One Pitcher

Lamppu

2026-01-24T07:08:00.002+05:30

Yes, the title is in Finnish. It could also be in Kannada (or Kanglish, rather).

This might represent my move from Bangalore to Helsinki in late 2024.

The apartment we moved into was completely bare, and was missing even electrical fixtures. Thus for a while, I was able to see the northern lights from every room:

Aurora boreaLED at 60°N

While I was ready to stoically accept this lifestyle, it was brought to my notice that a lampshade was needed. I set about working on it, first by acquiring a second hand frame:

Making it easy for myself as always

I decided to upcycle the colourful milk cartons that we were otherwise throwing away (after consuming the milk of course). To avoid any other materials being used, I thought cutting strips and weaving through the frame would be a simple way to cover it. After a few no-goes, I worked out a pattern that left me a basket-case:

Houston, weave got a problem

The weave required a continous strip, which was managed using stapled joints at planned intervals. The joints were made explicit rather than hidden, because structural expressionism.

Staple and peautiful

Next were the lower squares. These were discrete, and could not use a continuous weave. I worked out a simpler back-and-forth winding for these:

Between the squares were the bottom triangles. Some mik cartons come with caps, which stay on even after unscrewing due to plastic waste disposal directives in the EU. I thought centering the cap in each triangle would create a dramatic pattern and reinforce the expression of the milk carton as structure.

The first trial was done using the same light blue carton, but I shifted to a red carton for some contrast. I had to work out a template to cut the exact shape of strips, the only place where this was needed.

Finally a single carton was used to cover the gap at the top and allow the cable to ascend to the ceiling rose. I worked out a custom weave here which crowned the structure (note the 'rubies').

The final effect is quite pleasant from above and below.

While the process sounded logical and sequential, it was actually discontinuous and slow, and took me ALMOST A YEAR. It's position was briefly threatened by some IKEA riffraff:

Pitting Indians against Indians. Typical

P.S: This still holds, although the reason I may have no beer now is because it agrees less with me.

Cannibal Cloths

2026-01-24T03:30:00.004+05:30

The distance from onepitcher might be simply because it has stopped agreeing with me. Consider my absence one long hangover, during which time I unfaithfully traversed other forms of media - Instagram, Youtube, and even – horror of horrors – the written word. However, at long last, I'm back, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt*:

This isn't just any t-shirt, little one! It's an organ donee - the pocket comes from an older tee that was on its way out. You see, I now need spectacles for reading, the glasses performing the functions of making me older, and visor. But since I don't need them all the time, I needed somewhere to slip them in. At the same time, my old graphic tees (many of them of long beloved metal bands) were faded, stretched out or torn, though not as much as I was about tossing them out. So I made a pocket-template and started selecting bits of the old tees and hand-stitching them on to new blank tees.

The result: Brand new tees with one-of-a-kind graphics and a pocket for my glasses. Once I figured out a workflow, I used the services of a local tailor in the very interesting but ramshackle Arihant Plaza building. A few more examples below, since you couldn't be bothered to click to a separate folder in this day and age.

*The concept being so lousy that the Wikipedia article is deleted but the discussion is retained as a reminder for future gimmicists (gimmnasts?)

Team Building

2023-06-24T08:42:00.003+05:30

The Insufferable Inderjit piped up in the team building meeting:

“Individually, we are like fingers on a hand”,

holding his hand up with fingers outstretched,

“We have some use but are weak."

Then he balled his hand up:

“But if we unite, we are capable of great and powerful things”,

and proudly held up a fist.

That smartass Siddharth had to say:

“A slap's pretty powerful too."

The Insufferable Inderjit couldn't leave this challenge unmolested:

“Okay, you slap me as hard as you can, and then I'll punch you as hard as I can, and we'll see the power of teamwork.”,

as if them beating each other up in the meeting room proved anything about teamwork.

Siddharth was a skinny guy, so he put all his effort into a slap that they later said they heard down in the pantry. Inderjit collapsed, and the idiot never got up again. The slap had struck some sensitive nerve or blood vessel at an unfortunate angle, killing him instantly. Siddharth's still doing time in Parappanna Agrahara for involuntary manslaughter...

We got rid of an Insufferable Idiot and a Smartass in one team building meeting.

Metaphors were banned in office for a while though.

The Blanket Bubble

2021-04-05T00:27:00.002+05:30

I had an idea for a comic strip where a man (drawn, of course, as me) is asleep in bed under a blanket, when he is awakened by what he thinks was a tiny meow.

He half sits up in bed and sees a little bump under the blanket near his hip.

With some alarm, he notices that the bump is moving up towards his face, and he tenses, preparing for what creature might emerge from beneath.

The final panel was to reveal that the bump was in fact a fart bubble that he had created himself, which blows out into his face when it reaches the edge of the blanket.

I was never able to accurately put down this idea into a satisfying visual form, and so this post languished from - wait, let me check - January 2012 until now!

If you still are subscribed in some way to this blog, congratulations - the perseverance paid off (?).

The real joke, of course, lies in the fact that even if I was lying awake in bed and knew what gaseous devilry was underway*, I'd still check to see how bad it was. Just in case you were going to turn your nose up at that*, the oldest known joke is also toilet humour:

"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: A young woman did not fart in her husband's lap" - Sumerian proverb, 1900BCE

Notice that after 3900 years, I've managed not to directly use the f-word*, unlike those fucking Sumerians. Now that's evolution; it seems a celebratory acrostic is in order:

Fetid are you, when

Leaving silently; you are

Anonymous.

Torturing noses of us

Unsuspecting tearful crowd.

Loud are you; when

Exiting violently, you are

Near-ominous.

Confusing those of us

Expecting a fearful cloud.

Excuse me.

*all puns unintended, but they just slipped out*

Black Iceberg Part I

2017-11-26T22:07:00.002+05:30

The black iceberg hovered motionlessly above the yellow sea.
It wasn't really hovering, but it seemed like that because 11/12ths of it floated above the surface. It defied most laws of physics that icebergs usually follow.
It maintained a steady temperature several degrees above freezing - it even looked warm.
Neither was it hard enough to crack the hull of a ship open, although this is not something any decent iceberg would boast about.

It wasn't much of an iceberg, but one couldn't really say it was anything else. Once in a while, its crystals would shift deep inside due to some minor change in temperature. On these occasions, it would let out a distinctly iceberg-like sound, something like a groan - mmrrooaaaaahh! Yes, there was no doubt it was a black iceberg.

While casting these doubts on the berg-ness of the black iceberg, you might have noticed I didn't say much about the sea-ness of the yellow sea. This is because one couldn't really conclude that it was a sea. In calm weather - like it was that day - the sea is so still that it might just be a desert. You could only tell which it was by dipping your hand into it. Your sense of smell would be of no use, since there are such things as salt deserts, which I am told smell of salt as well. Without a personal dip test, the placid shifting of the surface might just be sand sliding lazily across flattened dunes. It didn't help that the sea was yellow.

I only assume it was a sea because there was a black iceberg in it.

Above the black iceberg, the sun shone warm white (which is a shade of yellow). The iceberg showed no sign of melting. Instead, it slowly turned in place until its largest surface pointed straight at the heat source. Of course, it did this without motive or deliberation; it was just a black iceberg, incapable of such scheming. It moved in the same way a boulder rolls down a hill one day of its own accord. The yellow sea did not resist, except for a few ripples, that seemed to stay in place rather than disappear after a while. The sun did not mind either, although a biased observer might say it shone a little harder at this cheeky display. The change in temperature on its surface shifted the black iceberg's crystals deep inside - mmmrrrroooaaaaahhh!

This latest groan was loud enough to wake me up.

No, this is not one of those fantastic tales where it turns out everything was a dream at the end, although those warrant a groan as well. What I meant was, I was lying asleep in my boat, and the black iceberg's groan woke me up as I floated nearby. I had to take in everything I have described thus far in a matter of seconds. The dull ache in my head distracted me from the possibly unusual scene. When you've spent enough time on the sea, you get used to a continuous head cold from all the moisture in the air. That morning was only my second week on the water, and the heavy feeling in my skull took up a lot of my attention.

As I said, the black iceberg wasn't even hard enough to crack the hull of a ship open. My little boat had escaped without any damage, even though it must have bumped up against the black iceberg more than once before I woke up. Though I had fallen asleep in the boat at sea last night, I did the dip test to check if this yellow expanse was still a sea - it was. I steered my boat close enough to jump onto the black iceberg, since I didn't want to get wet, and was tired of the boat.

A black iceberg of the right shape could easily be mistaken for a shark fin from a distance. This is because in the high seas, there are no objects nearby to compare the size of something. Anyway, in the case of a shark fin, there would be no objects nearby - at least not for long. The black iceberg I was about to climb onto was of the wrong shape, or perhaps its shape was the one I should call right. It was rounded at all edges, looking more like a black ice-cream than a black iceberg. In mid-hop, I was busy wondering what flavour a black ice-cream might have - grape? cola? liquorice? All these flavours existed, but none looked as black as the black iceberg.

It was inevitable that I would lick the black iceberg after this - it was flavourless, just like ice. Unlike ice, it was much warmer, and black of course, but as if sensing the fresh doubts arising in my mind, it let out another groan - mmrrrooooaahhh! Yes, there was no doubt it was a black iceberg.

The bending over to lick the black iceberg had moved the heaviness about in my head. The fresh assault of pain resulting from this, coupled with the deafening sound, kept me on my knees. I decided not to resist and flattened out, face down.

I hadn't only jumped onto the black iceberg for a change of scene. The fresh water supplies on my boat were almost over. Floating up to an iceberg in the middle of the sea, even a black one, is like a well tunneling its way toward you in the desert. I wondered if there was some way I could tether it to my boat, and tow it along behind me. Since only 1/12th of it was in the water, it seemed like this could be done pretty easily. I mentally ticked off what I would need - a long metal spike, a hammer and a length of rope.

I had none of these. Before the current picked up, I would have to scrape off what I could into the water bottles on the boat, and leave the black iceberg behind.

I thought about this with my face down in the black iceberg. I couldn't be sure whether it was melting where my warm breath fell on it, or if it was just pressing down with the weight of my face. Either way, the position was not uncomfortable, with a depression that allowed my nose to point straight down. At that moment, in the middle of a yellow sea, I thought I'd much rather be on this black iceberg than that boat.

No one was around to hear me say it. This was probably the first time those words had been spoken together in a sentence. Then I realised I had only said it in my head. The thought had perhaps been audacious enough to sound loud as well. My cheeks and lips worked against the black ice as I mouthed the words this time. My eyes were closed, but this was a new kind of darkness. No red glow outside my eyelids, nor the dark kaleidoscope of pulsing blood vessels on the inside. There were no sounds, only a private communication (with whom?) that a decision had been taken. Deep inside the black iceberg, its crystals started to shift. It was time to get up.

I bent my elbows and placed my palms flat on the black ice on either side, preparing to push myself away. It felt like an infinite amount of energy was required to perform the next step - it was - but I managed after a few false starts. The blood rushed away from my head with the sudden lift, taking the ache with it temporarily. After a while, I could hear the yellow sea as it slid under the black iceberg. I started to open my eyes, only to realise they were already open. The darkness had just not gone away.

The heaviness returned to my head, but this was almost welcome as my mind spun with questions. The black iceberg groaned - mrrrroooahhh! - the sound was gentler now. The difference in temperature between the black iceberg's surface and interior must have reduced. There was a possibility that the sun had set while I was lying face down. This might just be a moonless, starless night I had awoken into. Not content with this wishful thinking, I crawled towards the edge of the black iceberg. I had to wash whatever must have got into my eyes. I cupped my hands in the yellow sea - was it still yellow? - and splashed the water onto my face. It had no effect. I rubbed my eyes until it felt like the lids would shear off, but no light came through.

My breath seemed to fill a void that was the sea and sky combined. The sound and touch and smell and taste of it didn't matter. The sea was yellow and the sky was warm white, but now they could be either - now they could be neither. The black iceberg was a crystallised (but not very hard) piece of this void, slowly turning in place. I was a directionless point on its surface. I only assume we were turning because the faint sound of splashing entered the periphery of my hearing.

The sound filled me with an irrational feeling. The current must have picked up, and a pitch black night might actually have fallen. And it had brought the boat with it. The boat was the last familiar thing I had experienced that day. As the splashing came closer, I felt a strong urge to touch it again. I skirted the edge, with one arm brushing the slightly warm surface and the other outstretched. The boat would save me, my vision would return as soon as I got on it, this darkness would dissolve and the sun would be shining again.

I was reminded of the first time I saw a pool as a child. I had jumped straight in to the deep end, exhilarated by the sight. It was the first time I was completely submerged, the whole world changed to the sound of shimmering and the burn of chlorine. This was followed by a heavy calm, as the pool rushed in at me from all sides, my instinctive thrashing too feeble to stop it. I would have drowned if my father hadn't plucked me out in time. Later, I was confused that something so inviting and unopaque could have smothered me to death. As a result, instead of developing a fear of water, I was intrigued by it, which only increased its attraction for me. This might explain why I was in the middle of a yellow sea, headache notwithstanding.

I tried to decide what had jogged this memory - the boat, that would rescue me like my father had, or the waters, that seemed to have lured me to betray me again. I stopped and listened, pausing between breaths to identify the direction the splashes were coming from. They still seemed faint. No - that would mean the movement was either far off or gentle. This sounded more like something muffled. Like something drowning.

My still outstretched hand snapped back at this recognition. I knew now where the memory had come from. The splashes began to sink below the surface, but I could still feel the vibrations from beyond. They were less erratic, modulated by the viscous water. I wondered if I should or could jump in to help. The cliche of other senses heightening when one fails was only partly true. Not enough to risk leaving the black iceberg on a blind rescue mission (to rescue whom?). It felt oddly like someone was leaving me to my fate, rather than the other way around. I shouted out into the darkness. The effect was so sudden and jarring that I stopped short, not even registering what I had said. It just seemed like a loud incoherent sound, that was immediately swallowed up by the void. There was no echo, because there was nothing for the sound to bounce off, except the black iceberg itself.

Beliefs 02: Such A Lonely Word

2016-09-04T01:48:00.001+05:30

Here we are, months from the previous post, and I make my unawaited comeback with another serious (yawn!) post on my beliefs!

Some background: An abridged version of Abraham Lincoln's biography that I read when I was very young had a profound impact on my appreciation for honesty. Though it isn't a quality always respected in society, especially here in India, it is closely linked to integrity, which is. Another early push in this direction was an incident where I joked about a particular uncle lying about something, and his nieces immediately said "He never lies". I think he was brought up in some ashram that way, but the point is, that kind of trust in another person's honesty blew me away. I made a mental note that I'd be a "He never lies" kind of man myself.

This doesn't mean I was a Mahatma Gandhi from a tender age; I lied when it was easier to do so (though not much) for more than a decade after these events, but eventually came round to the 100% honesty track. The quality is most often tested when an opinion is asked for, or an admission is to be made - an understanding set of friends and family helps in the initial stages of this. My modified approach is to speak only when required, to minimise situations where I get into trouble for telling the truth. Trust me (ha ha), honest people are feared and disliked often, which flies directly in the face of my ~~occasional~~ regular need for attention and to be ~~liked~~ adored. I balance this by sometimes shamelessly self-promoting the fact that I never lie; since it's the truth, I don't feel so bad about it.

There are perks - respect, trust, and the potential to get away with blatant large LIES at some point (not that I will). The only failures so far are time-related - usually accepting a deadline and grossly missing it - there's still work to be done. I'll get back to you on that in a week.

Like any other belief, there is no rational basis for full honesty; the choice is an invitation for more struggle than one would otherwise need to face. Even so, I think I am far more committed to this than in minimising cruelty - a not-so-comforting statement about my preference for fact over feelings. Like the previous post on vegetarianism, sharing my personal code is partly an attempt to win people over to my point of view, since most of my beliefs survive better in a climate of agreement.

Don't worry, there aren't many more, I swear.

Uncanny! Strikes Back

2015-12-21T16:38:00.002+05:30

If you've been following the news in India this past year, you'd get a sense that there seems to be a lot of anger in the air. This reminds me of a certain Dr.Banner.

When things don't go his way, he gets angry. And you wouldn't like him when he's angry; he transforms from a normal individual into a large, angry, violent mass. At this point, reasoning with him is useless, you'd better just get out of the way until things cool down.

Did I mention he gets bigger the angrier he gets?

This affliction started when he was exposed to a dangerous sort of chemical radiation (vitriol?). After the initial exposure, it doesn't take much to initiate the transformation again.

Maybe it WAS something on the radio

As you can see, there is no specific colour for Dr.Banner's alter ego - saffron, green, blue, anything is possible. His education and profession are immaterial as well.

Unfortunately, even when things do go his way, he is still, as his name suggests, a banner. You can't win with this guy.

Hulk is the strongest one there is.

Comic Stripper 06: Water Cartoon! Show

2015-11-23T18:34:00.003+05:30

The latest comic competition held by IDC in Mumbai as part of their conference on sustainability with a "focus on water" led to these two. If you've been following the Comic Stripper series (here, here, here, here and here), you'll know that I try out a style and then forget about the meaning I was trying to convey, stubbornly sticking to the final product even if it doesn't make much sense.
The simple storyline of a fish throwing garbage out of the water as revenge for humans polluting the oceans is lost to anyone who sees this Japan-influenced single panel entry:

Of course, the irony of chewing synthetic gum is lost on that fish

Anyway, this was my second entry, the first one was a simpler attempt at a paper cut-out look, using stock cowboy vectors and a lazy punchline:

I would have used the word "shit" instead of "stuff" if I had my way

Notes:

Do
Re
Mi (couldn't resist)
The second comic (which has been shown here first, just to make things ~~dramatic~~ difficult) was more of a forced attempt to make at least one more idea. Since it didn't come naturally, I felt the need to "dress it up", of course, further obscuring the joke. Ah well.
The first one was the result of some day dreaming, like the more random one-joke strips of Calvin and Hobbes that I enjoy. I trust those kind of ideas instinctively, and don't bother as much about the finish. As much.
I also broke out of monochrome, with no idea how, so I lifted the whole colour palette and patterning of the Japanese-style one from a simple Google search, but I don't think some dead guy from 100 years ago would mind. The skin tone and expression on the woman's face was directly inspired from this image of Chitrangada Singh, since I felt an Indian character would be more relevant to a competition held in Mumbai. Plus, it's Chitrangada Singh.

Anyway, to balance all this self-deprecation, both comics were selected among a group of other finalists (=they won!), and will be exhibited at the conference and published. Details of that here.

Beliefs 01: Not Pleased to Meat You

2015-03-03T17:20:00.003+05:30

This blog doesn't see many serious posts, but then again, I take my humour seriously as well. I don't know how successful I'll be, but I've been wanting to write about belief systems, and mine in particular, as they are the irrational underpinnings to even the most rational person, and it's important to acknowledge them. This is the first of (hopefully) more to come:
While I still believe that "Life feeds on Life", and it is in the natural order of things for humans to be omnivorous, I find it hard to accept the cruel and inhuman (irony) ways in which animals are treated before they become meat.
With this mindset, I began quitting meat as a first step to do what I thought was ethical. Since June 2014, every three months, I quit one animal's meat; as of March 1, I do not eat chicken, pork and beef. By June 2015 I will stop eating mutton and lamb, following which I will be a piscetarian (seafood eater). While I may be uninformed, I believe the fish I eat lives a free and unhindered life in the sea/river right until its capture and death, which is the most you can hope for if you're going to be eaten. With a Coorg cultural background of intense non-vegetarianism, I felt three months per meat was a reasonable time to reconcile with this major change in my diet (also, a nice round figure of one year to achieve my aims).
I don't believe my attempt is the most ethical or absolute, but it's part of a sincere attempt to minimise the distance between what I know to be right and what I am doing about it. Since the underlying rationale in this change of diet was the opposition to the cruelty and lack of dignity of animals before their death, an interesting corollary is that I would still eat the meat of animal that I knew was not mistreated in its lifetime, meaning I am not becoming vegetarian. Of course, the more I know an animal in its lifetime, the less inclined I am to eat it (I don't know if the same goes for most people). The ethical questions of the egg and dairy industry remain (among others), but those'll be answered sooner or later ("Sooner!" cried Cow, until she was turned into a pair of shoes).
While this post is no attempt to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude, it is part of a larger realisation that it isn't enough to evolve and experiment with a rational and moral code for myself without letting everyone else also in on it as a viable alternative. While there may be a selfish motive behind it of creating a world I find more comfortable living in, I hope that in this case, most people would agree that a world with less cruelty and more respect for other species (and our own) would be more comfortable for everyone to live in.

Old School

2014-12-08T17:47:00.003+05:30

A recent offer to illustrate a magazine article for a friend's submission allowed me to expand on my favourite black-and-white lineless Sin-City-ish style. The illustrations of nostalgic objects from architecture college life were too low-detail for only black and white, and I naturally rebelled against adding lines to increase the complexity. Rather than add another solid colour, I decided to add a pattern, preferably one with a relation to the object being illustrated. In keeping with the nostalgic feel, I also deliberately misaligned the fills by a small amount like the human error in old prints (telling you that was the main reason for this post).

Each image had a 'state change', sort of like a before/after image which would alternate with a mouseclick in the digital version. The other images are in this folder, ~~along with other graphic artwork~~.

Neverendiwali

2014-11-15T18:45:00.001+05:30

Just when I thought Diwali was behind me, I was given another art commission - designing and printing some ten-days-late Diwali cards - but this blog was not about only posting my 'artworks' [sic][k], so let's rush through the rigmarole of golden-spiral and diya-turning-into-parrot's-beak-into-feathers-into-stars-into-fireworks and the pretentious capitalisation of Concept and the customary image...

My first digital painting

... and get to some real stuff: the odd sentence "But I want to know beforehand if thought can live in those deserts" from Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus set me on my own tangent about the meaning of life. Realising I was an atheist was the first step to questioning what belief systems truly matter as a basis for living; more and more things seem meaningless and hollow upon inspection, and life feels like an unending desert. People around me find meaning in their work, their families, their passions, but each of these are the mirages they are creating for themselves to avoid the scary reality of walking in shifting dunes forever. Slowly, they become one of the trees in this fake oasis they have created and take root in the desert, surrounded by the illusion of meaning, and oblivious of the irony. The longer they stay, the deeper their roots go, until it is fatal to try to uproot them from this mirage - so it is with people and their beliefs about what truly matters.
The question is, what is the alternative? While I search the desert for answers that do not exist, I maintain some contact with other human beings through work and play, not to take root with them, but to surround myself with real trees. They offer no answers, but their shade is comforting.
How do I end a philosophical musing which I am still in the midst of living out?

LD50

2014-10-27T13:12:00.004+05:30

Who'd have thought boredom and lack of beer would last this long - post number 50 is here, so whip out them firecrackers and let's parrrrr-take of some origami!

For Diwali, I was asked to make some boxes for sweets to be gifted - nothing large, purely a symbolic amount. Reviving some old origami interests, I looked for a box folding pattern, and found this easy one.

After making the box, I realised the square base of the box (or lid, depending on which way it's oriented) could serve as the starting sheet for any other origami item. I decided the traditional crane was the most familiar fold I could do with the constraints of being surrounded by a larger square.

If you haven't kept up with trends in origami, origami is no longer shown in step-by-step fashion like the previous links; instead, it's displayed as the opened-out pattern on the original square. Thus, the box and crane look like this respectively:

The dash-dotted and dashed lines are mountain and valley folds respectively - pretty basic origami notation for folds coming out at you or going in away from you.

By almost cutting out the square centre of the box, I could fit the (slightly modified) folding pattern of the crane as below:

Of course, this isn't how I folded it - I just made the cuts, folded the crane step-by-step, and then folded the box step-by-step - but let's stick to convention a bit. To my horror, when the lid is done, it isn't a square box any more, but a rhombus:

This would mean I would have to modify the base as well to fit inside the lid - gah!
On inspection of the original box fold, in order to distort the central square to a rhombus, one would effectively have to pull two opposite corners, and add and remove paper at the corners of compression and tension so that the opened-out pattern would sit flat. Deriving this wasn't as hard as I expected:

A purist would have derived it from a square, but I couldn't be bothered by folding away the extra bits of paper and adding to the thickness unnecessarily, so there you have it.
In order to give the box some stiffness and create a step between the lid and the base, I made two simple cardboard templates for insertion. The result:

Normal gift-wrapping paper was inexpensive, contextual and easy-to-fold; also, I could get it in the size I needed, which brings me to the sweets.
By coincidence, there is a rhombus shaped sweet (albeit a diamond instead of a lozenge) called a kaju katli that is both delicious and festive, and fit nicely into the box with a little space to insert greedy fingers, and 34 boxes later, I was DONE.

If you want to make your own box, here's the folding pattern, scaled to Ax paper size:

With a little work, you could figure out which part of the paper corresponds to different faces of the final box, and print out your own custom pattern along with the fold pattern.

If I had known one pitcher would last so long, I wouldn't have wasted a second.

Release the Painter

2014-09-10T18:41:00.001+05:30

My first bit of work after quitting my office job was a mural on the terrace of a residence in Bangalore. The surface itself was a long wall (with a metal door) and a short portion of the wall adjacent to it. The only brief provided by the owner was that the subject had to be a 'Tree of Life' in the style of Gond tribal artwork. While the surface patterning had a lot of potential, I decided to pay as little attention to this brief as possible.

My insincere interests in fractals, golden rectangles and the Fibonacci series and their relation to nature compel me to insert them covertly in a lot of my artwork, without fully knowing why. Here, the tree itself was a victim to this layer of 'meaning', with its branches splitting in a Fibonacci series radially outwards from the corner between the two walls.

Using rules to generate natural forms; for the opposite, go here

Since a Tree of Life needed some lively elements, I added a bird for kicks (an Indian Roller, the state bird of Karnataka), positioned above the door so that when it was opened, the door would be a piece of art on its own. The walls were coloured in contrasting 'day/night' hues to highlight the change in direction.

Even the bird protested against this version

Since the client basically wanted a 'pretty picture' done in the Gond style, they were happy enough with this.

BUT

I'm greedy for meaning, depth and other pretentious things in my artwork. The proportions of the painting reminded me of Picasso's Guernica, and I felt I had to at least attempt to inject some similar political commentary, especially given the interesting events in India in May 2014. The incumbent Congress government seemed on its way out, though matriarch Sonia Gandhi was attempting to install her ineffectual son Rahul as the next Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP party's strongman Narendra Modi was seemingly winning the electoral campaign single-handedly. In the midst of this, anti-corruption activist and blink-and-miss Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal added to the chaos with his Aam Aadmi Party.

The reworked mural design contained not only this storyline, but also seemed vastly improved in terms of composition.

I couldn't think of a good portmanteau for bird- and election-related words here

Though the owners know nothing of this, here are some notes, for the sake of my ego, which cannot keep a secret:

Mr.Modi's authoritarian style of government, coupled with a bloody riot in his state during his Chief Ministership 12 years earlier, had led to critics labelling him as 'Hitlerian'; nevertheless, he seemed to be having the last laugh and his day in the sun. I incorporated both of these in the design for the rooster at the left (note the strutting swastika inspired body structure).
The Congress mother-and-son duo formed the peahen and the peacock towards the centre; the egg-like form of the peacock referring to the popular perception of Mr.Gandhi being unable to fight his own political batttles.
Mr.Kejriwal's owl sits silently in the night, chastened after his perceived electoral blunder of stepping down from his chief-ministership a few months earlier. His night-watchmanlike vigilance in exposing other parties' corruption was still powerful enough to consider him a contender in the elections.

The final stroke of paint was applied three weeks later, and here's the result:

The leaves and branch on the door were left black to separate it from the wall

Each party's political symbol is hidden in the bird's plumage

I decided against painting the switchboard

For those who came in late: Mr. Modi's party won the election; he entered office as Prime Minster of India on 26 May, 2014.

La'dakh Knight

2014-06-25T22:36:00.001+05:30

This isn't a travel blog. I write here when I'm bored and there's no beer.
Nevertheless, I tend to travel to desolate places, and write about them on this blog. Leh is the latest on this list, with pretty much every type of landscape except a beach; even kicking your camera away in disgust would result in a great shot. I don't intend to bother anyone but my nears'n'dears with photos, but you can have a looksie at a sketch I did:

Leh Palace and Namgyal Tsemo Gompa in feel-good 4:3 format

As always, shooting my creative self in the foot found me with near-dry pens and cheap A4 paper, but I persevered nonetheless. I'm happier making little Frank Miller Sin City-like black and white compositions at the cost of recognisability, than a Hergé-esque ligne claire (which is what they look like initially). Two hours was about all I could spare, so that sketch better suffice, at least until the next arid destination.

Along with an unassisted pony ride up a rocky terrain, midnight rafting, and pitching a tent on the banks of a lake, partial credit for entertainment goes to the Border Roads Organisation and their witty road signs; one of them even inspired a t-shirt I got custom embroidered (this is possible):

Yes, 'RELLY'

On the way back, we discovered that we had only one of the two playing card packs we had carried, and the cards were mixed. To make a full pack, I got a little creative, if only to keep our sanity on a 36-hour train journey:

I found it impossible to keep a straight face with a drag-queen of hearts in my hand

If you like reposting images, please tell people I drew them. Not just these ones, I'd like to take credit for everything, I'm a harmless megalomaniac.

Transexualarm

2014-05-17T18:51:00.001+05:30

Since I don't want to sound like a complete offence-bomb (because I'm not - I think), I decided against presenting this idea like a spoof Indian Railways advert, and am just going straight-shooter:

If you're male and have travelled in a non-AC compartment of the Indian Railways train service, you may have encountered a transexual (my spelling; derogatorily called hijra) asking you for money, supposedly in return for blessings. Being a rationalist, I don't really give a dime for any sort of blessings, and I equate the act with the same disgrace of begging. But transexuals in India face discrimination also because of their identity and associated superstitions; members of the community attempting to integrate into society face harsh discrimination and many obstacles.

An otherwise eccentric faculty member from my college told us that if you have a problem, look for another problem to cancel it out. While it sounds like wishful thinking, I have noticed many times after that this is true (sadly, still often in retrospect). I noticed two problems here - passengers in trains getting harassed by transexuals trying to make a living, and the difficulty of waking up at unearthly hours like 5 a.m. to get off at the right station. If you've noticed the Indian Railways ticket booking website, there's a small check-box for considering for 'Auto-upgradation'* of your berth to a higher 'class'. This seems like a fanciful dream they're feeding us, with not enough benefit to enough passengers** to justify taking up so much screen real estate. I've replaced that area with a 'Transexualarm' booking option:

Here's a blow-up of the option:

Dare I say copyright?

Some of the 'options' may seem a little frivolous, but like I said, I had originally planned a spoof splash page, with a line-for-line replacement of the 'Auto-upgradation' option.

I see a couple of additional advantages here, apart from providing the members of this community with legitimate income, and passengers with a reliable wake-up call:

The service providers do not need to uproot themselves from their 'base of operations' and can operate in local unions employed by the Indian Railways, with some benefits.
This will encourage a more healthy professional interaction between members of the community and passengers, serving to dispel wrong notions held by society about transexuals, and encouraging acceptance and comfort.

I couldn't have made it less offensive than that.

* Yuck, two 'for's in a row

** Yuck, two 'enough's in a row

Comic Stripper 05 - Monkeying Around

2014-03-30T10:46:00.002+05:30

A comic competition on creating sanitation awareness in developing countries led to this:

Monkey 'Business'

The Breakdown:

The brief required breaking the taboo on talking about, well, SHIT. I was quite pleased with the just-about-but-not-too-subtle dialogue, though I didn't find it funny - ah well. Each monkey's line has something to do with their role, but now I'm just spoon-feeding.
The conscious choice to work in black and white (and grey!) led me to choose the langur as my model of choice for the monkeys. The black extremities and face made it easy to get away with zero lines, with just a few extra shadow fills to define the body and limbs.
I continue to worry about symmetry in composition; as with my first competition entry four years ago (in 2010), the speech bubble, if it can't be avoided, must play a visual part in addition to its communicative role. In this case, it pretty much carries the joke.

While the fly was added last minute to make the mute monkey's 'stench bubble' more obvious, in hindsight I would have placed the fly inside rather than hovering nearby. This would have provided the added option of interpreting the third monkey as making a buzzing noise in disgust, similar to the visual gag of a snoring person with a sawing log image in their speech bubble.

The Closest I Can Get

2014-03-29T13:17:00.002+05:30

In my last weeks of work, I was asked to help design another clubhouse, because of my experience in working on clubhouse detailing for the past TWO YEARS.
One of the components is a 'leisure pool', the kind you see fat people flopping about in, because swimming is for fools ("No wait, pools are for swimming, not vice versa";"I said 'fools', not pools"; "Oh").
As opposed to a lap pool, it is supposed to be curvy and 'organic'. In such situations, architects generally take design cues from a strong concept, or criteria such as views, privacy and access. I just decided to be inspired by 'Nature':

Fig 01: Site Plan - The pool had to fit in the long space north of the building

Fig 02: Ex-Miss Universe Sushmita Sen decides to drop by

Fig 03: I trace around her body, breaking out into a sweat in office

Fig 04: She leaves, with only a ghostly outline as evidence (was it just a dream?)

Fig 05: I 'rationalize' the curves

Fig 06: Leisure pool complete!

To the right of the leisure pool would come the straighter, less organic lap pool. Wait, did I just say 'lap'?

Updates are always a pain, unless they're like this:

@onepitcher And you have me smiling!!! :)) quite the architect!! Interesting design!! :)) cheers!
— sushmita sen (@thesushmitasen) April 3, 2014

The Cursed

2014-03-03T23:14:00.004+05:30

They sat apart, disgusted with the rest of the world that they looked down upon from their enlightened perch. They sat, because they saw nothing to stand for, nothing worth committing themselves to, except their own ideals, which had no use but to judge the world with.

While they sat, the world moved on, unmindful, precisely because it had no mind. They were aware of this, there was no way they couldn't be, and it was possible that this was at least partly the source of their disgust. There seemed to be no way of saving them, in fact, it was quite obvious they didn't consider themselves in need of saving, and perhaps they were right. There was no knowing, either way. It was much easier to let them be, however pathetic they might seem.

They were immortal, in that their rejection of this age and any other lent them a sort of detachment from time itself. They had no beginning worth tying themselves to, and no end worth fearing. Looking down at the oatmeal-coloured history of the world, they believed that they could see the distinct lack of pattern that everybody else had been content to wade in all their lives.

But they were also acutely conscious of their mortality in the more mundane sense of the word; their dialogue betrayed a sense of loneliness and acceptance of a fate quite terrible. The shared space they found themselves in gave them no sense of camaraderie, each sitting enamoured in a mirrored dome, and seeing only the desert with themselves in it.

Nothing surprised them any more, at least not since they realised that they knew everything - what they did not know must have simply not been worth remembering. The laughter and tears that seemed to make up the lives of those around them was met with scorn, although they could not be sure themselves if yearning was not mixed with it.

In this plane, courage had no place - the apparent sameness of all options removed the possibility of violent upheaval and the need to face or flee it. Looking at meaninglessness in the face required only the inability to feel despair, which came naturally to them.

In these circumstances, there was only one way to react - so they laughed. The world moved on, unmindful.

Whack & Blite

2013-06-11T00:28:00.003+05:30

Existence begins with blackness. Yet this page is white before I start.*

I haven't added some black, I've taken away some white.

Are we similarly brought into existence by subtracting from a vast blackness?

The bit of black that goes away reunites with us at death.

So where was it until then?
And is it asking the same question about us?*

Let's be unimaginative and abbreviate Bit-of-black to Bob.

Our shadow is also a bit-of-black unique to each of us.
In the light, Bob is linked to us like a Siamese twin, but is unable to recapture the place that you took when you stepped into this plane. When you became.

As long as you exist, Bob is somewhere under around behind ahead of you.
As you dissociate after death, so does Bob. No one mourns this loss because Bob is returning to it's original place in the blackness, the one you pushed it out of by becoming.*

What if Bob returned to his plane, but you didn't fully disappear?
Without your dark companion, would you look like the generic ghost - pale, floating, freed from the weight of your shadow holding you to the ground?

But let's not try to get cute.

Everything has a shadow, which means everything displaces a Bob by virtue of their existence. Now back to this page-

Near the letters that appeared as I typed, are the subtracted white hanging around on the page as well?

Random trippy questions like these litter my mind.

I don't know if I wish I had more of them or not.
If there is a time they will be answered-*

*It isn't now.

Now Don't Ask Me Any More

2012-12-15T13:23:00.001+05:30

The prodigal chand returns! - in response to all the requests for a new post (=1) (That wasn't a typo for a +1, so stop clicking on it).
I've been living on and off in Bangalore, India, for the past 12 years, and since the world isn't going to end any time soon (facebook.com will put their billions into averting it), I thought I'd share this map I had created some time back to help hapless visitors to the city find their way around the central area. This is by no means exhaustive, but definitely exhausting for a half day sightseeing trip. Regular beer is recommended as a pick-me-up, and you could boast that you drank the popular Indian beer, Kingfisher, in its city of origin.

If you don't drink beer, maybe you should open your pristine gob and suck in large amounts of the best year-round metropolitan weather in India.

Click Half/ Full day in Bangalore for a larger map with legend

I'm open to collaboration, but if you wanted more things to see, here's my response:

A hotdog shirt in return for my services would be nice

Comic Stripper 04 - Ironic Comic on Antarctic Economics

2012-09-16T11:28:00.001+05:30

Ah, fateful last minute! The sweet nectar of work it extracts from me, mix'd with the bitter syrup of delay it delivers me into, are like the yin and yang of my creative process.

Yet another comic competition lit the proverbial 'thing' in me to get to work. The theme was 'Rich and Poor', so it's only obvious I'd come up with something abstract like this:

Whale of a Problem

I guess some of my obsessions with composition are manifesting without my thinking about them - the whale's mass being balanced by the iceberg, and the frame divided into 1:2 vertically - but I didn't really think about sharp perspectives and suchlike because I was more focused on the organic characters and conveying the underwater scene satisfactorily in black and white. I've noticed my humour combines simple\slapstick with obscure\ironic, but that's if you even get to the point of understanding the joke, seeing how hard I make it to do that.

Unfortunately, the idea and final spur to do this came at the last minute, and by the time the comic was submitted, the competition had closed (Your mouth should strike a match about now). Ah, well, the fish was probably sour.

Any title would seem pretentious

2012-09-08T09:53:00.005+05:30

Being asked to write 'creatively' fills me with the urge to be clever with language in the wrong ways.

I juggle with words/ In struggles with haikus/ And get cut off abr-

Acrostics Cause Reactions Of Similar Type In Contemplating Sentences.

Limericks challenge me to be clever

But though the rhyme scheme is forever

A-A-B-B-A,

It, to my dismay

Doesn't improve the text whatsoever.

My dissatisfaction with my attempts at poetry leads me to try my hand at hackneyed prose replete with words that don't 'sit' well together, and long sentences; the use of pretentious punctuation is also a temptation I fail to resist. I'm just lucky I've so far escaped the clutches of the Dreaded Capitalization of Important Words.

Attempting humour in creative writing is perhaps the hardest. Self referential text can only be funny for so long. After that, it is the style and timing that carries it forward. Too easily can something aimed at being funny start to become instructional and boring. Reading other greats of humour only demoralises me, which is as far from a humorous mindset that one could begin writing with.

Sometime's I try to isolate lines to make the sentence look profound, or just to make a fresh stab at the whole process, but that doesn't seem to work very well.

Then I try to turn back to using alliterations as taught to me, but it turns out I'm doing that wrong too. Thnak heavens for spellcheck though. With experience, I've learnt that sarcasm and obscure humour works best for me, and my best writing has elements of both. Now you know why this post is such a laugh riot. I've contemplated the use of emoticons in formal text as a new element, but it seems kind of preachy to suggest the desired reaction; I'd have the courage to get away with it in sneaky ways such as:(before parenthesis).

Generally, I try to structure the body to flow from one sentence to the other, but I seem to have abandoned the basic benchmarks I set for myself in this case. This is an attempt at creative writing with a humorous bent.

It is for the sake of it, and not with any subject in mind; perhaps therein lies the rub. Using quotes I'm not fully sure of the meaning or origin of is another trick I employ, come to think of it. Thus the whole thing becomes a confused mishmash of techniques, so I've effectively crossed out the 'style' and 'timing' that I just said carries humorous writing forward.

But I guess the best way we can deal with our failings, whether in creative writing or anywhere else in life, is not take them too seriously, and keep on going. Which is why I will never stop trying.

Comic Stripper 03 (Not in 3D)

2012-05-31T15:02:00.003+05:30

Since no one's really counting, I guess it doesn't matter that you're going to be treated to three comics I've drawn at the price of one blog post! This doesn't, of course, save you from the long drawn out technical explanations that accompany each of my comic posts, multiplied by three. (The lack of fireworks and celebratory pelvic thrusts upon my return explains my lack of motivation in putting up new posts, but a quick glance at the first principles reminds me why we're here)

The first comic was drawn in August 2011, and apart from being a competition entry, is a tribute to one of my favourite cartoonists, Gary Larson, and his Far Side series.

Fatal Attraction

Unfortunately, the theme of the competition was 'No to Narcotics' which for some reason I subconsciously equated with 'No to Nicotine', which may be why it wasn't considered (What a load of horseshit, the drawing just sucked compared to other entries).

The second one was actually made after the third one, but on the same day, so I've taken the liberty of rearranging the order of presentation for dramatic effect, which I know you love. (Is it a coincidence that there's piles of matter in the comic and I've made this one number two?)

Sand Pit

I take an unhealthy pleasure in working with perspective and dividing the frame into components on this basis. In this case, the vanishing point (for all you perspective geeks) is at the top centre of the frame. I used pens with different tip thicknesses; not usually my style, as I prefer fills to line-work, but much faster when you have a deadline; the competition ended the next day.

Third and final, the idea was simple, albeit executed in order to make it hard to understand. The only thing I will disclose is that 420 is a common term in India for a crook, because the section under the Indian Penal Code for cheating is Section 420. Now to get to the drawing specs:

The drawing was divided into three equal parts, and each part was (roughly) divided into thirds vertically and horizontally. This obsession with threes is nothing new; in fact it'll probably explain my sock drawer a little better.
More perspective play; the vanishing point was at the centre of each panel in this case.
Different elements of the composition helped build the symmetry of the composition - the sun/moon locations, the building faces, the ladder location in each panel, and the slouchy black-t-shirted guy walking by to balance the poster-poster (What else can you call someone who puts up posters)
The shadows are for the most part wrong or unfinished, but I could just as easily blame the laws of optics and play a wave/particle duality card in my defense, so let's just let that one pass. Because I'd be wrong.

AM PM CM

Before you let your fingers fly on your keyboards about the complexity or unnecessary distraction from the main plot, let me play the modesty card and inform you that this one Won The Competition, so move those fingers to W-O-W-Shift+1-C-O-N-G-R-A-T-S-Shift+1, or some other cliché, in the name of social convention.

(Insert pun on the word "Hampi")

2011-10-17T22:51:00.002+05:30

The Autumn of Isolation drives me at slightest opportunity towards ancient monuments and ruins. This may not be a bad thing. Turns out, an architect who doesn't draw is heading towards tragic irony. Thus, armed with sketchbook (for drawing on) and pens (for drawing with) and father (for drawing cash), I headed towards the ancient Vijayanagara kingdom of Hampi, a World Heritage site and genuine Place of Desolate Beauty.

I would show you the photos I took, but those lay happily in my Google account, so I'll show you my sketches instead. Due to the lucky misfortune of bringing almost-dry pens for sketching, I was forced to improvise, leading to colourful results. To maintain some semblance of Concept and Meaning, I used a different colour for each material finish - carved stone, brick and mortar and boulder - but don't let some Critic years down the line fool your grandkids about my Art; I ran out of ink, plain and simple.

Gopuram at Tiruvengalanatha Temple facing Mathanga Hill

Vitthala Temple Stone Chariot of Garuda

People tell me, "You shouldn't see everything in black and white", so here's my answer. Each one took about two hours to complete, so these are the grand total of my Sketches in Hampi series, but I'm willing to prostitute my services to interested parties. Once in a while.

If you like reposting images, please tell people I drew them. Not just these ones, I'd like to take credit for everything, I'm a harmless megalomaniac.

Mewar Prem

2011-09-27T21:15:00.009+05:30

(Sung to the tune of "Bulla ki Jaana" by Rabbi Shergill)

Author: Unknown

Two scoops of ice cream with cone
Two scoops of, ice cream with, cone (x2)

Two scoops of ice cream for-uh
Five rupees - now don't scream or-uh
Everyone will ask for more-uh

Simple cone, no stupid waffle,
Still you'll want to eat a jawful
Everything else will seem awful

All the ingredients are pure-uh
I don't need gimmicks to lure-uh
All my rivals are inse-cure-uh!

I'll serve you all on my own!

Two scoops of ice cream with cone
Two scoops of, ice cream with, cone (x2)

I don't serve just ice cream scoops-uh
When interest in ice cream droops-uh
I sell other dessert groups-uh

Badaam* shake for ten bucks, its-uh
Filled with almond-pista bits-uh
Still I manage some profits-uh

Solid or liquid treats-uh
If you're ever craving sweets-uh
You can find me on the stre-eets-uh!

I'll serve till my tyres are worn!

Two scoops of ice cream with cone
Two scoops of, ice cream with, cone (x2)

I'm not an early beginner
I arrive only post-dinner
I serve both saint and sinner
I serve losers, I serve winners
You broaden while I get thinner!

I'll serve you till I am gone!

Two scoops of ice cream with cone
Two scoops of, ice cream with, cone (x2)

Woah-oah-oah!

Two scoops of ice cream with cone
Two scoops of, ice cream with, cone (x4)

*Hindi: Almond