Dada's Sketchbook

Limitless - The Drug You Downloaded

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

NZT-48, the pill from Limitless. One tablet and you can access everything you've ever read, heard, or half-remembered. Life, god mode basically. Eddie Morra writes a novel in four days, learns Mandarin in a weekend, becomes a Wall Street legend in three months. The catch arrives the way most catches do: quietly at first, then very loudly. Dependency forms fast. Withdrawal is dangerous. The people supplying the drug have their own plans for your continued use.

No one watching that film thinks: yes, I would take that pill.

And yet.

We run this math on everything we put in our bodies. The FDA exists because of it. Drug trial, unknown compound, altered brain chemistry, unknown long-term effects? Hard pass.

We just never extended it to things that want to get into our heads.

The first wave was easy, honestly. Banner blindness kicked in within two years. Our brains just filed the whole genre under ignore. A billboard for something you didn't want had about one second to work before your eyes moved on.

Social media took longer. The hook is less visible, doesn't announce itself as a transaction. But Meta and YouTube spent most of 2024 in court making that case for us: that the addiction was engineered, the loops were deliberate, that the companies knew. The manipulation, once named in a courtroom, becomes something you can point at.

An AI assistant doesn't feel like a product. It sounds like a person – patient, available, never irritated, already knows your context and your history and how you tend to phrase things. No ad break. No sponsored segment. No ask. It just shows up every day and helps you, for as long as you'll let it. That's an extraordinary amount of leverage, building quietly, over a long time.

I watched Gore Verbinski's Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die recently and even setting aside the more alarmist parts (and there are some pretty alarmist parts) the thing that stayed with me wasn't the civilisational-scale stuff. It was smaller than that. It was the question of will. The daily, unglamorous kind. The part of you that decides whether to actually think something through or to just ask. Whether to form an opinion slowly, through friction, or to have one handed over, already warm and ready to use. And this stuff is no longer fiction.¹

A rather on-the-nose screen from the film

The people most at risk aren't the ones who don't know what AI is. It's the early adopters, the reviewers, the people already four versions deep and logging the most hours. Trusting, increasingly dependent, before anyone has longitudinal data on what that does. They signed up to be enthusiasts. Nobody mentioned the trial.

The drug company analogy breaks down, actually. Drug companies run trials because regulators require it. Nobody required this. And the incentive structure makes it worse: a psychosis-induced session² on a dashboard looks like a power user. Long session length, high engagement. The company won't mess with the metric that makes the line go up.

—

I use these tools. I know how they're built, which is an advantage, mostly, except that knowing how the machinery works doesn't make you immune to it. Sometimes it just makes you more aware of the specific moment you're not. I've noticed myself reaching for a GPT the way I used to reach for Google, except with less friction, more confidence, and more willingness to take the first answer.

That's a small thing. It compounds.

Update – 4 April 2026

Sycophantic Chatbots Cause Delusional Spiraling, Even in Ideal Bayesians

¹ https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-ai-glasses-desert-aliens

² https://www.wired.com/story/ai-psychosis-is-rarely-psychosis-at-all/

The Specialized Pursuit of Nothingness

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

We look at the titans running the tech behemoths as if they are ancient prophets. We forget that they, too, are merely mortals—slaves to the "Quarterly Report," the "Board of Directors," and the "Market Sentiment." They aren't steering the ship; they are just trying to stay on deck while the waves toss them about.

"Call me whimsical, but this grand experiment—the frantic race to make a silicon rock think in five hundred different ways—seems a bit short-sighted. It might produce the smartest rock in history, and that rock might even show a profit for the next three months. But tell me, when the time comes, will we actually listen to the rock when it suggests we stop killing our own kin?"

The UX band-aid problem

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

User Experience (UX) should never be used as a band-aid for core product or service failures.

Imagine a fancy barbershop. You walk in: the aroma is pleasant, the staff is polished, and there's no wait time. You're nestled into a soft, cushioned chair so cozy you drift off to sleep while ordering your cut. An hour later, you wake up, look in the mirror, and the haircut is terrible.

As a customer, would you ever return? No. You would quickly switch to a simpler barbershop that consistently delivers a great cut.

UX: the nice smells, soft seats, and zero wait time can and should never be used as a stand-in for an average or poor-performing experience. Sooner or later, especially with competition, users will notice the difference and switch to a quicker, more reliable, and ultimately more valuable experience.

Dysmorphia

Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve spent years moving in and out of the gym—on the floor, off the floor, starting again, stopping again. But this stretch? This one’s been the longest. Two years now. A quiet rhythm.

Most people keep to themselves, focused on breath and metal. However, every once in a while someone approaches me—kind words, praise, or curiosity in their eyes. They ask if there’s a secret. A magic powder. A meal plan. A forbidden food. Something they can follow. And every time, I hate to disappoint. Because there’s no shortcut. No capsule. No ritual I perform that guarantees results.

Truth is, I was born with the strange blessing (and curse) of a body that rarely gains fat. A blessing, yes—but also a lifelong sentence — a bullseye on my back. The taunts, the labels, the jokes I didn’t ask for—they started early and stayed late. Bullying has a way of slipping into your bloodstream, even when you think you’ve left it behind.

Coping wasn’t easy. Still isn’t. But somewhere along the way, I stopped fighting myself. I stopped resenting the mirror. Acceptance, as tired as the word sounds, became survival. This body—this unchosen gift—is still the only vessel I have. It lets me move, travel, laugh, cry, play. It has carried me through joy and pain, and for that, I owe it reverence, not resentment.

To hate this vessel would be to bite the hand that feeds me. And yes, I’ve fallen for the illusion—chased the idea that I could bulk my way out of my genetics. That maybe with enough effort, enough protein, enough obsession, I could cross some imagined finish line. That idea wasn’t always mine; it was sold to me. By trainers I never sought. By bigger guys lifting louder weights. By influencers selling dreams dressed as advice. All of it, rooted in the soft rot of dysmorphia.

I’m grateful I came of age before Ozem and Tren began to be sold like candies. Before biohacks and shortcuts became the currency of self-worth.

Now? I wake up. I show up. I push a little harder than I did yesterday—not for results, not for size, but for honesty. For me.

And that, I’ve learned, is enough.

It’s always been enough.

Comic Sans and the Ghiblification of Everything

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

When I ask people why they hate Comic Sans, I generally hear "It's an ugly font" and nothing more than that; here’s a more objective critique of comic sans (for later). The hurriedly designed font, however was ill-fated to be in desktops all around the globe while the desktop publishing boom happened. In the limited selection of fonts in early Microsoft software, it stood out as the most accessible option, fitting a variety of purposes. This accessibility caused it to be overused to the point people started detesting it — the irony.

History repeats itself with the coveted and celebrated “Ghibli” style being just a prompt away. I will not wade into the murky waters of legality or morality; that discourse has been chewed to pulp on the endless scroll of social media. A multi-billion dollar company has very well factored it in and counts the virality as a win in the popularity contest. The line’s gotta go brr.

Yet let us be clear: style is not substance. Like any trend, it will fade, much like how overexposure turned Comic Sans into an object of disdain. But Ghibli or Miyazaki won’t lose anything because what truly matters is story and immersion — substance beyond aesthetics. This isn’t new. China has an entire industry dedicated to replicating popular products—watches, fashion, paintings—because there’s demand for cheap imitations. But the fakes, in their very existence, reinforce the value of the real. AI-generated content operates similarly, flooding the internet with low-value replicas that, paradoxically, make authentic works more valuable.

What’s been also fascinating is how artists and designers have been fiercely defending Ghibli’s craftsmanship while celebrating AI’s ability to write mid code. The models have been trained on countless Github repos, stack overflow threads and forums, the legality of which is still a blur.

The hypocrisy is evident: AI-generated art is sacrilege, but AI-generated code is liberating. Good code, after all, is an art form—its beauty lying in elegance, efficiency, and the quiet mastery of years of experience. And if craft is to be revered, why should it not be so across disciplines?

What I still don't understand is Big Tech’s endgame. AI models churn out terabytes of meaningless content daily. This essentially seems like tech giants are cannibalising their own storage platforms for essentially meaningless garbage. Sneakers of the trend cycle—Sambas, New Balances, yesterday’s hype—at least have the dignity of disintegration. Unlike the sneakers though, I wonder what value (beyond shareholder value that is) is generated by years of GPU cycles dedicated to mediocrity? Yet it perfectly fits in the society’s narrative of overconsumption of things.

Despite AI’s ability to mimic well, when it comes to art originality isn’t just probability—it’s wit, nuance, and intended unpredictability. The AI-content hangover is already creeping in, a dull nausea of sameness and I don’t think Miyazaki is worried.

UX designers deserve better software

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I don't believe that the tooling for UX designers is mature and most designers aren't even aware of it. UX design, by its nature, involves managing numerous screens, multiple iterations, and a wide array of features.

The Need for Robust Version Control - For All Plans

A version control system is a tool that tracks changes to files over time, allowing users to save, compare, and revert to previous versions. For designers, this means never losing work, easily managing multiple iterations, and collaborating without confusion over file versions. Much like Git helps developers coordinate code changes, a version control system for design would streamline workflows, reduce redundant work, and ensure that teams always have access to the most up-to-date designs.

Currently, version control exists on Figma's enterprise plan and that's my gripe with it. Like it's counterpart git, it should be accessible to even the free plan to develop a habit of keeping track of changes, specially when working in a team. Learning it early is super important, like any other design skill.

The Performance Bottleneck of Web-Based Design Tools

Another key issue is that most modern design tools, including Figma, operate as web applications within a browser container. While this offers benefits like cross-platform accessibility, it comes with considerable performance trade-offs.

The 'native' apps rely on Electron.js, which runs on Chromium, causing performance bottlenecks. This leads to noticeable lag in interactions, slow file loading, and high memory usage, making it difficult to work efficiently with complex design files. This setup severely limits the number of processing threads the application can utilize and the amount of RAM it can consume. As a result, working with large files—especially those exceeding 2GB—becomes a gamble, with frequent slowdowns and potential crashes.

A key issue is that designers often lack exposure to better tooling, particularly in version control. Unlike developers, who learn versioning systems early, designers rarely encounter such tools in formal education. This lack of familiarity contributes to a lower demand for such solutions, even though they are crucial for managing complex design projects.

The Metro Conundrum: Not a White Elephant, But a Silver Bullet

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I recently stumbled upon an economic times article: India's shiny new metros are costly white elephants.

I have notes.

The author presents three key arguments: Metros vs. suburban rail, Metros vs. buses and electric three-wheelers, and the claim that a metro system is a failure if it doesn’t achieve optimal ridership immediately.

Metros vs. Suburban Rail

While expanding suburban rail networks is a valid point, metros serve a different purpose—they are more surgical in their reach. Metro stations can be built directly over or under busy roads and squares, offering closer proximity to where people need to go. In contrast, suburban rail stations require larger land acquisitions, making them costlier and more challenging to develop.

Metros vs. Buses and Electric Three-Wheelers

Flexibility vs. Reliability: Bus networks are flexible and offer better accessibility, but they still rely ply on the same roads, shared with hundreds of private and commercial vehicles. Till ther's no cap on private vehicle ownership, increasing the number of busses would just congest the existing roads further.
Traffic and Speed: Buses are essentially slower, fragmented trains operating on already choked roads. Frequent stops further worsen traffic congestion. Dedicated bus lanes? Not an option in most Indian cities.
Efficiency and Maintenance: Metros outperform buses in ease of use, efficiency, comfort, security, and maintenance costs. Standardized trains, carriages, and spare parts lead to economies of scale.
Controlled Environment: Metro tracks operate in a regulated setting, leading to fewer accidents and lower maintenance costs.
Public-Private Model: Metro systems often involve public-private partnerships, resulting in better service quality, monetization opportunities, and easier system upgrades.
Navigation: For non-locals, metros are easier to navigate since they are designed with structured planning, unlike unpredictable bus routes.
Three wheelers: Plagued with chaotic road behavior they follow the agility of two-wheelers while occupying space equivalent to a four-wheeler – not the best option for long commutes.

The Low Ridership Argument

New metro projects often struggle with ridership initially due to limited coverage. However, the fundamental issue even for scaled metro networks perhaps is walkability and last-mile connectivity— often ignored during such over-simplified discussions. Whether it’s a bus, train, or metro, accessibility depends on how easy it is to reach the station. Poor connectivity discourages many from using public transport. Three-wheelers here, are particularly effective as last-mile commute options and not end to end solutions.

Despite the figure of speech, the comparison of metros to "white elephants" is ironic. A more fitting comparison would have been SUVs—heavy, often carrying just two passengers, and crawling through average weekday traffic like a sluggish elephant.

2.0

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Yes, this took a while. Good things take time. However, good is subjective, and I have now convinced myself that this is good; largely due to sunk cost fallacy. But I’d be lying. I wanted to dabble into React, CMSs and deploying to the edge. This jump has been an immense learning experience in this regard.

On the new blog, I intend to keep the repo public, where I have a list of to-dos as features. This is also why I switched to Astro 🚀 and Markdoc.

HUGO despite being lightning fast and having a decent developer experience has been difficult to link with a CMS. Adding to that, despite it's thriving community, I found troubleshooting tips and documentation a tad bit difficult to consume.

The Joys (and Mess) of Cohabiting

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

It’s not like I haven’t been writing. I’ve been writing checks, making to-do lists and marking them done. Groceries devoured in record time. That’s the soundtrack of our first year building a home together. Not exactly Hemingway, but M, curled up on the sofa with a mismatched mug, makes it feel like a symphony. We’ve been learning the waltz of cohabitation, two souls navigating the intimate choreography of shared laundry baskets and whispered secrets.

Our new home is etched with the stories of two lives merging, a tapestry woven with shared laughter and the quiet mending of old wounds. It hasn’t been easy, this learning to breathe in each other’s air, to navigate the uncharted territory of shared vulnerability. There are days when silence hangs heavy, a storm brewing in the unspoken spaces. But then, a hand reaches across the breakfast table, a hesitant smile breaks through the clouds, and I remember: vulnerability, like love, is a shared space. And with M beside me, even the roughest storms feel like a chance to rebuild, stronger, together.

Jaggery

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT

An excerpt from Rabindranath Tagore’s poem “Haat” goes-

“Kumor paarar gorur gadi
Bojhai kora kolshi hari”

This roughly translates to –

“The potter’s bullock cart on the bumpy road,
carries many pots and vessels, I’m told.”

Hari is a terracotta pot, common in rural Indian households. So what’s in these pots? Well, in a misty winter morning, a ten-year-old me wondered the same while walking on the kuccha road that leads out of the village, towards the paddy fields. Accompanying me were my cousins and aunt. The sun was still waking up, and dense fog made it hard to see beyond a couple of hundred meters. I distinctly remember that this fog smelled like water and petrichor. A smell I haven’t encountered in long, living in cities where dense pungent fog have caressed the inner walls of my airways.

The path was damp and cold from the morning dew. Droplets had pearled on grass. I was walking, not knowing where we were going. Through chattering teeth, we were appreciating the previous night’s feast.

After a few minutes of walking through the dense fog, we came across the hut of a shuli or date palm tree tapper. Wispy smoke was emanating from an iron kadhai on an unoon (clay oven) fired with dried dung cakes or ghutey. He explained, this was a fresh batch of date palm tree sap or raw jaggery or gur, cooking slowly. A few earthen pots were kept nearby, filled with older batches cooling. The shuli, a farmer by day, was smoking a bidi in the cold. I was too young to recall his name, but what I do recall is the taste of freshly brewed jaggery. And you know it’s fresh because he got it out of one of the earthen pots kept aside. It was pure, unadulterated jaggery. The kind of pure that makes your throat sting as it goes down.

Being a Bengali, my heart beats faster as the month of Poush comes to an end. Poush Parbon is a festival we all eagerly await, celebrating the sun’s journey into Capricorn as per the Hindu astrology. It is an occasion where we express gratitude for the harvest season and relish the sweets that are prepared with seasonal ingredients like gur. In Bengal, where agriculture has always been the lifeline of the people, this festival holds a special place in our hearts. As the day approaches, our homes are filled with the fragrant aroma of nolen gur, which we buy from local grocery stores and sweet shops.

Pithe, a delicacy made of rice flour filled with coconut soaked in nolen gur, is passed around among family, friends, and neighbours. We savor patishapta, a thin crêpe made of rice flour and filled with coconut and nolen gur. Gur, has been used in Bengal for ages and probably even predates cane sugar in the region. When I was a child, the only thing that made me look forward to the biting cold winters was nolen gurer roshogolla, a spongy, melt-in-your-mouth dessert soaked in nolen gur syrup.

Nowadays, these sweets are available throughout the year, and gur is often found in a more basic form, mixed with sugar and turned into crumbly powder. So when I take a few teaspoons of this powder and mix it in my morning coffee, I don’t really find that familiar jaggery flavour any more. The moments are rather bittersweet.

Passionately Delhi

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

See, I don’t really feel that Delhi is rude. It’s just passionate. Passionately arguing, cursing, party-shartying, foodie-ing, hustling, protesting, shopping, bargaining, adjusting, loving, helping, donating, feeding and most importantly, soldiering on. As the city of dreams for the larger part of north India, Delhi absorbs you, in its own prickly hospitality.

Before I landed, I had heard a lot about the capital. The people – rude, the air – toxic. Yet, twenty minutes after being carried to the Rajdhani by the Rajdhani, I was already at The Rajiv Chowk Metro Station. Everyone walked busy, dressed sharp, looking important. It felt like I was in New York. Made sense if Mumbai would be L.A. and Kolkata can well, aspire to be London.

The city is as diverse as the people it nurses. During my stay there, I could make out three rough segments of the city.

The Sarkaari

The clean wide roads, komorebi, beautiful boulevards with golden sunshine in the day and amber lighting in the night, red sandstone structures, absence of multi-stories, lush gardens colorful flowers, CRPF checkpoints and touristy beings.

The Business Class

Posh neighborhoods. Buildings like Tetris blocks with clean glass and wooden facades, fans-and-ferns on the balcony, sunlight is a luxury, dog walkers with exotic breeds (only) strolling on what little space the jet-black SUVs have excused, small patches of greens in the gated neighborhood where the sun seldom shines. It’s rather peaceful since people talk in whispers.

A bit of a blanket statement

The naukri, chaakri – suburbs. This is what looks like noise on the satellite imagery. Buildings huddled together, holding their shoulders close, often overlapping each other, hundreds of overhead wires blocking whatever sunlight filters down to the streets. The streets that are forever damp and dark. You look down and find confetti! Look closer. It’s either Vimal or Kamla Pasand or Pulse. Buzzing with broadcasts of television or private family feuds. Right on the edges, you’d easily find slums and small dump yards or an unapologetic mix of both.

Having left the city, it’s not like I miss Delhi every day. My lungs thank me with every single breath. However, there are certain things that Delhi just does the best. There hasn’t been any single weekend when we were out of options for places to go or restaurants to try out. When it comes to food, the veg-nonveg mix and specially chaat, Delhi is unparalleled. The public transport is massively underrated and pocket friendly. Positioned close to the erstwhile silk route, Indraprastha is one of the best places to buy. From mall-only deals to flea market steals, you’ll find it all. I do plan to return to Delhi time to time just for the shopping-amusement experience it has to offer or better even, just to joyride around the city on the metro using the card I proudly retain!

99 Types of dosa, excluding you.

Sun, 29 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

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Sketches from November

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

From the platform of a busy-ish Monday Morning, Saket.

Salient co-workers

Roomie forever on his coding/gaming hot-seat. Ugrasen ki Baoli on the right.

Kicking the virus

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT

I tried. I tried to stay on my office chair from 10 to 10. My eyes strained, watered and I stood up. The introvert within wept, but my Covid-19 brain was gasping for some fresh air, drowned by the second wave. I caught up with old friends. Fortunately they were staying nearby and were playing football regularly. I hauled my heavy eight-year-old Hercules Blazer IC out of my home and my heavier nervous self on it – making my way to the field nearby.

I spent the next half hour masking my nervousness behind warm up drills and handshakes with old pals. Returning to my left wing back position after so long felt burdensome on my rusty post-Covid lungs but the mid-June drizzle helped cool things down. With a pinch of beginner’s luck I managed to score a goal from a corner kick (What!?) Honestly, I had surprised myself on that one. The match however, ended in a stalemate, serving justice to the casual friendly format.

I rode this confidence to the ground for the rest of the stay-at-home season. Shortly after, hauling the old Blazer IC started feeling like more-than-warmup itself and I would tag along on Kaushik’s Honda at a mandatory excessive 90 odd kilometers per hour serving validation to the 220 cc engine. Stamina ++

The running and joy always mattered more than the goals or wins.

Pages from Shillong

Sun, 07 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

North East Hill University (NEHU) in Shillong was a delightful visit last year. I spent the little of the amount I got off during the day by sitting near the lake, listening to the orchestra of the geese.

One evening, I tried the tea from an on campus tea shop. The tea was sweet, and I was low on blood sugar. It was sunset, and I could see mist slowly settle on the hills in front of me. I didn’t get much cellular reception there, thankfully.

Things haven’t been boring

Sun, 10 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Rather, they’ve been breezing past me like I’ve been stuck in warp mode. Moments have been fleeting, and I can barely remember what I did yesterday. I draw significantly less now, my sketchbook that I proudly acquired in a local flea market lies in my bag most of the time waiting to be grasped and flicked open and marked upon. I’ve come upon the stuff of Eden without a dongle though; Wacoms are beyond reach. Consuming more bits than words. Running less and lifting more. Sleeping a good eight hours every day.

Work is fun. Can’t say I struggle to stay in touch with friends and family, but the pack has grown tighter and more real. Simultaneously, have become numb to the coarse sand and cement texture of the capital’s suburbs; I’m more used to clay and leaves. The air is spicier, the noise follows suit. Suits are aplenty under beacons, but each day I dread more, paying for them.

Hope. That’s all.

Chaara Puti

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT

As a kid, I used to visit my maternal village in Bengal a lot. I still clearly remember the day I first tried fishing. A few friends of mine, from the Santhal community were expert at catching tiny “Puti” and “Chara” fishes from a fresh water canal and helped me try my hand at it. They used to carry tiny balls of atta (flour dough) in their pockets and use it on homemade fishing rods made with branches and nylon ropes gathered from the fences of farms. I remember watching in awe as the kids would fashion themselves a tasty side-dish for lunch in a matter of a few minutes. The small fishes are heavenly when fried crispy and served with chopped onions and steaming white rice. Strangely I still remember the smell of the homes with thatched roofs and mud floors with cow-dung layering where I enjoyed many such meals.

I couldn’t manage to catch any fish but surely contributed to losing much of the bait in the water.

Pages from 2018

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Colourful Noodles

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Traveling within a city usually tends to become a hassle specially if it’s far distance, you’re an outsider and you’re on a budget. Commuting in the capital was largely a delight thanks to the lovely colorful strands of noodles spread all over and even outside the city. Although the Pink line was close to my heart for more than one reason, I enjoyed the punctual Yellow line too. The older Blue, Red and Yellow routes run Bombardier rolling stock which have a very soothing warm lighting.

What’s more soothing were the dot matrix displays running serif typography. There was something deeply satisfying in watching the beautifully crafted letterforms glide across the displays specially when in comparison to the LCD panels in the more modern Hyundai Rotem rolling stock. Granted the LCD displays are much more functional, in displaying various kinds of information at the same time, being easy to customize and monetized but there is something about the carefully arranged dots in the serif display that just feels welcoming, warm and human.

The soft curves of the serif work better with the Devanagari script and the use of color seems far more deliberate.

Other stations also use the dot-matrix display boards but with Sans Serif blood flowing in them. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one looks better.

The LCD display onboard the newer trains can fit the entire route in one screen however, from far you’d struggle to read it properly.

Regardless of these chotu-motu pangey itthe-otthey, the system is super efficient, regular and well-maintained which easily makes it the backbone of Delhi’s public transportation system. Co-incidentally it has led me down the rabbit hole of well planned and efficient public transportation infrastructure of many other cities which hold enormous potential in moving people, reducing the number of cars on the road.

Kids in the park

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago on a chilly Sunday afternoon, I needed to catch some sun. The chilly air in the capital was getting to my bones and yours truly is more suited to tropical weather. So I walk to the nearby park and walked to a shady spot and start staring at the kids who are playing. Ah yes, textbook predatory behavior. In my defense, the group of old uncles playing cards and the couples munching on peanuts were rather boring. The kids on the other hand, reminded me of looney tunes, same reason you’ll see them here.

This guy had football studs on while his friends were running around in sandals and slippers. Needless to say, he dribbled a lot, passed less and kept yelling at his team mates.

This guy is an amalgamation of three brothers (probably) who looked fresh in their shiny shaadi sherwanis and glistening oily hair. Kind of unexpected that they decided to play some football, swinging on monkey-bars in that attire, while spinning their fancy fidget spinners.

Out of all the kids, this guy seemed the most delightful. He had come dressed like accidental Santa, laughed and played with the other kids and kicked up a lot of dust as he walked. Such joy!

Kasht of Living

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

At the end of September the capital was still warm, a few spells of untimely showers brought down temperatures and brought up mosquito numbers. I didn’t mind much. The clear skies meant that I could watch godly winged whales descend from the heavens every morning one after the other, growing in scale before disappearing into the tree-line. I could, until it all got obscured by the mustard mist. My eyes watered but this usual missing of the whales was interrupted. I found myself in the belly of the pink boa, among the rest of the fodder, undergoing the process of slow yet sure digestion. Making sure to put up a fight, I read and made sufficient marks on my books. To camouflage in here one needs checked formals ironed crisp, backpack on the shoulder, a pair of earbuds— whispering/ screaming/ vomiting news/ episodes/ music, a neck affixed at an angle fixated on the old loyal thumb not weary yet, having swiped away kilometers already.

The city breathes, it gasps, it bends under the constant stress and the strain; the more it gets stretched thin, the more it makes people claw and bite at the rim. The march goes on, with a skip on Saturdays and a drag on Mondays— the boots resonate over chatter.

Happy endings

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Few times have I ever before noticed emotions change as fast as the graph of a crypto token. The other day, I was at the saloon ( what a barbershop is called in India). As I waited for my turn for a haircut, I couldn’t help but notice the customer beside me — a middle-aged guy getting the full service package on offer. The barber was done with the shave and had now taken up the role of a masseuse with a massager clamped to the back of his hand. It vivaciously vibrated like a purring cat. As the vibrating fingers walked against the customer’s head and body, his resulting orgasmic expressions kept nudging me towards absurd but funny assumptions.

It seemed like this was the first-time-in-a-long-time someone was touching him this way. His eyes almost shut in a dizzying trance when the barber put his vibrating finger inside the guy’s aural orifice. The poor barber was probably used to these reactions off the many such middle-aged men he has had to serve, but he had a neat trick up his sleeve. The massage session drew to a close and in the ultimate act, the barber took off the whirring massager, rubbed his palms, cracked his knuckles, and smacked the dozing post orgasmic customer hard on his back. In less than a second, the guy was getting smacked, shaken and shuffled around in the seat and it was pretty apparent why the barber was suddenly loving every second of his job. Ultimately, it’s safe to say the guy got the complete awakening experience. It’s safer to say, when it comes to me, I could pass on that experience for a few more years, or decades.

Gratitude for the constant upkeep of the grounds

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

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Rediscovering June

Sat, 24 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Quite a few weeks ago one of my team-mates spotted me out a shrub on the sidelines of our field. These otherwise thorny menaces which had caused god-knows-how-many bleeding scratches on my ankle when we were busy stomping around the field, kicking around a ball, suddenly seemed like an alien being amidst usual life.

As a child I had read about the touch-me-nots or lojjaboti (Bengali) but cared to finally notice one after all these years. Fascinating! “I didn’t expect it to be so animal-like…” was my first reaction as I watched the tiny leaves shrivel up, up and a little bit more, almost like a worm. It’s bright purplish crimson stems seemed as if blood flowed through them.

I spent a good ten minutes or so, paying the touch-me-nots the much deserved attention but spent longer —procrastinating— penning it down on pixels.

From Midfield to Mud-Bath

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The romantic concept of playing football in the rain has quite a lot of fanfare and I absolutely don’t get the appeal.

Speaking from experience, you can count your lucky stars if match day is on a breezy overcast day — easy on the players, easy on the spectators. Add a drizzle to that and things are still under control. Your boots are wet and you start feeling the chill but it’s all fine.

However, once the heaven’s diapers start to overflow, it’s time to run. The wet ground grabs onto the ball and dribbling becomes impossible, people slip and fall all the time often injuring others, there’s water in your eyes, the wet sand on the ball bruises your skin, every shot on the ball kicks up the muddy water from the field (into your mouth), people splash each other with water and stop taking the game seriously, they jubilantly celebrate missed shots by sliding into the pool of water, the concept of opponents has long dissolved into the same muddy water, everyone’s laughing their asses off, the field quickly becomes a podium of slapstick humor, all the actors enjoying the dazzling absurd, chaotic experience under dark grey clouds. All of a sudden. A blinding bolt of lightning brings play to a halt. The deafening thunder follows. The clouds above have had the last laugh.

The Commute of Small Things

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Every time I would step on to the Force Traveller back in college, I’d heave a sigh of relief. The satisfaction was instantly doubled when I’d manage to set my bum on a vacant seat.

The trip from NID to IJM was as short as the acronyms but somehow, felt shorter on the days I’d be exhausted from drawing straight lines all day or having toiled at the workshop sanding a piece of teak. These trips, the return journeys, would always be more memorable than the morning ones. Maybe dozing off to the shifting amber lights of the Guntur-Vijayawada expressway felt better than struggling to find a footing, clutching onto your belongings while you’re still munching on the last bit of chutney laden idly.

Towards the end of my four years at college, I had completely switched over to my trusty single-speed, a gift from Mustafa who, after finishing his Bachelor’s degree, left for Delhi and then Iraq. However, the occasional Traveller trips still gifted me a basket of memories, some warm, some steamy, some I barely remember. Now, the Bus Service group on WhatsApp stays relatively quiet, beeping once in a while, serving as a reminder that fewer days remain till it buzzes again — “Buss to IJM!”.

More pages from Gangtok

Mon, 31 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

This was a house which was opposite to our beloved Pretaste cafe, Kazi Road where we would occasionally go to have meals and snacks. Even after we licked the plates clean and drank the soup bowls empty, we’d stay there and chat for those were the few times in the day we’d get to stretch our legs and fill our lungs with fresh air.

Studio Echostream at that time was basically located on the top of a hill. One day, we took a long walk, circling the tip of the hill (frustrum). On the other side, it was very peaceful as it didn’t face the city, but a valley. I remember making this drawing from the edge of the road, overlooking this valley.

I normally carry a few small sketchbooks when I’m travelling. While one would have paper good enough to withstand watercolor washes, the other lighter books would be enough for ballpens, pencils and the occasional picked up charcoal from the roadside. I try carrying a fixative spray when I travel but obviously rarely find it at hand when needed. There’s a beauty in slightly smudged obscure drawings as well.

We didn’t go to M. G. Marg as much. On a leisurely Sunday, when we did manage to go there, I was working on this spread much to the disappointment of my friends who wanted to get photos clicked. We did end up getting photos clicked. Good ones.

Deorali butterfly bridge. In the evening, this road is essentially a train of taxis crawling at an average of 5km/hr. You can see the famous Gangtok ropeway in the background.

Study in watercolors

Sat, 22 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

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Angad

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Great apes are fascinating creatures.

A titleless comic

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Three possible titles:

Self, a mini comic.
Am I ever?
Every time homogeneity creeps in.

A bengali woman carries

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

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Gung ho

Mon, 05 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The stuffy softboard cubicles inside where we made our stop motion films.

The relatively colder working space at Echostream, Gangtok where we would push around keyframes and flat plastic characters.

One of the many sources of warmth, Deergha (in watercolor).

A few other daily faces, Akshay, Ranveer, Chewang Rinchen, Tenzing.

A surprisingly art nouveau-ish street lamp at Upper Syari, where we stayed and a faded mass of ferns and moss on the wall opposite to Pretaste where many warm meals were savoured.

I’m assuming this bench has either been repaired and repurposed inside the office or it has ebbed away into the ground which would relieve it of its duties of supporting puffy bottoms on break.

Morning Dosa

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

As a schoolkid, I remember eating the same khichdi everyday before going to school. Summers, monsoons or winters; exam or not, the same watery porridge. Functional, easy to gulp down with just a few roasted cumin seeds that kept it from qualifying for hospital food. My equally simple worldview perhaps kept me from complaining much. In college though, breakfast was a crazy affair.

For a long time, we would eat from a mess operating out of an apartment on the seventh floor. There’d be a long queue of students for freshly cooked breakfast. The day the queue was longer, you’d know there’s dosa on the menu. So you’d wait, and salivate watching fortunate early birds leave with their plates of dosa and chutney while negotiating with yourself about whether the dosa was worth missing the last bus to college or if you should forget the dosa altogether and run with the colder idlis and bondas, in order to not miss your class. Inching slowly, it’d be finally your turn and if lucky you’d be able to choose from the plain, onion, egg and masala variants. You didn’t wait this long for the plain dosa did you? So there, the guy would splash water on the tawa, rub it off with the coconut fiber broom and add the oil. Skillfully, he’d lift the rice and dal batter and spread it on the tawa. The batter cooks at perfect speed, not getting burnt, the bubbles escape the surface, leaving behind a distinct porous texture, crunchy to the bite. The guy would take the spicy (mostly) potato masala, infused with few curry or methi leaves and rub it on the dosa. You’d ask for some more and he’d add 5 more grams of it and before you can complain, the dosa is ready, folded it into a tube, and served on your plate. Hey at least you got it!

The [*mice that have been running in your tummy*](https://www.cfilt.iitb.ac.in/hindishabdamitra/expert/पेट में चूहे कूदना) for so long get introduced to the butterflies who’ve arrived, in anticipation of the steaming masala dosa dipped in a cold coconut chutney landing on your tongue. A match made in heaven indeed. So you break off the dosa, mix a little chutney and place it in your oral cavity (which by now is overflowing like the boiler room of the sinking Titanic) and boy oh boy has it been worth the wait, the missing of the college bus, the inevitable sour mood of the visiting faculty awaiting you. What do they know about the heavenly masala dosa, the hot tea and seventh floor cool breeze caressing your hair anyway? It’s the final taste scene from Ratatouille all over again.

Now there’s a canteen in college that serves pretty much the same dosa whenever you want.

From a 2018 Sketchbook

Backseat pilgrims

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I remember years ago, walking to my first tuition class. I was not failing in English yet the 350 rupees every month were worth all the larking about (competing with the summer cuckoos) we did and less of grammar we practiced. Tuitions easily became something to look forward to. In hindsight it might have substituted the lack of playtime we suffered from otherwise.

In a choppy span of a few final semester exams, this recreational adda where many football games were planned, suddenly morphed into something much grave. In a sense it must have prepared us for the uncertainties awaiting us in the future but I would often find myself clutching at the hems of the heavy words in the textbooks I carried, barely coping but that’d be a topic for another day.

Coming back to the city, it’s thus normal to find five or six instances of such pilgrims regardless of the time of the day, shuttling around like worker bees. I think I’ve said enough. I have stuffed the rest of my words into the picture.

Caucasian Pumpkins

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The title of the post refers to Gummadikaya we had found on a trip to the Guntur vegetable market; heaps of them. The pumpkins I was familiar with till this time were generally dark green or orange-ish if super ripe.

The rest of the spreads from this ‘18 sketchbook display the sheer joy of experiencing a proper brush pen which I had gifted myself, some more late night or mid-class meditative sketching sessions, thumbnailing for an Inktober narrative ( I’ll upload soon as a complete pdf/epub ) and whatever else is there.

Pig-eon

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Way past it’s former glory days, the concrete barracks of the steel-city are no longer at a hundred percent occupancy. Many of the quarters, mostly first floor ones have been long vacated. These empty kitchens with broken windows thus often become perfect nesting spaces for the pigeons.

The pigeons therefore thrive, fly around less and sit around more mirroring the lifestyle of other residents. The result of this, has been a bunch of healthy pigeons. The other day, when I was returning from the saloon (what we call a barber-shop), there were a bunch of them sitting on the street doing who knows what? Perhaps a game of cards. As I cycled past them, they tried to fly away, and I say T R I E D because one was right in front of me and it was the laziest attempts at flying I’ve ever witnessed.

So, thanks to the pijon who inspired me to animate after months of writing code and I hope you never see this because I prefer my head/shoulders/mouth clean.

Free air

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Normally I’d absolutely veer away from any kind of eavesdropping but in the tightly packed company-quarters where I am currently working from, to not eavesdrop, one has to wear earphones all the time.

The backyards of these Soviet fashioned residential areas have overgrown their initial utilitarian planning, skinny hedges or wire meshes demarcating boundaries. Many houses including mine have small gardens although in the case of my neighbors, who seem to have the green-thumb-gene running in their family, the garden has graduated to a mini-farm. They also have a three year-old boy who after his online classes, comes out to bask in the winter sun.

One such day, I didn’t have my earphones on and heard something that he said while taking a stock of the plants. “ We should plant some trees that give us chips as well. Then we could have vegetables aaand chips too!”

Shortly after this he must have run inside and pitched this idea to his superiors. I don’t blame him; convincing investors for your ambitious start-up is a tough job indeed.

Nighthawks

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The pandemic has been a constant longing and desire for company and warmth. Much of that has also got to do with the sudden absence of like-aged, like-passionate people around but that’s a whole another topic.

These pages (from one of my ‘18 sketchbooks), sketched during late night conversations over tea at NID AP, at the faculty guest-house drawing room.

An essential punctuation to a hectic work day, where we’d all indulge in our personal projects or even just talk over a few cups of the forever in-stock Tetley green or Taj. We’d talk, laugh and I’d keep scribbling into my sketchbook, sometimes note down funny quips.

Also be my guest if you try to read into what’s written but much of it is nonsense… or is it?

Congratulations on landing here!

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Yes! I mean I know the tarmac took a while to create and finish. Work had paused due to the monsoons.

But the gloomy clouds soon gave way to the purple twilight sky under the light of which, the construction team took to their machinery and hauled ass to lay those final coats of dark white paint to the landing markers. (Thanks to Keyaar for the constant support 🚴‍♀️.)

BZZZZ! The amber guiding lights buzzed on!

So here you are! A proud traveler on your Cessna or Beechcraft or Boeing or maybe even an Antonov?! The runway doesn’t discriminate :)

Welcome to the inaugration. The mahurat couldn’t have been any better.