250 Days of Learning from Vir

It’s been almost 250 days he’s been in our lives, but every day that I watch this child, I have so much amazement and joy at the things he does and the things he teaches me in the process. I know many of these things all babies do. I understand this is not unique. I know things can and will change. He’ll grow and likely develop more complex emotions and characteristics. But so far, it has been beautiful to watch this little human grow. Here’s six of the many things I’ve learnt from Vir so far:  

1. Commitment - From the last one month, all that Vir wants to do all day long, is to stand. He discovered somehow (I give this to Vivek) that if someone holds his hands, he can stand –  how ever briefly and how ever wibbly wobbly that may be. Forward to one month ahead, now from the minute he wakes up and says Good morning with that toothy smile, he looks at the bed railing that’s supposed to protect him if he rolls over; and he wants to stand. He only wants you to take him next to it, he’ll do the rest. He tries to hold the bucket and tub when he’s bathing to stand. He tries to find something to grip on even if he’s strapped on to his own feeding seat and yes, you guessed it, tries to stand. He goes to play on the swing and he tries to hold the chains and stand. He does this till the second he’s taken to bed at night and passes out. Sometimes in the middle of the night feeds also, he wants to stand! Every time I look at him do this, it hits me. I’ve never ever been so committed about anything in my life – And I thought I’ve been pretty committed about some shit in the past. I took a year off after college because I didn’t get into the universities I wanted to, then I aced the entrance a year later. I spent 27 notebooks in one year in my 12th standard because my Math wasn’t the best and my Math teacher hated me – I got a 100 in the finals. I (okay, we) endured a lot of crap to finally be with Vivek and we make it work 10 years later too. BUT. I do not have this level of insane focused commitment that this child does and never have. I’m 35 and I’ve read many quotes and books that preach this, but he’s showed me up close and real that if you really want to do something, you’ve got to be at it from morning to night. Maybe, we’ll use this commitment for a startup someday! After we get some 6 hours of sleep at night, first.
2. Treat everyone with love & respect - Respect everybody: This is something I learnt from my dad too – To be kind to everybody. Whether the waiter, the watchman, the newspaper hawker, the lift man, everybody. Vir’s truly inherited it from his grand father. He gives the maid the biggest smile every day when she sees him in the morning and says Hello. He wants to grab the watchman’s hat, smiles at everyone in the lift and every waiter in the very few cafes we’ve taken him to. We moved to a new place two months ago and when I go down, people call me Vir’s Mumma (A mom has no name – remember) and tell me how he smiles at them and talks to them every day! He goes happily to my Yoga instructor, to all my friends and some of their pretty dangerous offspring too. Touch wood, let’s hope this Leo baby doesn’t suddenly display Vivek’s obvious Cancerian and my latent Piscean introvertedness. 
3. Be open - He may decide later he hates it and he won’t let you try to feed him another bite. But he will try every single new thing if you put it in front of him for the first time and swallow it – Steamed broccoli (!), Blanched and pureed spinach, Avocado mash, Chickoo (Sorry, but I won’t eat this for a million bucks).
4. Be Assertive - Vir knows when to say No. Even if he cannot say the N and the O. He has always been the kind of baby who refused something if he didn’t want it and God knows, no one can force it on him. No one has ever been able to give him the bottle if he didn’t want it, No one’s been able to give him the pacifier, No one can force solids on this child if he does not want to. In retrospect, these are all excellent things he’s decided to refuse. His methods may suck (read: obscenely, intense crying and deafening screams), but I have got to give it to him. Even someone as stubborn as me has given in to things at times – but you’ve gotta learn how to push back on something you don’t want to, no matter how strong, or how many people on the other side, even if you happen to be 1/20th of their combined stature!
5. Don’t bear grudges - There are some 3 and 4 am wakings which are absolutely painful and God knows Vivek and I do our best to be as calm as possible. But after 90-120 minutes of nothing working, we’ve both had our times when we’ve lost our cool and raised our voice and said “Please ab toh so jaa!”. He realized someone’s yelling at him and he only cried even louder, till we mellowed down and somehow made him sleep and when he finally woke up in the morning, he looked at us with the same love as always. No grudges. Vivek would be most happy if I learnt this from Vir 😝
6. Find joy in simple things - There are times I’ve seen Vir find more joy from the plastic wrapper of a toy more than the toy itself; from an almost dead balloon more than a bouquet of balloons itself; from my hair or face than some fancy rattle. Vir’s taught me that it’s easy to find joy in the little, sometimes unnoticed things around you.

Here's praying he continues to grow and teach us some beautiful things along the way. God knows, we could all do with a lot more positivity in our lives!

200 days of Vir and Vir's Mumma

 

It is some coincidence indeed, that 200 days of Vir, 200 days of VIr’s Mumma and 200 days of maternity leave all come on the same day. I started work today and my heart is full – of joy watching my now not ‘new born’, but now ‘infant’ babble, roll over and look at me beaming in joy every time I enter the room after a prolonged gap of precisely five minutes! My heart is full – knowing I have this monkey to return to, whenever offices reopen and physical presence, aka commute horrors return. So much has happened in the last 200 days, or even 100 days. It all warrants documentation!

 

For starters, some aunties I was speaking to after several months congratulated me generously but immediately asked me “Kaisa feel ho raha hai Mummy ban kar”. This question took me by utter surprise, because I wasn’t sure I’m supposed to feel things that can be elaborated in words. Not sure of the way to proceed, I said “Hmmm, sab kuch feel ho raha hai.”

 

*Gasp*

*How Could she*?!

**Beeeeeppp** Wrong answer!

 

The other aunty immediately sprung into action. And told me “Bol na, achha lag raha hai? Achha hi lag raha hoga”. I learnt in this very moment, two VERY important things:

1. My feelings about being a mother are so extremely and ferociously personal, that nobody, not even my own mother or anyone’s mother can understand.
2. I feel many things – I feel joy at my child’s toothless smiles, at his tickled laughter, at his rolling over and failing and crying antics. But I also feel tired, at my 1 am and 3 am and 5 am and so on wakings. I feel proud at this little human I bore and brought into this world, but I also feel sad at how I’m at times still not able to fully understand him. I feel full of hope when I see him try to crawl, but I feel equally hopeless when I think about the situation in the world and his safety. But is this wrong? Is a mother not supposed to feel anything but joy? Are we not allowed the honesty of our own emotions anymore? Is feeling many things a bad thing, vs. always feeling good about this even when I’m burning both ends of a candle? I’m not so sure. But I understood that THIS is something ONLY I will understand, or maybe only some of my closest friends and my husband.

 

I’ve also come to learn in these past many months that though the world has progressed and moved on, though we’re in 2021, though we’re in an era where acceptability and the Dark is Beautiful movement is all around us, people will still be ready at the drop of a hat to judge even a child’s complexion. I’m told my child has BECOME cute. Sigh. I for one, loved this munchkin the second he was thrown on my chest after entering the world, when lets be real – He looked like a little reptile. I loved him when he was hair-less, eyebrow-less and expression-less. That’s what it feels like to be a mother. Finding fault with the way today’s bread tasted, but accepting of whatever this boy looks like. Maybe that’s what I should’ve told the aunty and heard her faint on the phone.

 

There’s also another observation - ONE popular question EVERYONE asks a new mother. “Does he sleep through the night?”. I’ve come to learn, there is one correct answer to this – NO. Not that Vir does, but back when he was 3 months and he was sleeping through the night (waking for a feed or two in the middle but going right back to sleep – yes, that also constitutes “Sleeping through the night” for babies) and if I said he was – The other person would go, “Oh!”. It was more of a “You lucky duck, you!”. Its never a “Thank God, you get some sleep too.” As he hit regressions and now wakes often at night, the other side seems to love it when I say “No, he doesn’t. What is sleeping through the night even?”. So, mental note to self – There’s always going to be things and people who ask you about these things wanting you to not have the easy way out. Some times people just want you to struggle. Just. The same kind of people who picked up a pin as a child and poked the ant on her way home. People are always going to ask you how your child sleeps – perhaps, it helps them sleep better at night!

 

There’s also some people who’ve had babies maybe anytime one year or more before you did. But they think, they are the gold standard in child rearing and baby raising. They can apparently accurately tell from my baby’s cry on the phone if he’s hungry or sleepy. If he’s eating spinach because of the spoon, or if he really likes it. Don’t you think such people are wasting such fabulous talent on such worthless things and should rather be predicting :

1. When will this COVID nonsense end?
2. When will RCB win the IPL?
3. When will Ranbir Kapoor get married?
4. Who will win the 2024 elections?

I say why stop here? Why not use this Nostradamus-esque talent in picking stocks to become rich? Or visiting a casino in Vegas (okay, Goa!) and going nuts at the tables and becoming rich for yourself? Why don’t you do that and leave my baby to me?

 

I’ve also learnt the new definition of Catch 22, The Mother’s Conundrum. I want to work and be productive and put my experience and education to use. Also, yes, let’s be honest, I want to earn and be self-sufficient and be able to buy that 100^th notebook I don’t need, but bought because it was on sale or because it looked pretty. But it breaks my heart to know that means leaving my child in someone else’s care and risking missing his first word, his first steps, his first crawl. Realistically, it is not possible to do everything without the other feeling a little shorted, a little neglected, a little useless. It’s the scariest part of the rest of my life beginning today – To stay productive, but to stay emotionally calm and accept that this is tight rope I need to figure out how to work and also give multi-tasking a whole new meaning if I really want to do the best for Vir. My heart is full of joy at my new best friend, but also full – of a sorrow that I cannot explain. To know I am not able to go pick him up every time he cooes, or not be able to play with him as and when he and I please. It’s the most dichotomous feeling ever – An excitement at going back to work and finally being productive and back to work as I’ve been for 10 years and a lulling and deep sorrow at realizing it comes at a cost. Will it be worth it? I guess we’ll wait till the 300 days look-back to tell!

 

100 Days of Being a mother

We’re 100 days old as of today - Vir, a 100 day old baby. His mother, me - A 100 day old mother. The fourth trimester has finally come to an end. As my friend who just delivered close to when Vir was born says, like every trimester in the womb was different and the end of every trimester marked an obvious growth and change in the foetus, this fourth trimester is also relevant - almost momentous. And she couldn’t be more right.

The world is all about new born babies - The infants; the new entrants into this world; the poor unsuspecting creatures who spend 9 months in the safe confines of the womb only to come into this world and have to figure out how to survive including learn how to breathe on their own. There’s books and articles and seminars and even specialist professionals to take care of their well being. And thank god for that, because rookie parents need all the help they can get. But, what about the new born mothers?

New born mothers - The first time mothers, who till yesterday were just women going about their lives, buying clothes online, gulping down 8 cups of filter coffee a day, bitching about those office colleagues, swearing at bad drivers on the road. They are now all of a sudden responsible for another life. Those women who never even cared enough about having breakfast at times, now need to eat every two-three hours and eat nourishing and rich food for their growing foetuses. These women are generally pampered and showered with all the love and attention during this 9 month cycle but are forgotten the day the baby is born. From enquiring about your health every time someone speaks to you when you’re pregnant, the last time someone asks about your health after the baby is born, is literally the day the baby is born. After that, its all about the baby. Is the baby eating well, growing well, sleeping well. People forget that newborn mothers who feed the baby need to eat well, grow well and sleep just as well too. 

New born mothers are this breed of forgotten workers who’s only job description after having a baby seems to be to take care of the little one. There seems to be nothing else in her life and if she wishes for something else, its unacceptable. For instance, No one says you need to drink milk for YOUR calcium or your well-being (Except say a bloody good Gynaec!), but you need to drink milk for the baby. Life doesn’t need to hit a standstill or become altogether a new life after the baby, the mothers are already struggling with a new normal - Post-Partum blues, weight gain and weight loss, unpredictable bloody flow, sleep deprivation, appetite swings, mood swings, restricted diets, aches and pains when you sit or toss in bed, oscillating heat and cold waves. To add to that, the stark indifference of most people, sometimes close family only makes it worse. 

So, if you can and if you do speak to a new mother, take the time to use the following sentences: 

1. How are YOU?
2. You’re doing your best. 
3. It happens, but it gets better. 
4. You’re ENOUGH for your baby. 
5. I hope YOU got some sleep last night.

If you’re a new born mother’s friend, please keep going ga ga over the many photos she’ll send you but also please keep checking on her and reminding her to buy something for herself, even if it’s something as ludicrous as a 2021 journal (Let’s admit it, the 2020 journal is going to be used to eat Bhel Puri some day). Forgive her if she’s not gotten back to you as regularly as she used to. And tell her she’s still bloody god damn awesome. 

You’ll be surprised how uplifting something this simple can be for a mother. And it’s perfectly okay for us to save a little care and concern for ourselves while we keep most of it for our babies. After all, you cant pour from an empty cup. A physically and mentally healthy mother is of much more use to a baby than otherwise. 

WAR - Boys, Beaches and Bullets

If you’ve not watched Bang Bang or Baaghi – Don’t worry, after this one, you’re well caught up! This movie is a fabulous world tour, could be on Lonely Planet’s guide to beautiful coastlines and beaches in Europe and has two very good looking men waltz around it. At some point, it descends into an abject objectification of the two men, but heck we’ve survived debacles like Thugs of Hindostan – I’d rather watch Hrithik in Slo-mo for ten minutes, than Amitabh-Jack-Sparrow with a crow (Was it?) walk painfully at a tree for ten minutes.

The movie also reminds you of Matrix (what with all the superhuman bullet dodging), Mission Impossible (Yes, you can stand on an airplane while it flies apparently), Fast & the Furious (well, cars. Not like the franchise had too much meat after 3 sequels). But I think we’re very forgiving with some very bad scripts on say a Fast & Furious movie and we are okay to go watch it purely for the action, the boys and the cars. WAR I guess aims to do just that. Just that Vaani Kapoor doesn’t even classify as a gareebon ki Gal Gadot, but the rest of the pieces fall right in. 

So, please go watch this for the BOYS, BEACHES and BULLETS. Not for the script or for even 7th grade logic, or you’ll be giving it an F and asking to meet its parents. Here goes, my ten point review for WAR.

1. I learnt something very valuable in this movie – Basically if you want to look like Katrina Kaif, please contact shady looking Indian accented best in the world plastic surgeon in Switzerland! Dipannita Sharma, why you be so under-valued always.
2. Hrithik should have been on the ISRO Chandrayaan mission with his impeccable space grade coding skills! 
3. Vaani Kapoor’s YRF three movie deal is hopefully over with WAR and this quota can stop hopefully. I kid you not, in one scene she wipes a tear which hasn’t even welled up in her eyes. Method actor level God, I say. And she promoted the movie for two months saying she was “waiting for the right role”, when in fact she has one song, six costumes and six minutes on screen! 😐 
4. Work from home redefined – The lady (Also, subtle request to everyone in general to stop saying “female” to refer to a random lady – she’s a person, not a species) analyst on Hrithik’s team works from home during her wedding, hands over a drive on her wedding day IN HER Suhaag raat room and manages to change codes. God, I hope my boss doesn’t watch this. 
5. If you play Limbo with Tiger Shroff, you’ll win – He cannot, I repeat cannot go UNDER a rope, even if it is chest high. He will jump over it. So you can schmooze underneath and voila, you win. Some stunts are taken too far for kicks – just ‘cause apun kar sakta hai, Bhidu. 
6. A mother’s love transcends everything. The training camp is on top of a mountain, Hrithik arrives in a chopper but Ammi Jaan (played by Soni Razdaan, the newest and most popular face of Muslim mothers after Farida Jalal) saunters to the gate one day bringing dargah se duawein. *grab a tissue* moment. Gahh, maybe there was a cable car, you know nothin’ Jon Snow. 
7. Yashraj and BMW have some secret pact of promoting that super bike – Dhoom may have done diddly squat for them, maybe WAR will be better. 
8. I’ve heard of parents living abroad in not so high flying jobs to pay for children back home. But Naina’s story confounds me – She has a 3 year plan of dancing in different clubs in different countries (All expensive ones, by the way) and teaching Zumba to Caucasians (I’m told the G word is racist now) with Ainvayi Ainvayi Lut Gaya in the background. What visa is she on, even! Kaunsa Schenghen milta hai aisa! Where did she find these jobs? And how valuable is this profession? But also, please respect all professions – At one point, India’s future depends on Hrithik Roshan’s pimping skills. 
9. When Hrithik gets off the chopper and has extremely light, very non-combat or military like clothing that’s flying about his way too chiseled body, Tiger Shroff looks at him like I look at my dessert arriving in a restaurant. These are Cupid goals, people. Find someone who looks at you like that, or train them by making them watch this!
10. I can but I won’t “ruin” anything – The twist at the end of the movie is pretty super at the time it happens but afterward, it kinda takes you into Game of Thrones, Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu thi category. Kinda. Well almost not (you don’t want to believe it does), but kinda.

Bharat - The first Masa-tional movie of 2019

I had the good luck of catching Bharat recently - and i say good luck, because the tickets were cheap on a weekday and the theatre was free of Bhai-crusaders. I didn’t pay a bomb for this, so it was pretty vasool for me, but I haven’t done movie reviews in forever (Kalank went off screens before I got to it and I’m not desperately sad enough to go watch SOTY 2), so needless to say I was itching to do this. Despite some excellent supporting actors like Sunil Grover and Shashank Arora and some comedy at the expense of logic, there’s stuff that cannot ever make sense to me. 

Here goes - My 10 point review of why you should/shouldn’t watch this movie which is like five movies rolled into one. 

1. Rohit Shetty has Masala, Akshay Kumar has National, Bhai has Mas-ational. Equal parts desh-Bhakti, equal parts Bhai ki Bhakti, peppered with Katrina’s Alphonso sucking face (even  as she eats a Jalebi) and Bhai’s gym membership ad worthy body. Mas-ational is the way to go sometimes! This is like Bajrangi Bhaijaan in reverse, because here Bhai is looking for someone and still uses media to find her. Also, watch out for the bonus national anthem out of NOWHERE in one scene!

2. Jackie Shroff in a uniform, bidding his son to take care of his siblings has a unsweet Dhoom 3 ring to it. Also, I feel for this man, who never gets costume changes and always gets to appear only in flashbacks in movies nowadays! Cut Bhidu, some slack yaar. Also, Jackie Shroff + Sonali Kulkarni + Hindu/Muslim angles at times = Got me waiting for someone to scream “Beta Altaaf” and someone to sing Bhumro Bhumro a la Mission Kashmir. 

3. Disha Patani’s acting is so abysmal, that if she was a dish in Gordon Ramsay’s Masterchef, he would pick up the knife and stab himself to death. She’s like the Karela which you can dress up in a dollop of cheese, roll in Panko crumbs, deep fry and serve with jalapeño dips and it’ll still be Karela at the end of it. She looks  great and hey, she also makes it through a movie without being killed off, but she can be award winning only when someone makes a movie about how a mannequin learnt how to dance. Like Happy Feet for mannequins in Macy’s maybe. 

4. Katrina Kaif’s Hindi is now officially better than my husband’s Kannada; and he’s been in Bangalore 9 years now. So, she’s a living example of “if you really want something and have Bhai’s blessings, the universe conspires to help you achieve it”. She however looks beautiful, sans all make up, even if she fills Government forms with a pen that she holds like MF Hussain’s paintbrush.

5. Do you remember the circus from childhood? Where you would enter to the wafting smells of elephant poop and monkey stench. Where a very old man juggled some balls, where you saw another old man cut a woman in half. The circus in Bharat is nothing like that. It’s the rich man’s circus in a poor city. It’s the Hunger Games of circuses. 50% of Bharat’s budget went in the lighting of the circus. 

6. Fact-finder’s nightmare - Bharat goes somewhere in the middle-east to work in an oilfield. No, I did not forget the name of the country, they actually said “Somewhere in the middle-east” and kept calling it Arab. Which country did Bharat go to - Sequel material maybe. 

7. Bharat gets to romance his boss or who he calls Madam Sir. It’s almost like hmmm, what have never done in my career which the other Khans have done. Oh, they did Yes Boss, Maya Memsaab and Raja Hindustani. I gotta romance ze boss! 

8. Bharat’s punjabi mother approves of his live in relationship and approves of his girlfriend gatecrashing her daughter’s wedding, putting on an item number and saying that your son ditched me. Please woman,  no self respecting Punjabi mother in law is this nice or accommodating - They would never let Kat go without a phat-phat Angrezi bolti hai or Dekho kitni moofat hai snub. And live-in? Log Kya kahenge? Come on, Sonali, Character!!! 

9. Terrible makeup of old Bharat and old Madam Sir. They’re practically Snapchat filters in reverse of themselves, though I suspect Salman’s is closer to reality than anyone believed. 

10. Finally, this is an ode to Salman’s real life. He has this big-ass family, some fairly useless (Read: Arbaaz), he works really hard to take care of them, refuses to marry and lives in with his girlfriend because, parivaar. This movie is just Salman Khan waving the middle-finger at every media person who says Sir aapki Shaadi kab hogi. 

This could definitely be a 20 point review, but i must hold myself back, coz Izzat. Sayonara, until the next one hits the screens! 

A beginner's guide to the Modern Lettering Galaxy!

A lot of people have asked me in the recent past, more so at or after the Stationery Collective as to how to get started with calligraphy, the basics, the resources, etc. I can’t be happier that people have this interest and want to learn. When I started, I literally bought a Parker flat nib pen off Amazon and then read and dug around to slowly add on to my stationery kit. I took time and found what I liked and worked for me. So, if I can do anything to even as much as open the gates to someone, I will be glad but then from there, it is your journey and your preference that will guide you. Of course, I’m the happiest to exchange notes and share what I find and vice versa learn from you as well!

So, here’s some pointers to get started.

Four misconceptions we must bust before we start writing:
1. Calligraphy is NOT cursive. Remember those four line notebooks we used in school, remember the cursive writing classes, remember the teachers who gave some of us that extra 1 mark for ‘neatness’? That is cursive writing, consistently writing, quickly writing, without taking your pen off paper and yet making the output look like print. Calligraphy pays more attention to letter, strokes, connections, flourishes, placement, etc. Calligraphy is not cursive. So, if you’ve forgotten cursive writing – all the better!

2. Calligraphy is NOT restricted to those with good handwriting. This is a huge myth that only someone with good handwriting can become a calligrapher. I learnt this the other way because I pride myself on a good handwriting, but no, calligraphy did not come naturally and magically easy to me. I follow some amazing calligraphers on social media and their normal handwriting is very average. It does not matter how your handwriting it. Calligraphy is like any other art form – You learn, practice, keep at it and then you get okay.

3. Calligraphy involves ‘scripts’. ‘Fonts’ are for digital work and machines! 😊

4. Calligraphy is NOT restricted to Right-handers. Calligraphy like any art form is equally challenging to right and left-handed people alike. It is a huge myth that left-handed people cannot do calligraphy. Your style and angle of holding the pen will be different, but the technique is the same and Calligraphy is for everyone.




Scripts and brushes – What are we writing?

There’s a lot of different styles in Calligraphy:

1. Copperplate - A rounded script, popular for cards, formal invitations,etc. Uses a pointed pen and nib.

2. Spencerian - American business lettering, minimal shading but beautiful light hairlines. Uses a pointed pen and nib. 

3. Faux or Modern Calligraphy - This is what I do and was using that day and this is what I did for the notebooks, bookmarks, coasters, etc that I sold at the LBB Stationery Collective as well. It is a more modern form of calligraphy and not very rigid in rules. Use brush pens generally but Pencils and pens can also be used for Modern calligraphy.

4. Gothic, flat nib, mono-line - There's many many more!

First and probably ONLY rule for brush lettering is:

Thick downstrokes and Thin upstrokes. 

Just try and get this bit done and everything will fall in place. With practice you’ll learn how to connect letters and get them to be bumpy around. Don’t worry at all about staying in one line, with brush lettering you can play with the letters and make some go above the line, some go under.


RESOURCES:

Brush Pens

1. Good Starter pack - Add Gel Twin Tip Little Artist Brush Pens. These retail for 150 for 12 colours and are easily available in stationery stores across India. They have a good fine tip brush which is good for the big script work. For the price and availability, these are #1 on my list. Use the fine tip side to write. The brush pen tip can bend almost 90 degrees and touch the paper entirely when you press it but when you lift it, it will become a finer tip and become a thin stroke.

https://www.amazon.in/Add-Gel-Little-Artist-Brush/dp/B071HJL3PG


2. Faber Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens - my go to pens for brush lettering. They’re so good and sturdy, my pens from June last year are working just fine still. You get them on flipkart or Amazon - 6 basic colors for about 400. Prices will go up for the fancier colors. 

https://www.amazon.in/Faber-Castell-Artist-Basic-Color/dp/B0014ZU668/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=Faber+Castell+Pitt+Artist+Brush+Pens&qid=1557063089&s=office&sr=1-10


3. Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens - Brush pens from Japan - You've got to believe the quality is great! There are big brush pen versions, a soft tip and hard tip brush pen as well. Different sizes to get you different consistencies. I love these because the tips are very strong, will not fall apart and are superb for practise work but also getting final work done. These are easily available on Amazon. A pack of four pens - Big brush, Soft tip, Hard tip and a grey tip are available for Rs.500-600 on Amazon. 

https://www.amazon.in/Tombow-Fudenosuke-Pen-Combo-GCD-111/dp/B07DN7WFWB/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Tombow+Fudenosuke+Brush+Pens&qid=1557063114&s=office&sr=1-4


4. Pentel Touch Sign Pen - These are not easily available in India and expensive on Amazon or Flipkart, so I get someone to bring back from the US or anywhere outside. They are like the soft tip Tombow, but very very smooth and beautiful to write with. Please note: Pentel Touch and Pentel Touch Sign are different. Sign is what you want for brush tips. 

https://www.amazon.in/Pentel-Touch-Black-Stroke-SES15C/dp/B00818S6CC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2YA4XXYWGWR4N&keywords=pentel+fude+touch+sign+pen&qid=1557063151&s=office&sprefix=Pentel+Touch+Sign+Pen+%2Coffice-products%2C311&sr=1-1


5. Sakura Brush - This brand does great stuff in general. Their brush pens are available on Flipkart or Amazon - for about 600-700 for a pack of 6 colours if I remember right. But they’re tricky to work with in the beginning. Consider after getting some practise.
https://www.amazon.in/Sakura-38061-6-Piece-Assorted-Colors/dp/B002V3GGP2/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Sakura+Brush&qid=1557063250&s=office&sr=1-3


6. Others - Ecoline Brush pens, Zig Kuretake are great too.
https://www.amazon.in/Royal-Talens-Ecoline-Assorted-Colours/dp/B077JYNLYW/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1KQK509HCADX9&keywords=ecoline+brush+pens&qid=1557063289&s=office&sprefix=Ecoline+Brush+pens%2Coffice-products%2C279&sr=1-3


Normal Pens & pencils

You can totally use normal pens and pencils for practise as well. To get the downstrokes thick, you will need to draw two lines for the thick stroke and fill it in manually. If you need to make something look like calligraphy but you’re out of pens or you’re travelling or something, you can totally make do with normal pens or pencils. I’ll put a separate post on some other amazing hard tip pens – Sakura Gelly Rolls, Uniball Signos, Sharpies, Sakura Pigma Microns, etc.

Paper
This is very underestimated but paper is incredibly important. What Brush pens realty come out the best on is thick and heavy but clear paper. Our regular xerox paper is okay, but its not going to give you the best results. Try and source the below from out of India if you can, because they’re too expensive in India:

1. HP Premium Laserjet 32 - 320 gsm paper –
https://www.amazon.in/HP-Printer-Premium32-Letter-Bright/dp/B000099O2W/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=hp+premium+laserjet&qid=1557063327&s=office&sr=1-4-catcorr

2. Canson North America XL

3. JK Cedar 100 gsm paper - Easily available at local stationery stores for ~Rs.400. Also on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.in/JK-Cedar-Paper500-Sheets-Ream/dp/B07DSF7TZV?ext_vrnc=hi&tag=googinkenshoo-21&ascsubtag=_k_CjwKCAjwkenqBRBgEiwA-bZVtgPWi1rsgXZq2ooYcZ5OTl200MTIKDp-U_xidRieQ0JVNzGSQOTO1RoCEhIQAvD_BwE_k_&gclid=CjwKCAjwkenqBRBgEiwA-bZVtgPWi1rsgXZq2ooYcZ5OTl200MTIKDp-U_xidRieQ0JVNzGSQOTO1RoCEhIQAvD_BwE

Else, in India - look for a paper that is at least 70-80 gsm or more. GSM means Grams per square meter, a thicker, more bleed free paper is needed to avoid colour running. The notebook we sold at the Collective is a 80 gsm paper, something of this texture will work great.


Where to buy materials

1. Flipkart and Amazon work great.

2. Hindustan Trading Company - they’re amazing with variety and if you don’t live in Chennai or know someone who can pick stuff for you, you can order online, albeit with a flat shipping added.

3. Itsy Bitsy - pretty okay but not the best with resources.
4. Art Lounge, Mumbai - And online 

5. Regular stationery stores - you’ll be surprised how versatile they are!

Some good worksheets to get you started 
1. Strokes – Thick on the down stroke and thin on the upper. You have to ever so lightly lift your pen while transitioning from a down stroke to the upper.
https://bydawnnicole.com/basic-strokes-worksheets-small-brush-pens/

https://thepostmansknock.com/free-brush-pen-worksheet-neat-slant-edition/

2. Letters – You’ll find many many worksheets online, but this one is a good starter.
https://bydawnnicole.com/better-brush-calligraphy/

3. Quotes and words – Some inspiration to get you started.
https://www.lemonthistle.com/tag/printable/
https://www.lemonthistle.com/tag/handlettered-printables/


Online videos which can help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg6RZyHkw7k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBoVGqiSzr4


Learn from Instagram
Calligraphers TOTALLY worth following for inspiration, tips and tutorial videos on Instagram. A lot of them have their blogs as well – you’ll find the links in individual profile’s bios mostly. Many of them have amazing and impressive tutorials they upload from time to time. Nina Tran runs a Wednesday weekly tutorial as well.

1. The QUEEN of Brush lettering – Chelsea 

https://www.instagram.com/booksandbrushpens/

2. The Bombay Lettering Company – I took her Introduction to Pointed Pen calligraphy class and she's one of the more popular calligraphers in India currently for pointed pen work! She also has an online store to buy nibs and obliques - Worth checking out though you can also find supplies on Amazon, Hindustan Trading Company, etc. !

https://www.instagram.com/bombaylettering/

3. Ipad Lettering – This calligrapher from New Zealand, who does some amazing stuff on the iPad pro! 

https://www.instagram.com/ipadlettering/

4. Carolicity Designs – Watercolor artist and lettering on paper with watercolors and brush pens.
https://www.instagram.com/carolicitydesigns/

5. Via calligraphy – Toronto based Brush Calligraphy bad-ass! One of my favs!
https://www.instagram.com/viacalligraphy/

6. Lesley Scraps 

https://www.instagram.com/lesleyscraps/

7. Boxroom Art 

https://www.instagram.com/boxroomart/

8. Flourish and Pearl 

https://www.instagram.com/flourishandpearl/

9. Selena Ashley Designs 

https://www.instagram.com/selenaashley_designs/

10.  Hewitt Avenue – For iPad Lettering 

https://www.instagram.com/hewittavenue/

11. Younghae Chung – A left handed pointed pen maestro! 

https://www.instagram.com/logos_calligraphy/

12. Nina Tran – Pointed pen genius! Love her Insta live classes!
https://www.instagram.com/anintran/

13. Paul Antonio – Pointed pen genius from the UK.
https://www.instagram.com/pascribe/



I hope this is helpful enough for a start! If you have more questions, please write in or get in touch, I’ll be happy to help if I can!

Till then, Happy Lettering!!

From 2018 March Me to 2019 March Me...

On the right is a far happier person - Dec 2016 and Oct 2018

So, as I aged gracelessly slipping closer to a mid-life crisis than I want to admit, having missed a root touch up in time to clear up the Indra Gandhi greys in the front, I’ve been wondering. Its been a fruitful, yet demanding year. It took away one of my favourite people, my Aunty. But, it gave me a lot to do, a lot to be happy for, a lot to look forward to this year. Here’s a list of seven things that totally totally top 2018. I can’t wait to see how the next year turns out!



1. JOWO
Yup, yup you read that right. I discovered I already happily suffer from JOMO, which is the new buzz word everyone on social media is sharing (Including Malaika Arora apparently!). I love sitting at home doing nothing, watching television, rather than socialize with a bunch of people I don’t care very much about. But, what I discovered and what really changed my life this year, was a discovery that I have a Joy Of Working Out. Yup, take a moment. Let that sink in.

The very same old me who would sometimes not walk till the water cooler and look for candidates I could outsource this to, spent 75% of the year since my last birthday, waking up at 5 am, popping dry fruits and heading out to work my intestines out for the next one hour. It wasn’t just the weight loss, it was a lighter and happier heart, a more positive body image in the mirror, a sense of happiness that I hadn’t felt in years. Also, muscles I hadn’t felt in years started waking up.

I love my trainers (some are also incredibly good looking 😃 ), I love my watch tell me my heart rate has hit 174 bpm during cardio and love that soreness when I hit the bed after a new workout (And I’ve tried seven forms so far). Sweating it out, even on mornings when I didn’t want to turn the other side and spoil my sleep has taught me a lot of things – Caring for my body and my health. I haven’t changed a single thing in my diet, so I still chomp on EVERY single thing like before because I know I cannot sustain a random-ass diet which lets you eat nothing for months and then suddenly you explode because you’re back on Rajma. But I did understand that I didn’t need four gulab jamuns. I needed just one to make me happy, the other three were binge or stress eating. I understood myself a bit better and I love myself a whole lot more! My bigger accomplishment in the day is when I’ve deadlifted a new weight, rather than if I’ve finished that chocolate pastry. I don't know how long I'll do this for, but I know I've loved it so far, I look forward to it in the coming future at least!

The ones who noticed and wrote in to check what was up, if I’m okay – I love you. Those who didn’t, lets’ keep up this game of Andhadhun! Maybe you killed Tabu! 😐

Feb 2017, Jan 2018 and Jan 2019.

That's a happier heart with a better resting rate - from 2018 March to 2019 March. This is my best and happiest Before and After picture.

2. Calligraphy
On a rainy day in June, I remember I stumbled upon art work with a fountain pen and I went absolutely crazy afterwards with practice sheets, inks, pens, everything I could lay my hands on. I took free classes on skillshare, watched a ton of YouTube and Instagram tutorials, attended workshops and gifted some of my friends very awful looking things I doodled in the initial months. I found how this can be a calming and really happy time and realized putting pen to paper really makes me happy. Half my birthday wishes this year came with a word about this hobby of mine and some of my gifts came in the form of ink! And I have Tipping Point, today - May this tip toe well enough to be worth some points!




3. A city I could live in
Je t'aime, Paris. But, lets’ face it, I can never live in Paris. I’d need to really learn a great deal of French, buy a whole new wardrobe, learn to be very grumpy and as much as I love the Seine, the Eiffel and Pont des Alexandre, I can never live there. But, I found a place I CAN live in. Vienna. Its one of those places I wanted to visit as a kid because it sounded good to say. As I grew older, Austria beckoned for its beauty and Innsbruck’s peaks. On a larger trip that took us to eight cities, I can easily say Vienna was my favourite. English speaking, beautiful at every turn, Modern yet classical, wonderful public transport system, a socializing culture which revolves around coffee. I would very much like to move here someday! Yup, I will need all the money to survive here as well 😐




4. Learnt that Hardwork does not go unrecognized
A large part of the year was spent on a spin off which sucked the very blood, brains and sleep out of me. Which had me on conference calls for 10 hours a day, in office for 14 sometimes. By the end, everyone went their own ways and I started believing it doesn’t matter what you do, a corporate entity does not value you. Lets’ just say I’m still here and I’m happier. Patience goes an incredibly long way and you might be worth a whole lot more than you think - without having to haggle or throw any tantrums, silence goes a long long way too.



5. Keeping in touch
There’s so many people I couldn’t keep in touch with in the last few years because – there is this inertia to making that phone call, to sending that message because then you have so much to say. And later it would annoy the hell out of me that I’m falling out of touch with these very special people. I started leaving them voice messages on whatsapp and pestering them to do the same. Now we’re all atleast caught up with the basics of each others’ lives and we’re slowly inching back to that mad equation we shared. I got back in touch with my best friend from college - the one who I bonded with over F.R.I.E.N.D.S , so you see how long ago it was. And I only hope never to fall out of touch ever again. 

6. Anxiety, Sigh. It took a long time, but it finally made sense why some situations drove me up the wall, why I’d have sweaty palms, throbbing heart rates and a dry throat. I became cognizant and wise enough to realize I was having anxiety attacks constantly worrying about something or the other, plain stressing and it wasn't always going to turn out as badly as it played out in my head. But, it affected my day, my mood, my sleep, my relationships. Working out really really helped (Thank you, endorphins!) – but what also really helped was accepting that this is what I feel and its not my nature, but a condition that one can work on in small ways and get better. Happy to report, we’re moving past sweaty palms at minimum now.

7. Letting go
There’s a lot of toxic people I know of – who’ve done nothing better than fat shame, blatantly seek attention all the time or plain disregard and absolutely ignore things I’ve done or felt for them. 2018 was special, I learnt that I don’t need this level of toxic around me and made a conscious effort to disconnect from this feeling of rage they would manage to give me every few weeks. I moved on from a lot of shit, lots to go, but the journey has begun.