At the ends of long days what a pleasure it is to sit and draw…
Category Archives: Life
Although I cannot see your face
Honestly who would have thought that we would spend a quarter of a year in physical isolation from each other. A story to recount in my old age.
And speaking of old age. Umberto Eco once wrote that books are the most robust format of content transmission that we have seen over centuries, and so that if nothing else, my sketchbooks would probably survive till my old age at least, and I will look back on these days and laugh…
"Although I cannot see your face As you flip these poems awhile Somewhere from some far off place I hear you laughing - and I smile..." Shel Silverstein
Weekend ritual
Ever since we have been together the brown boy and I have spent a few hours a weekend with a ritual of drawing and drinking coffee.
One way to get through these new lifestyle changes has been to keep to our rituals and find sanity in those moments of calm and pleasure. Hope you’re having a restful weekend.
Be allowed to be broken…
These lockdown weekends we get to share our tastes with each other. One weekend morning we watched Maira Kalman videos on Youtube.
Be allowed to be broken and go on anyway…
she said
Words to remember as we try to restore our sanity and get on with life. And Orin really enjoyed Cake, one of her lovely short films which is really a book.
Another Saturday we watched Cars. I remember really loving the character design in the past but I was so dismissive of the movie when it came out, saying “It’s just for four-year-olds!” I laugh at those words now, having seen Agastya go through his Cars phase and also Orin.
‘It’s not Mack Truck Amma, it’s a truck called Mack.”
says he.
And then one evening we were talking about lizards.
Lunch in 3 parts
This is from my lockdown journal, the usual day at work and eating lunch between meetings, but we had sandwiches that day!
And it was yum 🙂
Happy Friday folks!
Nobody but you, reminds the anteater
This was drawn some years ago…in the early confusion of a new role. It’s quite common when you’re in a situation like that, to not know what to do – the challenges are new and how should you be in the role is also unclear.
It’s ok to ask mentors and advisors but ultimately it’s you yourself who has to identify the goals, figure out the next steps and take decisions. Of course I know all this now…
Good thing I had the anteater to keep me grounded.
And in the end it’s nobody but you…
That practice of hugging
My sister and I were utterly confused about this practice of hugging for most of our life. We had many questions. We grew up in Kolkata where no one knew about hugs. And why would we…
Transcript: We the Basu sisters were so alient to the concept of hugging. And why would we? Who would want to hug hot sweaty Bengalis all the time? And then how close is close? I mean does “close” have to be reciprocated in distance? What if someone thinks they are closer than you think you are…
And then which body part do you hug? I have no choice but to hug tummies, being super short.
But when I met this boy, who really enjoys hugging, and this little thunderstorm who is a bony little hugger, I had to tolerate it sometimes. But apart from these two, I am hugely grateful to social isolation. No more random social hugs! As my friend Toinks says “Do namaste instead”!
Full Circle Bookshop closes
One of our favorite places in Delhi, Full Circle Bookshop in Khan Market closed down due to the lockdown. I loved their curation, and spent hours every week browsing through it’s shelves.
This drawing is from my last visit there in Feb2020.
Lockdown diaries
Like most people who draw/sketch I filled up a lot of my time drawing.
Here are my sketchbooks from 2020. The red one is from Jan-Feb, when I wasn’t drawing at all, and I started the green one when lockdown started in March.
Things were of course very worrying and unsettling…
But did you know that these stages are not linear? I was so grateful for being able to work from home, having my favorite people around me and countless other things, when so many around us were suffering…
Anyway the one thing we did to keep a semblance of normality was “always the same little things in the same order and then the day can start”…
like eating breakfast…and finding ways to keep our spirits up.
Ate noodles for dinner and found TS Eliot thinking about home:
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated… …a lifetime burning in every moment…We must be still and still moving
So in the pursuit of stillness…
and birds flying north.
The transformational power of a book
Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead was one such transformational force that changed my life when I read it in 2013.
Sometimes in your life you happen to read the right book at the right time. and when that happens, there is a transformation. Up until then in my career there was a lack of women role models…
…and therefore no awareness of possibilities for the working mother.
Through her stories I understood it’s possible to have a career and be a mother, that workplaces can provide support structures, and so can the people in your life.
And that’s how I stopped holding back and took on the opportunities coming my way. Hope, optimism and possibilities – that’s how Lean in inspired me at a crucial time at a moment in my life…and I leaned in towards discovery.
inktales 
