Tag Archives: People

People, sketchbook, travels

More people watching

Here’s another trip from last year. I’m one of those people who always reaches early for flights, and now you know why…

Traveling is such a great time to draw. So many people of different kinds and origins in one place.

Also random thoughts: How much does the mouth extend when you yawn? I can feel it but not really observe it.

On this particular day I may have been feeling quite charitable:

Drawing is a way to observe, Watch without judgement. I think you can see the empathy in the lines when you have drawn without prejudice…”

More people watching in airports: Travelers (Del-Mun 2013), Airport people (CPH 2010), More airport people (Del-Hel 2010), Flying (Del-SFO 2017), and the more recent People watching in Kolkata and Own your presence Bengali 2020.

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sketchbook

People watching in Kolkata

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.

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Food

A new year

What better way to welcome the new year if not with food and drink. I’m sure the Anteater would agree. From the last 2 years I found that food has been such a recurring theme – If I’ve not Instagrammed it, I’ve probably drawn it.

Here’s a “rare” family Friday dinner. My in laws were visiting and we went to Amalfi in GK2.

Here’s the food I ate on a quick weekend trip to visit my family in Kolkata. I always think that love in Indian families is all about food. Most of us didn’t grow up with verbal articulations of love, and we demonstrate our love, especially in families, by cooking for and feeding our loved ones.

Most of the food below was made by my Ma and Chhotoma.

“Whoever eats fish curry with roti?”

Said my mother

I gained 2 kilos with all that love!

This is a drawing I made while eating by myself and reading a poem one day. I forgot what I was eating and I can’t even remember the poem, but I enjoyed it enough to draw about it!

What if I could gather all the people who taught me to love around my dinner table? We would drink coffee and eat pizza.

Antara would be chopping onions because she’s always doing something, and whenever I chop onions I think of her. Snehasis would be listening to his wife and observing the world to make fun of them later. Ananya would be under the table reading because she doesn’t always like to socialise. Lekha would be sitting quietly and smiling in happiness. Atul and Reshmy would be having some long and complicated conversation where they would both not be listening to the other. Viv would be drawing happily. I forgot to draw Orin but he is the one person who forced his way into my life and made me love him.

Dinner of love stories

Let’s hope 2019 is all this, and more.

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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.
stranger

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.
social encounters

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.
mishtaanirudh

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

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People

People

One of my friends, Jedi collects people. He has a huge number of really cool and interesting friends and he likes to mix them in different combinations to spark off the most diverting reactions. It’s great fun. I made some really great friendships from some of those mixes of Jedi’s.

And these days when I sketch from life, it really feels like I’m “collecting” people. I don’t draw just anyone, but people with interesting faces, or gestures or if I feel they could be a real “character”! The brown boy and I often have competitions when we draw from life. For instance, we’ll pass someone on the road or in a shop who looks really intriguing to us. And immediately we’ll try to draw that person from memory and see who’s done the better job. If you know the brown boy, you would know that most of the time he’s the one who wins the challenge. But sometimes it’s me.

Here’s a random selection of people I’ve collected over the last three months. I drew this in the office cafetaria.

April-weekday

 

 

This, in a meeting at work. The thing is, if you know the people, it’s not really a collection. Drawing is then merely a way to recede from the present.Marches05

 

 

This one, at Nehru Place Metro Station, my favourite place to sketch these days.

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The next few were drawn at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Khan Market.

May-weekend2

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May-weekend4

 

 

 

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Life, People, sketchbook

Doing what you love

If you’re like most creative people, you probably have a latent desire to do what you love for a living. The other day my friend Sumeet and I were talking about the very same thing –
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TRANSCRIPT
The mistake that people make when they start to do something the love, is that they start equating that with success. But that’s not right – when you start doing something you love, your goals should be self-awareness, self esteem, the joy of work, and finally, creativity through play. Then, if success comes from that, very good. But if not, at least you enjoyed yourself and probably learned a little about yourself in the process.

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