I just finished what I think will be for me a life changing week in Coorg. One month ago, I signed up for this vague residency called the Story Collective. I came across this online, and it talked about learning about “storytelling” and assumed it was a writing workshop. However, since it was run by Raghava KK, an artist, I didn’t quite understand why he was equipped to teach us writing skills. However, Raghava is fascinating and so I signed up for it trusting that it would be worthwhile

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Once the program started, the exercises made it clear that it wasn’t to do with writing at all, rather, an exercise to identify and unblock your own mental patterns that keep you from progressing in life and in enterprise. Through the diverse set of 19 people who attended this residency, it validated new skills that are relevant now, as we move past the industrial age and into the creative age. That a linear and homogenous career path is no longer the only path to success, rather a polyamorous relationship with your skills, where one dabbles in multiple things, and finds a way to integrate all those learnings.

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A new corporate structure, where collaborative networks become the digital nervous system of your enterprise, rather than one hierarchical organism.

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Learning to listen without prejudice, and finding that giving someone a chance, is what gives themselves a chance to realize their full potential, and in turn change the world.

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That education systems based on unending amounts of empathy (sometimes seemingly undeserved) can create safe spaces that unlock unlimited possibilities in every single person. Whether applied to adults or children.

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This program was like a mini MBA, and instead of textbooks, the facilitators told us about their experiences with success and failure through their lived experiences, rather than a textbook. And how hustling,hacking and audacity are an integral part of growing.

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From writing a letter to your younger self, to collaboratively making one giant painting, to delivering a TED talk we wrote ourselves to this little audience, this week has left me vulnerable and exposed to my own limitations, the awareness of which will hopefully help me overcome them at some point. I made 19 new friends, and each one taught me through example, how one can work on their own personality. I feel incredibly grateful to Raghava KK and the rest of the team to open up their vulnerabilities so I could learn something from it.

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This little group consisting of artists, actors, writers, architects, karate referees, hustlers, journalists and educationists has become my new little tribe.

Identity Design Trends for 2021: 

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Developing the identity design for a brand involves putting together a system using 5 things - a wordmark, a symbol, a colour palette, a typekit and brand messaging. All of this is put into a brand manual at the end and handed over to the client. 

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Let's look at design trends for 2021, and look at each of these items individually. 

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1. Wordmark 

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A wordmark is the lettering that is in use in your logo. For example, in Coca Cola, there is no symbol, and the letters themselves form the logo. This is its wordmark. I have found that over the last few years there has been a rise in popularity in display typefaces using serif fonts. Individual foundries such as Violaine and Jeremy’s VJ Type in Paris are creating exquisite typefaces that have the grammar of serif fonts, and the glamour of the 1920s. We recently used one of their fonts to design a wordmark for Engram - a young hardware design shop based in Kolkata. 

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There is definitely a move away from using script and handwritten typefaces. While it is tempting to use these fonts as they have a lot going on, it's best to let this trend die with the last decade. Humanist sans serif such as the Helveticas retain their position as evergreen digitally reliable fonts. Look up fonts by pangram foundry to see some interesting new fonts in the space. 

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2. Symbol 

The world is moving away from the symbol - wordmark - tagline stack. 

As more brands get more digital, there is a need to remove the clutter. While some brands such as mastercard and nike chose to drop their wordmarks, some brands are choosing to not have a symbol at all. In choice of symbol, more people opt for monograms, which is a combination of letters. Here is a monogram we developed for Tarun Tahiliani which has 2 Ts joined together. This also makes a pi, a symbol Mr. Tahiliani resonates with. 

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3. Colour palette

I read a meme that says “graphic design is basically moving from solids one year to gradients another year and then coming back to solids''. There is no logic in predicting solids vs gradients or pastels vs pop. This is an individual and strategic choice in design. Rather, what I would advise is that colours be picked in a way that they can be implemented sustainably. For example, for tea and coffee packaging, there is a company called swisspack that sells a biodegradable stand up pouch. In order to print these in numbers below 1000 packs (which is a usual print run requirement) it must use under 3 colours, and the artwork should be towards the center of the pack so that it can be screen printed on a pre-built pack. On the other hand, for clients who don’t want to commit to a super large packaging inventory, digitally printed stickers are a good choice. There are certain colour choices here that render well and certain that don't. For example, orange almost never translates as you picture it. So beyond trends, colours should be decided on the basis of the most sustainable and practical way to produce a design. In my opinion - the world doesn't veer towards one colour one year, and towards another in the next year. Besides, in identity design, we are trying to build things that last beyond a year. 

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In the image: We digitally printed labels for Luxmi tea, using shades of green. 

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4. Typekit 

This is a set of fonts that you would advise your clients to use for their brand for their communication. It consists of header fonts, subhead and body fonts. This would typically be used in posters, brochures and websites. It should complement the choice of lettering for the wordmark.

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During the lockdown many home entrepreneurs in bangalore started selling pastas and bakery goods - these were people who lost their jobs, or people who just needed some extra income. They found that they liked it, and prefer it to their other jobs, opting to become entrepreneurs. As starting a business gets easier with tools such as shopify and razorpay, and discovery is possible through social media, there are many home grown that will come to design studios. The purpose of the typekit you offer such businesses should be ease of use. Keep it simple by using one typeface with varying widths for header, body etc. Google has a large offering of fantastic free fonts such as montserrat which is our go to typeface for a typekit. By using just one family of fonts which is free, we make it easier for our clients to not make mistakes. In terms of layouts - the bauhaus poster design trend is as evergreen as it was in the last century, and is now extended to websites as well. Keeping it simple, organised and working within a grid is a recipe for success in graphic design. 

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Image: this entire layout for Luxmi Tea’s website was made using varying sizes of Adobe Garamond Pro. 

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5. Messaging:

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Messaging is the language style that brands should talk to their consumers in. A trend I think we should put behind us - is telling our customers our vision and mission. Nobody wants to read this, it is a snoozefest. While these are good things to include in the brand manual, it is only meant for internal consumption. 

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What happened to the wit, intelligence and humour we saw in the ads of the 70s? Creativity is not just visual, it is also in clever words, and the studios that can nail this, will have an edge over the others. 

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The days of hiding behind jargon are also behind us. Words such as - minimalist, contemporary, juxtapose, ethos and sensibility. It's time these words died a slow pretentious death.

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If I were to apply this example to my industry - I address every graphic design studio that starts their website with “We are a multidisciplinary design studio”. Isn't this redundant? Isn’t Design a multidisciplinary field? Can you get by with just knowing how to do 1 thing? People would probably be more convinced if studios wrote “We are 2 people working out of our basement in pajamas doing kickass stuff”. 

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What I think will sell in 2021 is clarity, intelligence, honesty, wit and brevity. No nonsense messaging which piques their interest or entertains them, or you’ve lost them at hello. 

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The author Pallavi Nopany runs a brand design studio in Bangalore India. 

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From Roti Kapda Makaan in the 1960s to a “good job and romance” (according to Chetan Bhagats 2004 book – what young India wants) we have always endeavoured to understand – what does young India want?

As a brand designer working with young people since the past 10 years, what young India wants from your business is 1. Sustainability 2. Purpose 3. Honesty 4. Digital presence.

“Can you help u find a way to do away with plastic packaging altogether?” – is often something I get asked by my clients in their 20s. Millennials care about the environment, not just because it is cool, but because for them it is an existential concern. In 2006 I went to the Andamans and discovered a world so colourful, it was like jumping into a technicolour world, a scene from “Finding Nemo”. 10 years later, the same waters had nothing but a graveyard of white skeletons – testament to the mass bleaching of corals that has affected 95% of the world. This is a testament to global warming, and its far-reaching impact, beyond making diving a lot less fun. So for millennials, climate change is not 10^th on their priority of things to solve for, when addressing business. It is 2^nd or 3^rd. Spending away the earths resources means they may not have a habitable planet by the time they are 60. This demand will eventually lead to supply, where eco friendly packaging solutions will be available in mainstream industry.

Millennial brands are driven by products built for a specific purpose. The Instagram ads increasingly lead to shopify sites that sell only 1 innovative product. Junipers.fun is one such site, that sells a bra that doubles up as a swim suit, a sports bra and also an everyday bra. The opening description says – “the Do it all Bikini”. Another site called Allbeing sells neutraceuticals to address the concerns of today – such as eye fatigue. Their product “insight” has a powerful carotenoid that reverses the damage done by blue light, due to long screen exposure. I saw a meme that read “Another weekend of staring at the big screen, while scrolling through my little screen, so as to reward myself for staring at the medium screen all week.” Both these businesses address the concerns of today. With the democratization of the internet through the holy trifecta of shopify, razorpay and shiprocket, anybody can start a business overnight. Double this up with Amazon, and young people have the world at their fingertips. Which means that one becomes discerning in their choice of things to buy. Hence, businesses must articulate what purpose their product serves, and let that drive the brand. Not the other way around.

With the world of information available in a second, gone are the days to hide behind campaigns to fool people into buying things which are bad for you. Millennials of today value honesty, because there is no way to lie anymore. The meteoric success of a skincare brand “the ordinary” is a testament to this. The Ordinary simply lists the ingredients on the front label – Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5. This is not meant for chemists, but young people who are aware of what they are putting on their skin, and are given the choice to choose their skin mocktail. So people are curious now about where their coffee comes from, or who made their clothes. The zamaana of selling a product by putting Kareenas face on it and saying “get the glow” is gone. They will ask you – but what is glow, and what ingredient provides it? Millennials are convinced by logic, facts, ingredients, plain spoken language, and an urban relevance.

While it seems redundant to say, I say that all businesses need a digital strategy and presence. What is the implication of this for businesses – that the information in their campaigns has to be bite sized bits of entertainment. Why entertainment? Because now information and entertainment are accessed in the same place. Long mission statement and PR statement won’t cut it, nobody wants to hear it. Product photography will be viewed in a 2 inch square on Instagram, and should be optimized for that. For example, having clean solid backgrounds in photographs is a great fit for insta worthy product shots. This digital presence is key for businesses moving forward, even if they are b2b service businesses where they don’t sell online, but engage online, as it opens up a two way communication. Brands need to spend less on their logo, and invest more in their social media and website. This is reflection of how innovative, open to conversation, and trustworthy a brand is.

So in designing a brand for them (either as clients or as end consumers), the choices one makes must reflect these values of sustainability, honesty, and purpose. In the packaging one chooses, in the tone of voice one speaks in on their channels, or in the information on the labels. In the medium one spends on - whether online is a better strategic investment than brick and mortar. 

In my experience, the younger generation is more conscientious than the previous. They don’t aspire to own private jets (too much fuel consumption), or find “royalty” aspirational. Rather, they want to be able to choose the life that makes them happy. In terms of consumption, this product that they are buying should either be useful, innovative, original, sustainable, or even simply entertaining, and relevant to the context of their lives

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In a civilisation as old as ours - we have so many cultural influences - from food, to fashion, to craft. In a medium like graphic design which is relatively new, how can we use these influences to make it authentic to us?

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Now what exactly is authentic to us? There is a saying in Hindi - “Caravaan aate gaye, hindustan banta gaya”. As caravans and ships came and went, they left us their language, their dress, their food, their architecture, art and technology.**

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**Language - English. Dress - some say that the saree with the one pallu over the shoulder is influenced by the greek toga as Alexander paid us a visit. Food - gobi manchurian, thanks to the Chinese settlers in Tangra, Kolkata. Architecture and art - Mughal pietra dura, marble edifices, geometric structures. Art - persian miniature paintings. 

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Graphic design can be broken down into these 5 components. 1. Typography, 2. Colour, 3. Imagery 4. Illustration 5. Medium (paper/web/mobile)

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Each of these present an opportunity to express a certain character for the overall piece personality we are trying to build. Assuming that being Indian is part of the brief - how does one achieve that?

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In order to infuse indian-ness into graphic design, one must first try and find the essence of what about it is Indian? Is it its ornamentation? How does one bring in ornamentation into design, without resorting to adding paisleys? 

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Going into the detail of how this can be infused in the 5 components of design as mentioned above. 

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1. Typography: 

Much like how a fashion designer might start with a piece of fabric, which already has a lot of character - its fluidity, it’s weave, its thickness, a graphic designer starts with the choice of a font. While letters when they come together tell you something explicitly in the words they form, the way the letters are shaped tell you many things implicitly. Observe the shapes of the letters - their edges and their curves. What exactly from the Indian essence are you trying to showcase through type? Is it that it's delicate? Or is it ornamentation? This essence can now be found in various typefaces. Dig further deeper and see how the lines modulate from thin to thick, and have a certain unusual angle, that portrays a boldness, an avant garde edge to the earlier mentioned delicacy and ornamentation. Fonts can be so many thing n s, if one allows themselves to feel - they can be fluid, lyrical, or edgy and bold. Alternately, one may choose to use a font which has the least amount of character - in order for all the other 4 elements (colour, imagery etc) to allow for expression. 

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An overt way of saying - this is indian, is to use the devanagari font - but please don't do that - it's cliche. 

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2. Colour

Indian colours are not just what you see on trucks. A garish combination of hot pink, bright orange, blue, green, all combined together in a kaleidoscopic clip art mess. My client Tarun Tahiliani is an indophile and all his designs, his shoots are all inspired by Indian art, architecture, and people. In building his identity, we chose beige as the primary colour, as for him that is very Indian. It's the colour of Indian mitti. Botanicals like indigo, madder, turmeric, have been used in dyes for thousands of years in paintings, and textiles. If one looks at miniature paintings, the beautiful ombres of pinks and blues from pastel to nude, much before the english brought them in to suit their pale complexions. So an old faded rose madder is not really an English colour, it is very much Indian. Let's move away from the obvious kitsch choices to depict Indian, and show what is historic, authentic and has depth. All of us don’t love trucks, bollywood and drama, just because we are Indian. I for one, can’t stand bollywood or oversaturated colours, and that doesnt make me any less Indian. 

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Image: a miniature painting from India. Image source - unknown. 

3. Imagery. 

Here we have the maximum opportunity to be explicit about ourselves, should we like to be. The use of Indian models, with brown skin tones, textiles, objects of decor found in our kitchens, and in our cupboards to style the scenes, small things that really make something authentic, “however global” the scene might be. We don’t have to use stock photos with white models. It's what you choose to believe, and how you choose to make things cool for your audience. 

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In the image - a still from the website we built for luxmi tea - luxmigroup.in 

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4. Illustration. 

Indian art is more stylized than western art. They are not photographic representations like the paintings of the renaissance. This is not better or worse, it's just a different style. There are a variety of art styles, from miniatures, to patachitra, to kalighat style to the bengal style. The illustrative style used in your communication could pick up nuances from these. Or, one could also mix it up and use indian characters/objects in a renaissance style painting, much like Raja Ravi Varma did. 

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In the image: A still from luxmigroup.in site - illustration, content and design, done by us. 

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5. Medium: Your medium could be paper, web or mobile. But before we go into the medium, I'd like to talk about 2 facets of Indian culture that will define how to bring these into your medium. 

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Ornamentation is integral to India. Every girl would be familiar with this - when they are stepping out of the house, their mum will say - at least wear a small pair of earrings. Even our food is ornamented - with a bit of tadka, and a bit of achaar. We are a layered society, we are not minimal. Our bidri pots, our polki jewellery. This is something we identify with, and find comforting and familiar. While scandinavian minimalism might be cool for some, it's not the only way to be modern. Minimalism does not equal modernity.

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“Modernism is not in the dress of the Europeans, or in the hideous structures where their children are interned when they take their lessons…. These are not modern, but merely European. True modernism is freedom of mind, not slavery of taste. It is independence of thought and action, not tutelage under European schoolmasters.” Rabindranath Tagore. 

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In the image: Tea packaging for Makaibari tea. 

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Handmade: In a country with an ancient history of the handcrafted - from textile to pottery, we have a thing for texture and layers. Try and add this into your work, whether it be with adding in foils, embossing, uvs, etc, textural papers, images with texture. In an otherwise cold medium made by machines, it is now possible to bring in the handcrafted feeling using a wacom tablet or an ipad pro with pressure sensitive pens that have the gorgeous inconsistencies of the hand. One can build lines that are not perfectly straight, much like the hand would do. 

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So whether the medium is paper or digital, one can bring in ornamentation and the feeling of being handcrafted, if that is to represent something made in India. 

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In the image below: a screenshot from a shopping site build for a carpet company Obeetee (from obeetee.com) 

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On an individual level, each of us is an assimilation of our ancestral and personal choices. 

Having been brought up in Kolkata, my influences are a mix of Bengali, European and Rajasthani. I went to a school founded by a Frenchman, reading Shakespeare & Dickens as part of my course. I grew up learning the piano where the instructions were in Italian. My childhood lessons in art involved studying renaissance paintings from a book by Rosenthal. My Bengali surroundings makes me love anything with mustard oil. I have a weakness for fine Jamdani cotton, a respect for literature, for writers, and a left leaning bent of mind. My marwari ancestry instilled in me a love for churan, papad and idiosyncratic bengal-marwari foods like gratin (a kind of bake) with cheese toast. As I grew up and began to make my own choices, I learnt the salsa, which led me to learn Spanish in Spain, and be influenced by their raw passion and irreverence. I learnt contemporary dance, that made me appreciate childlike playfulness, and the acceptance of a certain weirdness, a raw form of expression. I learnt ceramics that make me love the geometry of pots, glazes and playing with mud. 

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Every single one of these things mentioned above contribute to my current practice in design, and the choices I make. I wasn't taught design in college, and while sometimes I resent that, most times I rejoice in it, because I had the opportunity to question everything while I learnt, instead of accepting certain axioms of truth. 

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In the image - a still from my website - pallavinopany.com . Collages done by Nidhi Hiregange. 

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One may question - when you design something, it is not the same as art, there is a 2nd person involved, the client - so, how do your personal influences matter? When you start out as a designer and you do personal projects and build your portfolio, there are certain people who are attracted to your work, and it's most likely that they are attracted to your choices, the ability to articulate your influences. 

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Culture is India’s soft power. We are known historically for our textiles, our food, our music, our film, our passion. So it is in our power as designers to not conform to scandinavian and bauhaus methods of design build when technology wasn't as versatile as it is now. It is in our interest to dig a bit deeper and build out indian communication design, in websites, in books, so that the world can taste our delicious layers of history and culture. 

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Beyond the collective, bringing in your own personal experiences to design makes it richer, as sometimes we underestimate the multiplicity of cultures we have witnessed, each of us growing up, in this diversity, layered with 30,000 years of influences. 

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A brand identity exercise is more than the sum of its parts - when it comes to the deliverables mentioned in a contract. However, the very basic deliverables would be a logo which is a combination of a wordmark and an optional symbol. (There may be a monogram as well in addition to this). A colour palette, a font kit including the instruction on which fonts to use for headers and body copy. A basic guidance on imagery for catalogue photographs. I usually also include basic stationery such as an invoice in an excel format, a visiting card, a letterhead and an envelope. All of the above is included in a brand manual that tells you how to use these components, and also how to avoid using them. The next phase could be creating a strategy for the social media, writing the content for the website, getting the photography done, and then the layout designs. It helps to have an open keynote/ppt template designed with 10 slides that the client can edit themselves. 

But beyond the deliverables, an agency who is doing this for you will help you come up with a visual theme that creates certain intentional perceptions. For example, what is your brand’s personality? Is it friendly, humorous, sarcastic, delicate, straightforward, conversational etc? How weighty are each of these adjectives? There are explicit and implicit ways to do this, in the choice of fonts for example, that may be delicate, fluid, or old-school. 

How much of the above should you get professionally designed - well that depends on 2 things. The first is - how many people will be interacting with your brand without you present in that room? If the entrepreneur is present, then they are all the brand. This is especially true for a smaller service providing agency such as a boutique legal firm. However, when the reach goes beyond your presence, people perceive your brand’s trustworthiness, organisation and credibility on the basis of the professionalism applied in the communication. So then it's time to invest in these. 

Free/inexpensive tools you can invest in for your team

For websites - shopify, squarespace, wix, are quite inexpensive and look professional. For social media - one could create stuff on canva. For editing photos - snapseed by google. For other basic web based creatives - adobe XD is pretty inexpensive since it is new now. Here is an article on how to create your own shopping site. Sketchbook pro for illustration. 

How to know whether your design agency/designer are any good (what kind of material should you ask for, what kind of references and success stories you can expect to get)

They should have a website which is professional looking. If they cannot organise their own information, then it's unlikely that they can organise yours. They should also give you a contract with their process and terms clearly outlined. One should also try and gauge whether they have too many projects at hand, and whether your project will be one amongst many, or handed down to an intern, which is not desirable. Last but not least, see whether they get you as a person. Because a lot of the culture of an organisation is actually an extension of the founder. And these subtle things can only come through if they are able to pick it up. This you will know through conversation with them. In my case, for the projects that I do want, I would invite the client to my home, have a meal or a coffee with them, and show them my work. I would create an informal setting so we both can know each other to see that we can be friends. For me this is important, and then the work is fun, where you can collaborate with your client to create something unique with trust and experimentation. 

When to choose a freelancer and when to go full time based on your organisation's design needs

It depends on the portfolio and experience of the designer. What I would look for is the ability of this designer to present and organise information and while doing this, to bring out a certain personality. As someone who hires designers for my team, this is what I look for. While being able to illustrate is great, it’s not a primary skill in order to present and organise information. Its very important to work with layouts and typography, and for this, you must see some web and publication projects that your agency has worked on.

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• originally written for Channel 46 news.

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

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My husband recently whisked me away to Africa on a surprise holiday for our anniversary. Whatever notions I had about Africa so far had been derived from watching the Lion King and boy was the experience a real Hakuna Matata, an extraordinary and unforgettable adventure.

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We spent all our time at Kenya, in the plains of the Masai Mara, exploring its rolling grasslands through every sunrise and sunset. The safaris, the weather, the people and the surreal surroundings were never something I would have dreamed of witnessing.

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The adventurous plane ride:-

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To get from Nairobi to Mara, we hopped on a short flight, aboard a small 15 seater Kenyan Airways non pressurised air cabin, where one can look down and see the giraffes, zebras and antelopes frolicking around in the plains! It is the most spectacular ride one can take, and this is an introduction into the cheeky african sense of humour, where our security announcement was "there are 4 exits on the plane, 2 up ahead at the cockpit and 2 behind. So if you see us jump, you know what to do!"

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The Lodge -

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The earthy, friendly, welcoming and luxurious lodge of Sir Richard Branson - the Mahali Mzuri was where we were at home for a week.

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It is a rather intense jeep ride from the bamboo shed airport at North Mara to the campsite, but we were welcomed by all the staff at the entrance enthusiastically waving and greeting us to welcome drinks of champagne. One step into the campsite and one cannot help but gasp at the site. It overlooks a valley with a river down below, a watering hole for all creatures of the forest, in plain view, while one has breakfast.

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It has happened, that a majestic lions and a herd of elephants quietly came to have a drink and went along on their way, while we were having our morning tea. The glamorous tents are right in the midst of nature, where we heard lions grunting all night, not very far away, on many of our nights there.

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I will never forget the people who took care of us at the lodge. The managers Anja and Rosie left no stone unturned to fulfil our every whim. Everything on the resort was on the house, including the alcohol, with every bottle of wine explained in detail by Anja who is also a sommelier and a chef! We had a driver and a beast of a jeep personally allotted to us at our service 24/7. The driver was a character straight out of a fairytale. A Masai tribal elderly, who had binoculars for eyes. For e.g., he spotted a leopard in a tree 5 km away without binoculars, whereas we took a few min with binoculars to find it as a small silhouette far far away on another hillock! He could hear the sounds of the dragonflies and the flutter of the birds and tell the position of the animals in the 15000 acres of forest that the resort had leased, and he was never wrong. Each safari was more rewarding than the next. My husband and I each had bodyguards day and night, Masai tribesmen dressed in their majestic Shukas, so silent in their demeanor, always around us, but never in our way. In fact, what we didn't know, was that this camp employs 50 people for their 12 tents, and you see and hear no one, such is the privacy they allow you.

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I could go on, but I would never be able to describe in words the experience of this campsite, where every imaginable detail was tended to, in the midst of nowhere. So remote is its destination, and so eager they are to please, that on occasion, when a certain product (a certain requested bottle of whiskey perhaps) is unavailable on order, they charter a flight from Nairobi to bring it to them!

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The Safaris-

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Oh the safaris. One cannot expect in their wildest dreams how exhilarating the experience is to be out there in the wild open plains, under the equatorial blue skies, watching the sunrise, the thundering rainclouds and the miles of rolling hills. The animals, are a hefty bonus to this already surreal atmosphere.

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The first animals to welcome you are the hordes of curious zebra, with their rather bountiful posteriors greeting you with a quiet nod of their head before they resume the business of further fatting of their behinds.

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At this time of year, the grass was plentiful, the animals well fattened, with a contentment on their faces one cannot miss being amused at.

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The giraffes had to be my favourites, as they just stand there and stare and you, and if it can be believed - even smile at you. Eating berries off treetops, they look like goofy overgrown babies who are so happy to see you!

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The hippos - smelly fellows look adorably cute, but are in-fact the most dangerous creatures of the Mara. Stand in their path to the water, and they readily trample you, as their skin is extremely sensitive to the sun, and they need to be submerged at all times of the day.

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The cats - something one has to experience in their lifetime to witness what it is to be human and a part of nature. To be in front of a wild spirit like that, some of them deigning to look at you, some of them curious about you, is thrilling and humbling. To be at the mercy of another creature more powerful than you, one cannot help but be in awe of their grace.

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The cheetahs, an extremely endangered species (with only 70 left in the Mara) are an acquiescent lot, agile, lithe and exquisite. Their cubs are in so much danger from their immediate surroundings, where only 1 out of 20 survive past their first year.

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The Lions, the majestic magnificent czars and aptly named so - as such is the pride in their swagger and poise in their stance that one cannot be but in admiration and fear of their presence. The cubs however, are the cutest things one can see, curious little cherubs who come prancing around you with their deep blue eyes and twitching whiskers and ears. On the last day, we were gifted an experience one would never believe to be true. I opened my eyes and looked out the window, to see this enormous male lion walking down in the valley outside my tent, and watched him climb up to the resort, cross through the camp 2 tents away, and onward to his family of a pride of 17 lions eating breakfast - a topi they had recently hunted!

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The others - the topi, the antelopes, the thompson gazelles, the wildebeest and the buffalos - aka food for the predators, abound the plains, frolicking, playing, grazing and fattening up, ahead of the rutting season. There are miniature deer fully grown to become the size of rabbits - and families of gazelles skipping along everywhere one looks.

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The hyenas, and foxes - while made out to be mean looking nasty characters in fairytales, are actually cute little fellows, hanging around the lions on the periphery, waiting to get the scraps.

This little fellow - a silverback fox fearlessly followed the aforementioned male lion, who was on his morning walk outside my room.

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As time progressed through the holiday we realized how our perception of the environment changed too. On the first day, we were trying to spot animals only with our eyes, but by the 5th day, we unconciously using all our senses - hearing for the chattering of the monkeys to see if the lions were nearby, smelling the sulphur in the air to know that there was a hippo pool in the vicinity. The eyes adapt to further vision, and small flicks of the tail from the tall grass suddenly seem visible. And this is how they say, that through nature, one learns to be more aware, and connect with oneself.

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While it is always a bit gloomy when its time for a holiday to end, we actually shed a few tears when it was time for us to leave this time. At the risk of sounding soppy, I'm going to say that we had unknowingly fallen in love this valentines day, and I mean not just more in love with my husband, to have shared something so special, but also with Africa. The people, the plains and the animals. I hope to go back some day, and be able to witness more of the magnificent unspoiled nature that lies there, which one could easily term as paradise - but its not, its better than that, its our marvellous mother earth, in its unadulterated form.

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Spent a fruitful weekend in bombay. Went n watched this dreadful movie called Poseidon and just when i thought it couldnt get worse i saw yet another movie called "jarhead".

Apart from that i accidentally did this musical theater workshop which incredibly enough i really enjoyed! We're dancing to roxanne. I didnt think I was capable of melodrama but apparently I am. Although its going to take me a while to figure out why people enjoy performing on stage with a million scrutinizing eyes on them;when they're at their utmost state of vulnerability,venting and digging out emotions which really shouldnt be made public, and with stark lights bringing into view all the areas in your body you wouldnt want to emphasise upon. The bizarre thing is that i loved it too.

Just out of curiosity i also did a jazz workshop which was a good workout more than anything else...i always thought that jazz was about all those strange men with painted faces and bodysuits enacting expressions in mime but turns out i was mistaken.

Now its back to monday morning and a good whole week of staring at my comp screen at work and waiting for something interesting to happen around me. Anything god please...aliens, shark attacks, blizzards, powercuts....I cant take 5 days of inactivity!!

I've recently discovered that having nothing to do at work is not as much fun as i thought it would be. Nevertheless, it is educational as i learn more from the internet.I spent an entire afternoon looking up information about pianos and i discovered that there are so many rules about scales, notations etc which i was clueless about, even though i claim to have learnt western classical piano (on and off) since the age of 9. I also realized that to be able to afford the piano of my dreams ( a bluthner baby grand ),I would definitely have to quit infosys and start making a new plan.

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Sometimes i cannot decide whether having gone into this line was a terrible mistake. I know i'm secure about my job, and that people in conventional society think of me well and it always makes me feel cool to be a technogeek, but that sums up all the benefits which this job could offer.

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I know that being really good at this job will not give me as much pleasure as being really good at an artform.Its bizarre how badly i want to be good at dance/martial arts/vocals/piano/art etc etc and how i really really dont care about how good i am at my job.

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Now the question that i'm faced with is whether it is possible to excel at something alongside work (which takes up 80% of my time) or whether i should take a risk,quit and do whatever i please...and eventually discover what is it that i really need to do to exhaust all my creative and nervous energy.I wish something would happen...an inspirational flash...a sudden miraculous adrenalin rush or anything at all... which helps me make up my mind and get me out of this dilemma.

I finally quit my job. I did it.

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I was subconsciously waiting for a day when I would be extremely happy, and know for sure that its not homesickness or any deeprooted sadness which was causing all this drama in my head and making me want to quit.

So one fine day, when my niece laughed all morning just because she saw me eating toast, and I saw a girl with a wedgie at the food court, I just knew that the moment had arrived. I couldnt be happier, had not laughed so much in a while, and I decided to summon the authorities immediately and tell them to find themselves a replacement for me.

Slept like a baby that night.

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People often tell me that I'm going to regret my decision, but as the days pass, my instinct grows stronger and tells me that I made the right move. It may just be plain rebellion but as long as there isnt a doubt in my mind.

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I must confess that a couple of fortune tellers and well wishers told me that I shouldnt quit before such and such date, and that did affect my decision. I wholeheartedly went against their advice and it gave me immense pleasure in doing so. I dont wish to undermine their clairvoyance here, its possible that they knew how well reverse psychology would work with me.

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I have no clue whats to follow next. I dont even want to clutter my head with options. Its going to be complete vaccuum for the next few months, till sudden inspiration takes over and enlightens me about what should be done next.

I saw this movie last night called blood diamond. It left me in a sour mood and with a sour taste in my mouth.

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Its about the civil war in Sierra Leone which started because diamonds were discovered in this area which both the government and the Rebels (locals) want control over. The Rebels use the revenue from these diamonds to further fund the war, by buying sopisticated arms and training (even underage) locals, hence causing more bloodshed.These diamonds are termed conflict diamonds and they say that this problem has been solved to a large extent by curbing the sales of these conflict diamonds,by certain international governing bodies,but not entirely.

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After having watched the movie a lot of people said that "now I never want to buy a diamond" but I wonder if the war started because of the buyers' vanity or whether the war just feeds on it. This sort of a civil war had happened before because of ivory and other things as well, so I cannot help but blame the people in question rather than the diamonds.

I had the laziest day in the history of planet earth today, starting from the tertamezazoic era.Its possible that a few of those dinosaurs were lazier than this.

Its 9 pm and i havent had a bath or washed my face.

Ive watched 2 movies and played 4 games of scrabble.

Thats it.

All done right from this spot on the couch.

I think its possible that my skins gotten fused with the couch material.

Somebody help me out of here.

Love flows deep in rivers.

Today I accidentally jumped out of my usual energy level and transcended into another level while listening to this young village boy (of grade 5 piano) playing the piano.

I’ve heard a lot of people play, grade 8 students, teachers, performers etc, but have NEVER been as enchanted.

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I was sitting at my piano class, trying to finish that theory workbook, feeling silly about it because it was obviously meant for really small kids and yet I made mistakes, when this young boy started practicing his piece ( Fantasia in D minor by Mozart) on the piano. He was utterly depressed because he probably thought that he couldn’t get it right. So while he was fiddling around, his fingers just dwindling on the keys, while waiting for the teacher, grumbling and sulking to himself, I discovered a new found emotion in me. So far I had only read in books how people get mesmerized. It was fantastic , his fingers had magic in them, and he didn’t know it.

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My teacher told me later that in her whole musical career she’d only come across 2 such musical people in her life, and one of whom became so arrogant because of praise, that he almost lost his touch. So this poor boy was creating magic with his music, while he was being told that it was all rubbish. Infact he was made to take a walk around the area(birla temple in ballygunge) and come back, to get over his depression and to get some fresh air.

Using what I was taught in Digital Signal Processing, where the Information content of a signal received, is directly proportional to what is Not expected, I realized and am going to explain why I get stirred more by classical music as compared to commercial music.

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Giving a piano players technical point of view, in commercial music it is easy to decipher the bass clef (left hand chords) once you know what scale the piece is played on, and what the treble clef(right hand notes) is.

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Now this is applicable obviously to not only pianists, but anybody listening to the music. In layman's terms, in commercial music, subconsciously you sort of know whats coming.The information content is just whats there in the melody, and not in the bass, hence the information content gets reduced to half.The expected part of it stems from those involuntary brain cells which act up sometimes, and what we call instinct.

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In classical music, the bass notes are totally unexpected, and they compliment the treble beautifully. Unless you see and hear and play the notes, there’s no way you know what’s supposed to be coming your way.

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Whats unexpected and pleasant, catches my attention more than otherwise. Its serendipity. I love what it does to me.

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This sudden realization happened while trying to play this piece to myself called Traumerei. Tis lovely.

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This is vladimir horowitz's (who i only came to know about through youtube) version of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq7ncjhSqtk

El titulo de mi blog fue la pelicula que debimos ver el mes pasado para escribir el ensayo final del curso de verano que hago en Granada.

Ironicamente, no lo he escrito todavia, y no tengo ganas de tampoco, pero escribo el blog en espanol porque he buscando mi nombre in google hace un rato, y he visto que puede ver este blog y mucha informacion para mi. No quiero que la gente puede conocer la informacion tan facilmente y por tanto escribo en una lengua que la mayoria en mi pais no puede entender. Y las mariposas porque yo escrito sobre verguenza y espero que las mariposas tiene verguenza. No tengo razon ,pero creo que si.

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Mi viaje a Espana fue el mejor en en mi vida, sin duda. En 1 mes, he aprendido poco espanol pero mucha cosas sobre yo. Tengo capacidad de ser muy alegro y divertir mucho y en 1 mes, mucha paredes que habia construido en mi vida en Bangalore y Kolkata han destrozado. Las paredes que no permiten entrar muchas personas, y muchas experiencias alegras y que no me pueden tener confianza en mi. . Estoy triste que he pasado mucha parte de mi vida en una manera tan aburrido y con arrogancia. Pero en Espana, he aprendo como vivir sin verguenza.

La gente de la pais y tambien la lengua is mas passionado que ingles y yo creo que si conoces la lengua un poco, puedes expresar mas mejor que en ingles. Es un pena que todavia yo pienso en ingles y creo que escribo en una manera muy aburrida. Pero intento mejorar.

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No se que si la lengua puede influir la gente o es el contrario. Porque, yo creo que cuando estaba en Granada, estaba mas expresivo y energico y tengo mucha ganas de ir de copas y bailar y conocer mucha gente y tengo mucho mas passion para hacer muchas cosas. Estaba infuir de la gente y la idioma al rededor a mi. Pero en India soy tranquilo. La transicion fue dificil, es claro, pero despues de algunas semanas, soy como antes.

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Un amigo me ha dicho que cada cuidad conta una cosa. Por ejemplo Barcelona me conto que tengo que ser mas creativo y ganar mas dinero. En barcelona se habla catalan, una idioma la mezcla de espanol y frances y es mas suave de espanol y porque menos passionado.

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Los cuidades del sur me han dicho que tengo que ser mas apasionado un cualquier manera. No se si la gente son intrisicamente apasionado, energico, dramatico y expresivo, o es porque la lengua es como eso.

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No quiero este persona que soy yo ahora. No tengo ganas de hacer nada, y creo que si siguiendo ser aburrida y sola el resto de mi vida, voy a sufucar mi ambiciones y energia hasta cuando muera.

En mi pais y en mi cuidad, no tiene mucha posibilidad de conocer mucha gente porque la gente tiene verguenza y amor propio y la infujo de espana, que ha detrozado estos malas vicios ha volvedo, y soy tambien como ellos.

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Me encanta mi pais y la sencillez, pero quiero que tiene un poco mas drama en pequena cosas cotidiano.

Tengo un razon para escribir estos cosas sobre verguenza, porque no soy alegro conmigo. Estoy un cobardo y no me gusta que tengo arrogancia. Acabo de hacer una cosa mala.

No puedo escribir que he hecho aqui porque existen paginas de internet donde la gente puede traducir que he escrito!

I wonder if the Marginal Utility theorem applies to boyfriends too.

While baking a cake,underbaked is always better than overbaked. Anybody would prefer their cake moist rather than too dry. I tried baking yesterday and exceeded the prescribed baking time by 15 min just to be sure that it was done. Bad idea.

I saw this ridiculously scary horror hindi movie called 1920. I'll spare you the story, as it was of no significance, it was the same old girl gets possesed in a gorgeous gothic architectured scary old house. Although, when the climax happened, when the priest came to perform exorcism to the possesed girl, she just got out of bed and ran away like Jack Sparrow in The Pirates of the Caribbean. Exactly how he runs.

It was so ridiculous, that the spectators at the theatre were as shocked as the poor priest in the movie. Then the priest had to send the not so faithful butler to run after the ghost,as if commanding him to do another cotidiano daily chore. I cant even comment and say that "these modern day concepts" because the movie is called 1920. Gone are the good old days when the possesed just hung around flying 2 feet above her bed.

When a problem seems too difficult to solve in a wholistic way, dont give up. Break it down and take it slow.

Speaking not of politicians, but of everyday situations. You talk mean about someone behind their back, because you CAN do it. You boss over someone and make them feel small because you can do it, knowing its wrong, just because you have the power to do it. You talk rudely to your parents or family, because you know you can get away with it.

If on such microscopic levels power can corrupt us, why do we blame politicians when they get corrupt.

In corollary, an evolutionary consequence is that the feeling of guilt is slowly being replaced with the fear of being found out.

And its not coming easily

I ate a fish and I liked it

The taste of its fleshy scaleskin

I ate a fish just to try it

I hope my grandma dont mind it

It felt so wrong

It felt so right

Dont mean I'm non veg tonight

I ate tuna and I liked it

I liked it

(My take on katie perry's song "i kissed a girl", on having eaten olives stuffed with tuna by mistake.I really did think they were peppers.)

Over the past year, I have switched  priorities. One of them being creativity over practice. I used to pride myself over the hours of practice i put in everyday to be able to play the piano according to the prescribed syllabus and foolishly assume myself superior to people who called themselves electronic musicians, without putting in any disciplined hours of work to hone their skills.

I was stuck up on conventional musical instruments, listening to particular genres, alt rock, country, pop etc. I never gave much importance to electronic music, thinking its fake stuff, created from pre recorded tracks coming out of a macintosh, something any idiot could press buttons and do.

As is true with any form of pride, it was just my stupidity and ignorance and immaturity to think so. Creating music from a million different kinds of sounds, mixing tibetan chants with spanish guitars and adding in a tabla, and making it sound good is an artform which is far superior to what laymen like I can do, practise for hours and learn up stuff ppl wrote 400 years ago. With the world having become such an easily accessible place, it is now possible to explore sounds from different countries which gives you so much more variety to work with, which possibly even makes this harder. (Public apology at this point to a friend who's skill I undermined)

To be able to spontaneously add the right sounds and build up music like a piece of art, is what the true art of disc jockeying is about, now possible without discs, just with a computer and some mixing software. Its just that easy, but whats hard is to let go of the mind, be crazy enough to be that creative. Far more difficult than being disciplined and trained.

This past long weekend, I decided to conduct a sociological experiment. I decided to hang out with all sorts of people, in all sorts of unlikely places. I wasnt proactive about picking a diverse set, I just went along with all the invitations that I got.

The result of the experiment is that I've had an overdose of people, and I realized that I enjoy my alone time more than anything else.

There were 2 reasons for me to conduct this experiment. 1 goal is part of an ongoing quest to know many many people in the world, and have them know me as well.Build my network which will come in handy when i'm building my empire in whatever field 2. was to find out how different people think, and be myself with them, my bare basics, and see how they respond to that.

There were 4 distinct groups that I spent time with. In chronological order, the first being my distant relatives in howrah, a remote district in kolkata, who are very typical simple domesticated families, calculating the cost of bus fares vs tram fares and buying sugar in bulk from Big Bazaar to avoid paying extra in off season months. Whats interesting is that these people are not poor, nor miserly, for them saving a penny is just a way of life. They are not extravanagant, its not in their blood.

I thought I would get bored with this lot, as the women are domesticated and would not have much exposure and enough content to talk about. I was pleasantly surprised when I thoroughly enjoyed their company, and laughed the entire time that I spent with them , at their simple and loud jokes about themselves and their growing up years. These are women who were made to leave school to do housework, but can still joke about it and talk about their oddities and weaknesses as simply as talking about the weather.

The second set was a bunch of old school boys (29 odd years old) who did nothing but laugh at each other, making jokes about anything stupid that the other person might have said or done their entire lives. This did not affect me positively or negatively. It was neutral time spent.

The third set was a bunch of 20 - 21 somethings who took me with them to a faraway resort. These kids have travelled around, and having been in this city a few years, lacking a sense of belonging anywhere. This city, which is dominated by multiple layers of "cool" people, these kids were trying to network to fit in a category which seems interesting on the outside. I sensed that they were definitely uncomfortable around me ,and did not have much content to talk about, so they kept quiet most of the time, blaring loud music in the car, trying to fill up spaces in their heads. They enjoyed things like dark narrow alleys and speeding cars, an extremely form of adventure in my opinion. But then again, i'm not the worlds greatest daredevil when there is risk of physical injury.

The fourth set was a diverse set on its own, each with a history but desperately trying to fit in amongst each other. 1 cross dresser gay boy who was the nicest in my opinion, unemployed, fairly rich folks to support him and his antics, he was tactful as he could easily switch from talking about la de dah things with the others, and talking about silly basic things with me. 2nd person : an aspiring model who was mediocre looking, probably the girl in school who always wanted to look beautiful and took to modelling to get some attention to prove a point to herself. 3rd person: rich daddy's boy who was probably dating the model.

This bunch drained me off all my energy. The conversation was redundant, centered around places to party in different cities, talking about extremely expensive things as if they were ragular day to day commodities, and what cool people in the city were upto and where they partied the previous week. I tried many a time to change directions towards lighter things and silly jokes about ourselves, but i was drowned out by the rich daddys boy who insisted only to talk about branded watches and expensive diners. I must mention here that I have nothing against this gentleman in particular, I dont even remember his name.I'm just averse to what he represents.

There was a point at the dinner table, where I could have gagged.

As part of my experiment I had decided to be nice to everybody, and be non judgemental. I could only do the former.I wanted to establish where this kind of nonsensical behaviour sprouted from, and my conclusion was that this rich daddys boy was probably a loser as a teenager, a pampered kid who was a nobody in school. He now hangs out with models and buys them meals/drinks (he got the tab for the whole table this time too) so that they like him, just so he can be seen with the cool people and feel part of them. It made me realize that people who wear brands and flash them around, like our boy here, are people who are insecure, and use these established brands, and the goodness associated with it to make up for what they lack.

He spoke about how he travels to europe very often. People who travel should have exposure, but with the limited scope of conversation that he was capable of, centered around a small set of cool people in the city, I wondered if he had ever really opened his eyes and seen those countries. Spoken to those people and wanted to ever know them. I was tempted to ask him whether his life ever feels empty, or whether he ever gets sleepless nights because of non use of grey cells, whether he knowingly gets used, using his company in return for self gratification and image in the eyes of other morons like him. I refrained from doing so, as it would not have been considered polite dinner conversation.

I realize that there are plenty of people in cities who follow this pattern. It saddens me and I wish that we could go back to our roots, talk about plants and animals, instead of riches and brands, revelling in other peoples' glory.

So now my longing for nature grows stronger. To be away from city folk and explore fish and birds and plants and animals. Understand their sociological patterns and see if their lives are as disgustingly staid as our common rich city folk.

It made me realize that the most worthwhile and educational time during this whole weekend was the few minutes which I spent everyday chatting with my father, as he spoke about the struggle that our countrymen went through, to fight for independence, and how to breed beer eels to feed fish in his ponds, and the non complexity of the taxation system in thailand.

It saddens me to think of the braindead society that our youth makes, in a city which was once known for its intellectualism. I'm left deeply troubled and with a need to escape these crowds to a land full of animals who have no need for show, or with people like my parents who could intellectually stimulate me.

Entertainment: To catch one's immediate attention is easy. But to be an eye catcher, and to sustain being in the human mind, there has to be food for thought. Success fundamental hence = psychedelia + intensity of unusual emotions.

The reason why bands like kings of leon, or pink floyd stay evergreen is because they talk about intense, masochistic, sadistic dreamlike desires or state of mind. The reason why psychedelic designs never go out of style is because its a hardcopy image of what goes on in your head when under the influence of chemicals. Everybody who has experienced it loves being in that state, and glimpses of that world in your everyday life, such as in artwork around u lets u escape reality and experience revelry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ou5JnKag

Every part of my body screams out to me to leave everything I'm involved in and train to be a dancer day and night. I feel trapped in my body which is incapable of doing what my mind wants it to do. I feel so much energy and no release, its like constantly being trapped in a cage after being given a shot of red bull.

I imagine myself as a contemporary dancer with limitless capabilities,for the body to be a vehicle to express in form what the mind comes up with. Analogous to what a Mariah Carey might feel in voice, a voice that obeys the mind. It's torture to realize that at the age of 26, its not possible to invest 4 years in your body, which has already started showing signs of deterioration.

Its important to take care of your physical health. To deprive yourself of unhealthy food ,alcohol, drugs, and to work out to get strong muscles and bones. The future of the world depends on it.

Every human is responsible for procreation, and good habits over the generations can change your gene structure for the better, and create healthier human beings.

There is a reason why the Chinese have good skin, or Jews are academically intelligent people. Its generations of hard work upon themselves. Being irresponsible with oneself if being irresponsible toward evolution.

Quoting a friend of a friend, Character is Destiny. I heard this being said 2 days ago and it has helped to articulate what has been on my mind for a while.In the past I have been unable to decide, as to whether there is a pre-programmed life that humans follow, things happen as they are meant to be, or whether man makes his own destiny. After much thought, here is my conclusion.

Analogous to software downloads, you can download the basic version for free. It gives you the basic tools to get around your goal. Similarly, everybody has a basic line set for them, you're gifted with basic tools, but to make it in the big league, to influence significant positive change around you, you have to invest in yourself. That would be buying the upgraded pro versions of the software, learning how to use them and to achieve higher goals.

This investment in yourself involves risk, hard work, calculation and passion. You can get through life just being happy, taking what comes your way (fairly) naturally, getting married, doing a job, having a social life, kids etc. Or you can risk investing in yourself, such as training your body, risking loneliness, studying further to train your mind and finding a path where your goals are not limited by your limited imagination.

Thoughts about failure are wasted thoughts. The higher the risk, the higher the reward, and common knowledge is that the most successful people make so many attempts are various things, that they fail more number of times than they achieve. Yet their total quantum of rewards are much greater than failure. Why? Your failures reward you with learning so much, that you end up making up for your failures with bigger achievements, as long as you don't give up. (these are collected quotes from a lot of people, which make a lot of sense to me now)

In the recent past i've met people who have inspired me greatly. I once again stand at the brink, wondering what to do next. I seek big things, I have the courage, time, passion and intelligence to pull it through, its just time to decide on my niche. World hold on, here I come.

I watched a traditional chhau performance today. Having gone through half a diploma in dance now, and acquiring rudimentary knowledge about bharatnatyam and chhau, I found the performance pitiful.

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Chhau is a recent addition to the 6 original Indian Classical Dance forms, previously practiced as a martial arts form. There are different variations of it, and todays performance was the aspect of dance concerning plebeian village life, as is a common theme in folk dances. It had 5 parts.

1. Was the invocation and salutation to the diety, as is a usual starting point. It starts off slow and is a warm up for the dancer as well as for the audience. This conforms to most pieces of dance, music or theater as they start slow, zenith somewhere and end either on a high energy note, or a dramatic note.

2. The part of a boatman ferrying across his beloved - Depicting everyday village activity, except that the part of the lover was played very obviously by a shorter man. In effect it looked like a manly woman wooing another mans potbelly.

3. Radha and Krishna - Throwing in what a classical piece is incomplete without

4. Shiva and Shakti - Right side dressed as Shiva, Left side dressed in Parvati.

5. Fisherman - Who looked like he was going hunting for either a lake or an airborne fish.

Most parts of the above-mentioned were clumsy, lacking spontaneity or creativity. A lot of people would say that it was good, but I'm sure that would be out of pity, and comparing this to an underdog performance when put on the same pedestal as an international level performance.

I think its time we stop excusing mediocrity in the name of tradition.

Why I thought it was pathetic?

1. Redundancy: I understand that this artform is centuries old, and the audience back then had the patience to receive information really slow. Also, as a friend pointed out, each character could be established over a long time with very little happening on stage. But in today's context, where people are used to digesting a lot of information all at once, and where redundancy is seldom tolerated, I found the beginning just plain pathetic. Except that I was greatly entertained by the idiocy of it, am probably going to be giggling about it to myself all weekend, karma which i'm sure will be justly returned to me when I perform.

2. Visual Appeal: Indian Classical Dance relies greatly on the visual, with adornation being one of the 10 most important aspects of a dancer. But unfortunately too many Classical Dancers rely too heavily on it. Its just as irritating to watch a really good looking actor do a botchy job of acting. A lot of Indian Classical Dance training, such as Bharatnatyam, is more about co-ordination of the arms and legs, completely ignoring the body consciousness aspect of dance, where you are really dancing, and not just imitating someone else.

3. Lack of Facility: I also understand that most artists in India don't have the facility, (studio, wooden floors etc) exposure or faculty to train their bodies like they do in the west, and that the sense of aesthetic is entirely different.But I just don't understand how a potbellied guy twisting and turning with little sense of control or line, can be a guru and be appreciated. I also find that the movements themselves are childish, and not conducive to add strength or control to the body. Even though Indian art forms date back many centuries, its sad that enough research has not been done in the right direction to really understand the internal aspect of the dance, rather than what it looks like externally.

4. Done-to-death themes: It is extremely cliche to have a part of the performance as "The eternal love of Radha and Krishna". As Indians, that information as redundant as cows being sacred. It might have exotic appeal to gora audiences in broadway who like to draw simple associations, but it is most insulting to an Indian Audience's intellect to have to talk about that. It would be far more enriching if a specific incident between Radha and Krishna would be played out, with the artist adding his own bits to the story.

Nevertheless:

Through the first part of the performance, it is endearing to note that Indian forms acknowledge publicly that the stage is a sacred space, as is to every artist, whether or not they believe in god. When you dedicate your whole life to your form, your stage is your sanctum.

To me dance is an expression of the body.

Fortunately: I have a teacher who has had the exposure in athletics and gymnastics to understand the body aspect of chhau, and not just the visual aspect. With a bit of research one finds that it is surprisingly similar to ballet, which is also an evolution of a martial arts form from Italy.

Unfortunately: I have to alongside go through the rigmarole of "traditional" Bharatnatyam training. It breaks my heart to see so many people being brainwashed into doing this worldwide without knowing why they are doing it, except as a desperate attempt to hold on to their culture. Is stamping my feet about in different directions, while I sit in aramandi really dance for me? Not at all. It is infact torture to my fragile knee joints and back.

Rukmini Devi, a revolutionary dancer in the early 1900s revived Bharatnatyam as a form and established the Kalakshetra school, where she did away with the erotic aspect of the danceform, which had originally brought about its decline. It was the need of the hour. (roughly speaking). What is easily overlooked is that she started training in Bharatnatyam only in her late 20s, after having been trained in Ballet, and having a deep understanding of every muscle in her body. What is passed on to generations below, like chinese whispers, is just the rote movement aspect of it, without the curvy temple dancer juice, and without the knowledge or understanding of the body. It angers me that most Indian Classical Dancers in their 50s are fat, with knee and back problems and blame it on arthritis.

But yet we must 'respect' the Indian Traditional Art form because of its linkage to the divine. Really? Blame it on the supernatural? Sometimes you need to see things for as they are, and not make justifications based on culture, divinity, history, heat, diet, poverty, politics and so on.

I wish more people like Rukmini Devi would emerge to suit the need of today, this hour in 2011, and reform the bountiful plethora of intricate and complex Indian movements, study it from the inside, to put it up on a truly international pedestal. To find ways to challenge the body in its capacity of agility, flexibility, strength, internal connections and respect its sensitivity. There are people doing work in pockets, and I really hope that it is a pivotal time for the Indian Contemporary Arts scene in India.

P.S. My apologies to Varun Nair who is the only dancer who can bring out the sexy quotient in Chhau. Inappropriate but skilful.

I approach the end of my course in movement arts. It has been a year greatly fulfilling and educational.

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I realized that after all else has been explored, the final journey is to dive deep into yourself. There are many paths one might take to go there, and this year I used my body as a tool.

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I was a very lonely teenager. While growing up I often felt claustrophobic in my own body and the space around me, waiting for something to happen, day after night after day. The waiting never seemed to end. The empty sense of waiting still exists, although whilst being so physically and mentally occupied, it aids the passing of time.

Its ironical, how Ive always felt that wasting time is the worst sin one could commit, and I try and squeeze in as much productivity/happiness as I can to my day, yet it seems as though at the back of my mind i'm still waiting.

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People ask what my purpose in life is, and I think there is no such thing for the non superhero. My goals are all short term and keep changing.

This course above all has taught me the virtues of patience. In this information age where everything is instantaneously obtainable, one never has to wait, and has forgotten the art of waiting. The body though has not evolved as quickly as the times. Having sustained numerous injuries while experimenting with different forms of dance, I realized that time spent nurturing your body meditatively is directly proportional to the benefits you reap from it.

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Feldenkrais has been a life changing learning for me. I sometimes aspire to be like a tree, to just be, exist, and observe everything happening around me. Old trees seem so intelligent, who've been around for years just observing un-imposingly. Feldenkrais has taught me to just observe my being as it is, and not try to alter immediately what I observe to be a defect. I have learnt that just accepting a problem and observing it, is a starting point to solve the problem. By actively trying to solve a problem we might be getting obsessive and actually making it worse, as the being is far too complicated for the conscious intellect to comprehend. Instead trusting yourself, and all the acquired wisdom through our years of information accumulation, a problem can solve itself if we give it some time and space. By information accumulation I don't just mean the history and mathematics we learnt in school, but acquired sensorially and perceptively starting the day we were conceived.

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I get very irritated with myself sometimes because I'm habituated to give opinions and sound intelligent, whereas all opinions are imposing, and by imposing i'm interfering in someone else's karma. Not an intelligent thing to do at all.

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This year i've tried to protract my learning through movement into everyday life. Patience is something that applies even for relationships, as even relationships haven't evolved as quickly as technology. By that I also mean my relationship with other people, animals, the environment and my feet.

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I have realized that similar to a warm up exercise, the beginning of many things that lead to bigger things can be the most difficult part of the routine. But while sustaining the hardships of beginning something new, one mustn't be too aggressive and ambitious in trying to push oneself during warm up. In exercise, a build up over a few hours is what ultimately leads to long lasting strength. By pushing oneself in the beginning one might be able to achieve certain goals temporarily, but it is not sustainable. By stressing about anything, we only dilute our capacity, as worrying consumes energy and masks intuition. I'd like to think that the same principal applies to life.

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This year i've found answers to many questions I had as a child. Sometimes the answer being that there is no answer, and that everything I thought I was odd for, is perfectly in accordance with nature. For example, I never liked the sound of the drums, and never understood why. I found a book written in 1875 by Surendranath Tagore (Rabindranath's grandfather) about how the drums started to be used in mediocre bands as a tool to keep in time . It explains why classical music never has the drums, because the artist doesn't need an external redundant source to keep rhythm. Rhythm is inherent in us because everything in nature has rhythms, from the heart beating 72 times a second, to the earth turning once in 24 hours.

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If you observe a child going about its business, the observation is interesting because the child is so unpretentiously involved and focused on what its doing. An artist who does the same, is one whom its interesting to watch. I have had various kinds of teachers this year, and there is a distinct difference between a teacher who encourages you to dive deep, makes you understand the intention behind the movement, versus the teachers who show you images, makes you a 'performer', and hence work outside in. There is also a kind of teacher who makes you imitate images continuously and patiently all year, so you figure out for yourself what it looks like from inside your body. The kind which works for me is the first kind. With my limited memory, images never last, whereas a feeling lasts much longer. It brings out a certain kind of gold which is far more appealing even to an audience. To be endearing to an observer, the intention behind the movement cannot be to please the audience, but to really feel the movement beyond the physical.

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It scares me tremendously, that in 2 weeks time, I will have limited access to this plethora of wisdom that resides in schools. If I had it my way, movement is the one thing I could commit to for the rest of my life.

Today I've been very happy to have made a mistake in my new advertising job. It made me understand something that is crucial.

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My  job is to primarily create ads or logos for companies who do regular work, like consulting or real estate brokering. The challenge is to have people notice these, over and above the 3000 odd ads an average person is subject to everyday. So my approach is to have an element in these designs that is identifiable. Either as objects which are used in regular plebeian life, or popular mythical concepts.

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The mistake that I made, was that I used the concept, but I did not use a symbol that was easily identifiable.

The logo above, was made for a real estate company called Spacecraft, hence the obvious thing to do was to use "alien" as an identifiable concept. The problem here, is that I got carried away. I ended up making this alien which looked like an octopus. A third person was unable to identify the connection between octopus looking alien, and spacecraft immediately. Nobody has the time to mull over something, since people are subject to a visual information overload anyway. Hence I'd already lost their attention.

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So the lesson learnt here is, if spacecraft was infact a company that imported aliens, it would have been ok for me to make this image, but since I'm using the alien as just an object of identification, it has to be something that is very simple, and easy to identify as an alien.

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I recently attended a workshop about the basics of watercolor and realised what I had been doing so dreadfully wrong all my life.

When you start to use crayons in school, the purpose is to develop your motor skills, and not to introduce you to art. The exercises involve colouring all over, keeping inside the lines, and not leaving any white spaces. Then you graduate onto color pencils which gives you a little more control, and its a therapeutic pass time to continue filling out all the white spaces with gusto, all the while ruminating about something else.

In most schools, the next step is to get introduced to watercolor. And then you tend to apply the same way of laying down color, first filling up the white spaces, and then thinking where to add the light and shade elements. This is the first big mistake. Watercolor is more about the white spaces rather than the filled out spaces. White spaces in a watercolor painting represent the most exposed areas in light, and hence immediately attract attention. For me, these provide respite for the eye, and are the most beautiful part of a painting. For this reason, before one touches the paintbrush to their paper, a whole plan needs to be first made. No stroke in watercolor is put down without deliberation. There's no way that you can spare mental space thinking about something else, unless you grow extremely comfortable with doing this, and are capable of multiple levels of meditation.

Watercolor is very close to Japanese Sumi e style of painting where what you put down on paper reflects your state of mind.

This was my biggest mistake, to ignore the concept of white spaces and to try and fill in color without thinking about my strokes.

My current situation is that I have a few hours of work a day, and absolutely nothing else to do, yet I wish there were more hours in a day, so I could remain a few hours more, in my dreamy languor.

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I remember myself to be a sleepy child, spending a lot of my time daydreaming on my grandparents' sofa, while the sunlight filtered in, highlighting all the floating specs of dust in its rays. There was, and is a sense of guilt, that in the peak of my youth I could be doing something else, yet there is a comfort, contentment and cheeriness in this idleness.

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A few years ago, I was tired of spending the day all by myself, and I decided to partner with somebody for work, to keep me entertained. It worked out well for me, but since the past few months my partner has been on a sabbatical, and while work doesn't happen with the same fervour, I have really enjoyed the solitude.

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I spend the whole day reading books, online watching videos, allowing my mind to absorb bits of politics, neuroscience, biology, and savour whatever catches my fancy. My palatial house currently has many well lit nooks I like to snuggle into, and allow myself to meander down this rabbit hole that is the internet. There is guilt, that I spend too little energy, at a time when I should be doing high energy activities, but theres also a knowledge that there is no right way to live.

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My current dilemma is that I am not able to streamline, or absorb knowledge at the rate at which I would like to. Im intrigued by the body, its functioning, yet I don't know enough about anything to be able to do anything fruitful out of it.

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I have existential issues about my work, whether it will ever amount to anything worthwhile. With my current plan, or lack of thereof, there seems to be no scope for growth. Yet everything is overshadowed by my happy state of restfulness.

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I feel guilt for the incredibly happy life I live, and I wonder if I could do more socially. Help a large chunk of people, in any way.

Toby our annoying pug does so many things he's not supposed to. Urinates in the laundry room, begs during all meals, and cries when the maids leave to go back home. Today he's been laid to rest, and I wish he would annoy us one last time. Come back and whine by the bedroom door to be let in, and in 7 seconds whine to go out, and repeat the process again. We were all his personal doormen in the house, and thats how he saw us. We used to think he's an unusual dog to drink so much water, what we didn't realise, was that his kidneys were failing.

This has been a year of loss. My grandfather left us in June, and toby hurried to join him soon after. Dadaji gave him the best cuts of fruit every morning, and those were the juiciest sweetest fruit bits in Kolkata, because dadaji really knew how to choose his fruits right. We were no match, and he's gone to get his morning papaya and cucumber from the master of fruits, my grandfather.

We are burying him in farmhouse and planting a big tree on the burial ground, so toby remains immortal forever.

One of the difficult things about coping with death is that you worry that their memory might fade. I'd like to write down some things here so my fear gets alleviated.

He was such a naughty pup when he arrived, would love to climb on to everything he could, including us. Bursting with curiosity and full of ticks. The energy levels declined, but the ticks never left him till the end, the bloody parasites, even though he hardly had any blood left. Although there were years that he was tick free, we recently realised that they were hiding in the house, and proliferating in corners, cornices and under furniture. Towards the middle of this life, he was like an old man who didn't like change in the house. He grumbled quite a bit when the gardener would take buckets from the washrooms to the balcony, or when the cleaners would come to sweep and swop. As a pup he would often latch on to the mop, and be swung around along with the mop but refuse to let go. Pugs seem to have such human expressions, it provided never-ending amusement to us. Between confusion, curiosity, being indignant and sleepy summed up a majority of his day. He would eat flowers off guests shoes, stole a piece of chicken from my brother's plate, all in a days work. It would be hard to eat eggs or papaya without giving him a piece of it, and when I went away to hostel, eating papaya never felt the same again. I'm certain that it became sweeter when we shared it with him. Papayas without you toby, will forever be flavor-less.

I held him in my arms while the anaesthesia was administered to him, and it felt like it was the right thing, the only thing to do. My friends told me that they could never do it to their dogs, but looking at him in last few days, it felt like we couldn't not do it. Earlier today, he sensed that he was going to go, and he didn't let any of us leave his side at all, until the point the anaesthesia men arrived. At that point he climbed on our laps, and then went back down and became aloof.

I don't know how much language dogs understand, but they must have a part of brain that we don't, as their ability to sense situations, and give love is unparalleled.