Life, sketchbook

Letters Home

This is a series that begins from 2014, drawings that I wasn’t able to share until now, until I was able to grow a necessary sense of detachment from then.

01: Frontispiece

Looking back, I must have been terribly grumpy when I started this book! Was I not drawing the happy memories from that time? Was I only using the sketchbook to work out my darknesses?
letters home 01

02: Wednesday

letters home 02

“The whole day. It really wasn’t bad. I was doing my own idea and it was going well. But there’s this utter sense of discontinuation that is no one’s doing.

I guess I am always meant to be a loner among peers.

I miss a lot of people who are away. And wish we could go on a holiday.”

03: Feels like someone else’s life

letters home 03

“That body I must take care of. At least I’ve lost this need to be cool. You must be so happy, and I a different person. Feels like it’s someone else. Oh this bloody heat!”

A little clue that I had just become pregnant then. And scared of children, scared of giving birth and scared of being a mother!

04: Another Sunday

Why was I making such a big deal about being pregnant? You know half the country can get pregnant, since they have the necessary apparatus. In my case, though I didn’t smoke in college (because I wanted to have a healthy baby when I was 25) I never really wanted to have children. I did not like them, I was scared by their non-verbal communication, and intimidated by the general unpredictability. However sometime around my thirties I started being more open to the possibility, probably because we started acquiring nieces and nephews, and the brown boy is a complete and utter baby person. Around 8 weeks, I finally started getting more used to the idea that I was growing a new human being!

pregnancy_00

Another Sunday that I spent mostly in my own head. Thinking a lot about my 30-year-old relationship with my body. And my imagination reducing slowly but surely.

I should be happier, I know. So many good things are happening.

05: Monday

Friends are such a great support. Here’s Anitha:

preg 01

Anitha: Do things that make you happy.

Me: But what? So hard to find something like that…

Anteater: Or you’re already doing happy things, like me?

06: 8 weeks baby hungry little tadpole

pregnancy_02

Helpful books, advice and food from 2pie and Snehasis.

People, sketchbook

Encounters of the human kind

When I was younger I was dead scared of talking to people. I used to be terribly quiet and painfully awkward in social situations – but over the last few years circumstances have made me more open to human contact. Here are a few such encounters worth recording.

“I would love to see your blog! Can I meet you in Noida?” said a beautiful stranger in a lovely blue dress at the airport. But of course we didn’t.

One day in the office cafeteria I ate sandwiches with Jabba the Hut who I used to be scared of, years ago when I’d joined Adobe. And promptly remembered the quotation…
jabba

Some days every encounter is unique enough to remember.

But there are some that really stand out and I make sure to draw them before I forget.

Here’s a lovely conversation I had with Ripul, in Bangalore last year, which was interesting though we had crossed paths decades ago, we had never really “met” in person! Among other things, we talked about design and business, the power of networks, our graduate studies, and our respective employers.
ripul

Then, a few months ago I spent a day with dear friends Mishta and Anirudh, who influence me greatly, then and now, and I had to quickly catch that time on paper before it was lost.
mishta anirudh

But the best encounters, conversations, meals have been with these people, around this mythical table…even if some of them are not in my life anymore… dinner

People, sketchbook

Phil

It’s almost a year ago that I became a Design Manager at Adobe. Like everything in my life I took it very seriously and questioned the life out of the role.

On a trip back to the mothership, I met with Phil Clevenger, Design Director. Here’s some advice he had for me, among others, that I immortalized in drawing:

[Phil]

“Do something that keeps you happy everyday.”

And this is one for the dark days, when you’ve done all you can:

“Cut yourself some slack. Let some people go.”

sketchbook, travels

Flying

When I travel, I usually have two choices: to stress or to philosophize. To counter the effects of the the first, I start drawing, and thus ensues the second without any conscious effort.

Airports: The best places to watch and draw people. The placelessness alleviated by signs of culture in the food and in the washrooms, voices, customs, signage. Rushing about doesn’t help in drawing and got a few new white hairs from Lufthansa’s delayed flights.

Airports_spread_b

I was reading Reclaiming Conversations by Sherry Turkle and engaging in a lot more conversation with fellow travelers.

“I am on my sabbatical” and negotiations on the cost of holidays.

“I’m going to a conference on the future of printing – not on paper.”

“I like to take a shower between connecting flights.”

“Hey! You can’t break the line because you’re going to miss your flight!” said a spiffy but rude first class traveler going to Chicago and Atlanta.

“I go to Gymnasium” said a seven year old Nicolas from Germany, who was traveling all by himself.

I was thankful to get some peace and time to sit and draw and be at one with myself.

Airports_spread

Airports_spread_z

In Munich I had currywurst and coffee and thought about judgement:

“Judgement is an escalator. Easy but avoidable.”

Airports_spread_y

After a point, the drawing, the relative imprisonment, and the food and drink always forces me to take some well-earned rest.

This time however I was looking forward to some cheese that did not materialize.

Airports_spread_a

On the way back I was lucky enough to get an extremely amusing companion who made me laugh the entire journey.

And as always so happy to return home and be reunited with the brown boy and our little tornado.

Airports_spread_x

Life, Reflection, sketchbook

Parenting, and your sense of self

parenting

Transcript

Getting out of your comfort zone always brings with it a loss of identity and the last one for me was becoming a parent. Suddenly you’re thrown to the deep end, everything around you, losing the floor beneath your feet. Not only your body, your hormones, your sense of time and also your relationships, your mental makeup, your creativity and your sense of self. Everything you knew how to do, suddenly becomes harder. On non-existent, like creativity. Or sleep. It’s easy to hide behind the baby – but you really owe it to yourself to get it back or you might lose it forever. 18062017.

sketchbook

Back again

I never left drawing, but I did find it difficult to share drawings after my pregnancy. Not sure where that came from. Was it a loss of self, a disconnect from the past, a need for solitude?

Perhaps I’ll never know for sure. But here’s the latest sketchbook:

Life, sketchbook

“There’s always resurrection after tragedy”

There’s a constant tussle between the anteater and me – he with his Stoic outlook in life and me with my existential angst. But then again, he has answers for every situation in life – which can be useful if you’re not given to much reflection.

So people like me, seek out the one with the answers – there’s time yet for the ones with questions.

anteater_20161107_1 anteater_20161107_2