Of Monsters and Men
A series of happy coincidences introduced me to the Laneway Festival (or St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival, as it is also known) sometime towards the end of last year. The lineup of artists performing this time around was diverse and brilliant; the fact that Bat for Lashes was also going to be there was all I...
The November revision of the Mumbai Auto-rickshaw Fare card for 2012
The previous version of the fare card has seen over 13,562 downloads since I put it up in April (this is just counting the PDF file of the Mumbai version, the JPEG of the same saw 6,415 downloads, the Thane PDF and JPEG saw 2,301 and 1.364 downloads respectively, before I unlinked the files). This...
The revised Mumbai Auto-rickshaw Fare card for 2012
11th October 2012: I’m currently updating these cards, so please hang on till I put them up here. I’ve taken the download links off for now to avoid any confusion. Updated version here. Update (30th April 2012): The different versions of the tariff cards have seen well over 200 1000 downloads since I released...
Lucy Rose
Lucy Rose is a talented English singer and songwriter who I came across quite accidentally while sightseeing across the internet one day. In addition to playing an assortment of wind and percussion instruments, she also taught herself how to play the guitar. She creates her songs in an almost organically grown sort of manner, guitar...
Bombay Bicycle Club
One of the advantages of being constantly online and plugged into social networks, blogs, videos, films and websites is that you’re always coming across new music and bands through recommendations, mentions and background scores. When I come across a song I like I usually look it up through its lyrics or mentions and track down...
Bat For Lashes
If dreams had soundtracks, they’d mostly sound like the music of Bat For Lashes. Bat For Lashes is Natasha Khan, an English-Pakistani artist born and brought up in the UK. She performs with Ben Christophers, Charlotte Hatherley and Valentina Magaletti. Her background in the visual arts is quite strongly reflected in her music and the...
How to grow avocado
Avocado isn’t something that I’ve grown up with, especially since it wasn’t very freely available here until very recently. It’s still also quite expensive in comparison to local fruits and vegetables, but even since I was re-introduced to its special ability to liven up a salad, I’ve been hooked. There’s one particular time of the...
True North: Proportioning the logo
I remember a professor quoting the architect Tadao Ando once during a lecture about making architectural drawings during the early part of my graduate studies. I’ve looked high and low for the exact quote, because I don’t remember it verbatim. However, the basic jist of it is that every line an architect (or designer) draws...
Perfectly Fluffy Rice: The Absorption Method
One of the first things I had to figure out to cook after I set up the kitchen at home, was rice. Like most other things, I looked up how to do so on the internet and then proceeded to fine tune the process myself, over repeated attempts. I only recently found out that the...
The Mumbai Auto-rickshaw Fare card
Update: I’ve released the updated version of this for 2012 here. I’ve been noticing continued downloads of the old fare cards over the past few days, even after the new release. Please use only the updated version, you’d probably end up in a fist fight with your rickshaw driver if you use the outdated ones...
The relativity of units
What units do you measure with? Architects are trained to make their scaled drawings in metric units; when they graduate and go out to work in firms or as apprentices, many discover the old British unit system still in practice. Some of us who’ve jumped disciplines to graphic design are then introduced to point sizes...
Portishead
Today is the day of the official first rains of the monsoon in Bombay. Usually its the sort of day that sees halted trains, traffic jams and people running helter-skelter looking for cover and transport. It’s a nice day to talk about Portishead, who I am listening to currently over the sound of wind and...
