How Dip Does The Ribbit-Hole Go?
Our Saturdays Are Different. Now.
When I was no more than two-feet-seven-inches tall, our house was being constantly under construction. The floor was not paved in the black-and-white-and-sometimes-grey patterns it appears in today. This used to be a loveable mess of cemented patches in between cracks (most of them having graduated to pothole territory [It is interesting how potholes world-over have a lifecycle of their own—obviously—often defying popular notions about honesty in the contractors’ part and denying them sleep]) and a coloradoesque network of anthills and general household stuff everyone had trouble remembering ever having brought in. I used to ride a fixie (with three wheels and no freewheel, queue the ‘before it was cool’ joke) through the rooms (an absence of doors helped) and jumping down an inch-high platform in one of the bigger rooms. My parents believed I was Macaskill material. I believed them. I would refuse to get down from the thing even to greet relatives when they dropped in for their version of friendly visits on hot summer sunday afternoons.
When the dust storms inside start to resemble their wilderness counterparts, we would get ready for the day-long floor painting expedition. The maternal uncle (who is the other similarly creatively disturbed person in the family) would be home with a packet of shells which we would then ceremoniously drench in water as they release (later, the mystery would drain from the event, when I learn the chemical equation in one of those awful duotone textbooks NCERT is infamously fond of) all the whiteness there in the world in intermittent hisses and little bubble-bursts. He would leave patches unpainted in elementary shapes and parrots with their heads at likeable angles and strange flowers and letters and numbers and people in the village and things I had never seen even in the handed-me-down picture dictionary while the white paint ate away at the grey dust and stones and the anthills and the household objects and in the end, he would be the shipwrecked sailor in an island of unpainted floor, surrounded by all these strange shapes and people in white. This is one of the earliest memories I go back to when I start to sense the fun draining out of masking Photoshop objects, flowing text across columns and moving node-points around, which, as luck would have it, isn’t often.
Painting cement floors in white.
The making of pappadoms was the stuff my childhood dreams were made of. Then they started talking about kerning. I cannot complain.
This field that I am standing in front of, someone toiled over that for generations, you know. And while I sit on my big ass clicking a mouse all day, you know, it really puts things in the perspective of how lucky and thankful I should really be, every hour.
— Aaron Draplin of Field Notes. From the Field Notes Memo Archive.
Windows We Have Not Yet Closed.
Successfully completed a year on my diploma-project. Had my ass kicked at multiple levels while on the look-out for inspiring people to write on, places, images, InDesign layouts, typefaces, licenses and multiple computer crashes across a variety of OS-es. Met some awe-inspiring people who quite effortlessly (for them, of course) showed me how hollow my foundations were and how important, my roots. Shared the studio space with what has become a family-away-from-coconut-trees of sorts. (Inclusive of an ever-drooling Boxer and a very sophisticated lady-ninja.) Rode around potholes interspersed with some tarmac, had an awful lot of punctures on the way. Almost lost it, managed to get out of it sans pub-hopping.
Drank some orange juice to that. Shall start pestering y’all into buying the book in a month’s time.
The grid is like the lines on a football field. You can play a great game in the grid or a lousy game. But the goal is to play a really fine game.
— Wim Crouwel
On Guides. Off Guides.
So the fine homosapiens specimen visited the Taj. With the family inclusive of all taxes and little monsters. Photographed the monument after getting the mind blown to bits and pieces (that was messy and difficult to piece together) like everybody else and walked around in the frying-pan-orama.
Once inside the Agra Fort, the general centre-alignment of things was much appreciated.
Also, part two of this post will follow after a long-ish nap. That is why I left the hero hanging from a cliff after flying off it on his road-bike.
Sentient Doorjamb.
My post-title-generator has started calling itself R. Mutt.
