Often during the work week I am terribly challenged finding a few minutes to draw, so you can imagine that on Friday evenings I have all these pent up drawings just struggling to be expressed.
But then of course there’s the household calling or your energy levels need bolstering…
But then, there’s always revival after the end – and I usually make a memento.
I spent the week with the early sketchbooks and it was nice to be able to join the dots and see how I found my creative voice. I was cute, so innocent and honest – it’s really endearing. Of course there were periods of confusion, loss of identity – but I’m still here. (Yay for WordPress!) So grateful to be able to draw…Thank you universe.
Throughout the summer I read Letters from Tove and dreamt about fjords.
This is where I’m going next.
A couple of months ago I was invited to give a talk to the students of JKLU.
Here are my notes as I was thinking of the content for the talk. As usual, I was supervising some mealtime or the other.
Of course not all of this went into the final presentation. The final talk was well received by the students and they asked really great questions. Here are a couple of the slides.
This is what I heard later: “Soo was so good! So informative but presented with an ease of informality. Loved the sketches.” “Soo cut across generations with her storytelling.” I enjoyed it too and thank you for listening.
Those weird lockdown days were strange, so strange…and while the world was coming undone this song by 10,000 Maniacs was playing on loop in my head. I was feeling lucky, so lucky, and still so thankful for every single moment.
“I should probably tell you there’s never a happy ending in your life.”
“Just go quietly when it’s time to die.”
A trip back to my childhood home in Kolkata is always a bit disorienting for me.
Home: A constant reorientation of the self. Peeling back all the skins from the past.
In between all the usual socializing, I try to carve out some time to sit and draw the Bengalis, and secretly make snide comments into my sketchbook.
Thinking, how some people are totally unprepared for such close inspection. Including me of course. Flury’s, one afternoon in June 2018.
These are the clothes that will make me happy when I wear them
And also be cool while talking about books in a pink sweater which is a real challenge
But, have you ever wanted to buy vegetables in Amalfi in a red dress? I have…
And if you ever came to visit when I was wearing this pink flamingo shirt, I would totally let you in…
Some of you may know that I’ve had this blog for nearly 15 years. The earliest post was May 2006. Here’s a post from those hot summer days when Delhi was baking and I was sitting in our top floor walk-up in East of Kailash, using our old Windows desktop to write those posts. This is the first one with the anteater –
who was going to be one of the characters in an alphabet book I was illustrating at the time. At the time I really didn’t want to be a designer and only wanted to illustrate children’s books, and didn’t even know how important this anteater is going to become in my life!
Here’s another book I illustrated at the time, which someone has even made into a read aloud story on Youtube!
Anyway I was trying to remember what I was doing ten years ago in September 2010 – it’s only been a decade but feels like a generation in the age of the world. I had just returned from Sweden and had probably started working in TIL by then. By September I had found my groove with drawing again, and was as usual worrying about inspiration, drawing and happiness in Creative block and Being happy.
Finally when I read Plato and Platypus walk into a bar in 2016 it all made sense for me…
inktales 