Last week marked nine years of Amber and me being married. We had already been living together a few years prior to that, so we’ve been building a home and life together for well over a decade. I feel that we have really begun to hit our stride in the last couple of years, learning how to support each other better, and dealing with the ups and downs of life with more resilience. Given how different our personalities are, we definitely have a long way to go still. But it is a satisfying thing, watching yourself and someone you love grow — with you and around you.
WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING
1.
I joined Amber in Hyderabad for a little weekend getaway. He was already in the city for a speaking engagement and I jumped at the chance of visiting Hyderabad, where I lived briefly when I was a toddler and hadn’t been to ever since. In hindsight, I was probably too tired to travel, and we ended up having a relatively quiet trip, at least by our standards.
We walked around the city a little bit and saw some beautiful standalone movie theatres. On Saturday morning, we made our way to Charminar — it was disappointing to see the state of the place. On top of that, there were so many touts trying to sell you a tour around the older parts of the city that it was difficult to enjoy the architecture or the setting in peace. I did spot a pair of spotted doves right outside Charminar and got to see them up close.
On Sharada’s recommendation, we ate biryani at Sarvi, and I was overjoyed at eating something flavourful but not overly spicy. The food at Telugu Medium Kitchen was pretty amazing too. The restaurant is in a beautiful building with shallow domes and exquisite brickwork. We tried the crab fry and keema biryani, and enjoyed the latter so much that we got the leftovers packed to bring them back to Delhi.
There were two bookstores on our itinerary — Luna Books, which is a rather large operation housed in an old bungalow, and the small children’s bookstore at Saptaparni. Both were lovely, and just the right type of outing given how one was feeling. We had meant to join a heritage walk around the British Residency on our final morning, but decided at the last moment, that it would be better to put our feet up rather than risk a health relapse.
2.
I started laying out pages and drawing titles for the next batch of India Street Lettering zines. I’d like to make some progress on these in the next 3–4 weeks, and see if I can publish them as the summer approaches.
3.
I’ve been preparing in earnest for my talk at BLAG Meet: Inside Issue 04 this Saturday. It has been eye-opening to look at the collection at India Street Lettering from the perspective of hand-painted signs only, which are my focus for this talk. I love coming at what I have documented over the years with different lenses and at different times.
4.
This morning I heard from Type Electives that my application for the Provoking Type course has been accepted. I’m excited about being in a learning environment again, and this programme is, I feel, will be a good kickstart for me to begin making more sense of my independent practice. The downside: I’ll be attending sessions at 4:30 am weekly for five weeks.