quite recently, I gifted a huge collage of our pictures over the years, to my husband on our first marriage anniversary; and he absolutely loved it. It now takes the space just in front of our bed to give a glimpse of happy memories. Both of us (together as well as separately) just love looking at it.

Just 2 days back I made another collage of book cover cut-outs (from different magazines) to put up in our guest bedroom. I have framed it in bright yellow color, to bring color to the room, while the book-covers will add to the already over 100 books in my cupboard. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed on how it would have turned out. I am going to pick it up today.

Collage making needs planning because you don’t just start sticking pictures, you need to have a vision of what you are making. Once you are clear then you start collating relevant pictures, and after that you organise all the pictures, so that you know how it will look like. Click a picture of that or make markings for reference. That’s it, take out the glue and let your creativity flow. It is not that difficult.