The seasons are rapidly changing and the city is awash in semul flowers (red silk-cotton or Bombax ceiba). I ate my first mango of the year, perhaps too early. And thanks to our brand new Aeropress, which joins its compatriots — the recently acquired moka-pot, the seasoned cold brew pot, and the almost-decade old Chemex — in our kitchen, I drank the most excellent cup of coffee this evening. Life is, as they say, alright.
WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING
1.
Two of the prospective client calls that I was excited about last week have resulted in solid projects. One is a lettering assignment, and the other a workshop. The conversation continues for the third one, and so I remain hopeful.
I’m also talking with Noopur to organise a workshop in Bangalore next month. If all goes well, that should get figured out by end of the week, and I’ll be traveling soon for this and a couple of days of teaching at NIFT Bangalore.
2.
My lecture at Practica finally happened last Thursday. Teaching online is tough. You never know how the students are taking it all in. I believe I was able to share some useful methodologies and perspectives with them, and I’m grateful to the folks who spoke up after the lecture to share how my feeling of cultural otherness resonated with them, and asked questions about my research methods when studying local design histories where pickings are slim.
It is a peculiar feeling being both student and instructor at the same time. Not two days before this talk, I was attending a lecture by Silas Munro that covered similar subjects.
3.
On Friday we celebrated Harshay’s birthday with lunch at Poochki Table and a visit to the Raghu Rai exhibition that is on show at the KNMA. None of us had been to Poochki Table since our last visit a few weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down in 2020. It was for a celebration then too, and I like how we have made warm memories in this place. It was sunny but not terribly warm, and we were able to dine al fresco in their patio. The food is still as nice I remembered it, and they’ve added freshly made potato wafers to their menu, which were excellent. To top it off, Purneetha brought a really nice cake from Chez Adoline.
The Raghu Rai exhibition was tepid: the photographs were great, but the curation left a lot to be desired. One bit that stuck with me was a quote by Rai about how poignant photographs emerge when you invest in a place that you’re interested in through studied discipline. It made me think of patch birding, and increasingly I feel like I want to do most things in life with that philosophy.
4.
We finally had a proper weekend after ages, and ended up spending almost none of it on rest. With a spur-of-the-moment decision, we went back to our weekly routine of going out to buy groceries in person, rather than ordering them from the store. And since we were in the neighbourhood, we sneaked in lunch at Nature’s Soul Kitchen. Amber and I both ate our favourites, and talked about how much we would miss this place and its food if we were to be away from Delhi.
On Sunday, Purneetha spent the day at our place. We made cyanotypes, chatted non-stop and went for a long walk. It felt like a mini-vacation.
