Hello! Did you notice I’m back around faster than last time? I’m trying to find a cadence which works for me. As of yesterday Saturday I was thinking I could send this out on 2nd and 4th Saturdays (as they are days off for me) but I really couldn’t finish writing it by then. So today it is. As it's just been around 2 weeks since I was last writing to you, of course this is going to have a shorter list. Which I think is nice because I did hear some things about how long the previous newsletter was.
Here are the creative pursuits I’ve been following:
Breaking Bread
There’s a community in Delhi called Breaking Bread which organises group dinners on Saturday nights. Vijay and I joined them a couple of weeks ago in Lajpat Nagar. We went to an Uzbek/ Persian place in Lajpat Nagar. Now, consumption of food can hardly be seen as creative, let alone top the list. But I think it was exposure to great energy.
As someone who works from home, I don’t get the chance to get out of home much (except for gym and pottery), and even when I do it’s mostly with Vijay. I have no real opportunity to meet new people or have casual conversations. When I signed up for this, I hoped only to eat some good food, but sharing a single 1-metre-kebab platter, eating from the same board really brings down the walls. By the end of the meal, we were laughing and making fun of each other as if we’d known each other long.
At the risk of sounding pseudo-sciency and woo-woo, I think situations like these, especially where one meets new people, expose you to new energies. And those energies help to bring you out of the creative rut.
Kanan Gill Gig
I’ve followed Kanan Gill since the first pretentious movie review but never got a chance to see him perform live. The last famous comedian we saw live was Kenny Sebastian, who I also love to watch on YouTube, but that show was kind of a let down, we didn’t find it funny.
But Kanan’s show? Loved it.
My next speech for Toastmasters is supposed to be a humorous speech, so every time I watch/listen to a standup, I also try to go back and see what exactly makes a joke funny. More on that below.
Crochet & repair
I got some stubborn coffee stains on a white dress that I love to wear in the summer. It’s so light and airy, and I've spent at least 6 summers in it, and hope it will last me for the next few as well. But then, I got a couple of stubborn stains right next to the neckline, in a place that they can’t be missed. Usually, when I get some stains or small holes in my clothes, I try to paint or embroider a design on it, but this time, I don’t think I could have done that on an all-white dress. So I thought that I might be able to crochet some white coloured flowers and stick them on, and it might work well with the lace inserts in the dress.
The problem is, I do not know crochet.
The good thing is, all the world’s information is now available anywhere. I watched this tutorial and made a crochet flower. Then three:
Then I got the hang of it and made maybe 20 more, in different colours and sizes. Love it, so addictive. So now I’ve just been making flowers but I haven’t gotten around to put them on my dress yet. Next time. *adds to calendar*
My portfolio website
I’m trying to start compiling my past work together into a website for myself. If you have the time- please consider going over it at https://srishti.me and sending me some feedback.
Pottery
Pottery has been going well. I’ve become better and faster at throwing. I had a learning moment about my own thought process in these last few weeks, but I think I will wait to see some results before sharing that with you. The first lot of things I made are already being bisque fired, and I attached handles to 3 new mugs.
The light in the studio I practise in is really nice too. Just see:
beautiful, right?
What makes a joke funny?
Humour is about pain. No, I’m not making some random blanket statement, this is actually true. My next speech in toastmasters is supposed to be about ‘exploring my sense of humour’, so I’ve been paying a lot of attention to things that I find funny. But it’s hard, no? To make someone laugh consistently? But on some days we really manage to do it with our friends.
And at the centre of every joke there is some suffering, some real thing that wouldn’t have been funny if it was happening to you. There is the shock or danger of that thing/sorrow/misfortune, and then relief at the fact that you’re not actually in that situation, that you’re safe. And it extends to people who find jokes offensive - those people are actually threatened by Next time you listen to a joke that made you laugh- please evaluate it against this and tell me if I am right or wrong.
As I mentioned above, Vijay and I went to see The Kanan Gill experience.
Usually, comedians make jokes on other people or things. Politicians, other public figures, or a culture. Indians, foreigners. That humour is at the expense of something else.
Which is why I found this show so refreshing. Kanan isn’t critiquing a culture (at least in the outward, stereotypical sense) or an external person. He shares with us his vulnerabilities, his experiences and failures, and we see them because they are our vulnerabilities, our embarrassments, our failures. We laugh because we have been there, and have survived them, in order to be sitting in a large auditorium, temporarily safe from and not thinking about the existential futility of it all.
Kanan is also a master of his audience. He knows his shows are not attended by school kids or retirees - but rather 30-something year olds freshly out of youthful idealism. People who aren’t as excited about their salary crediting every month , who are questioning the meaning of it all and those who go to therapy.
Of course, I have spent a good few years in therapy to discover, like everyone else, that I am how I am because of something that happened in my childhood, and to realise that therapy doesn’t fix anything. That it only makes you aware of your problems and that you may spend the next n years trying to fix yourself (with n being approximately the number of years you’ve spent on this earth).
Might as well die ignorant and happy.
But once you’ve been to therapy, you can’t un-go to therapy, you can’t un-know your issues and you can’t put your parents back up on a pedestal. So now you know. And you have to be responsible for knowing.
I wish I hadn’t, I wish I was one of those overconfident dudes who go through life with zero self awareness and no consideration for others but are undeniably happy. Was this all really worth it? Am I even living a live-able life?
These are some questions Kanan asks - albeit in a more sophisticated and extremely funny way.
We laughed for over an hour. I wished you could be there. I wished for it to not end. Because the thing about attending a standup (vs watching it online) is that there are about 900 other people in the auditorium. And they are laughing with you, at the experience of a brave and vulnerable person, because they have been through the depths of the same despair, just like you, and they have pulled through, just like you.
There may be reasons and moments to feel alone, but this is one that makes you feel the opposite of it.
What’s coming up next?
Lino printing
When I was in Lajpat Nagar for the breaking bread event, I made a quick dash to my favourite stationery shop in Delhi. There, I picked up some linoleum sheets, some oil based printing ink and a roller. I have a set of Lino cutters already, and I’m looking forward to trying out Lino printing after a really long time. Vijay’s colleague + our NID junior Akhil is staying with us for a few days
Dress repair
I have to repair the dress I mentioned above.
At work: using HCI evaluation software
At work, we’re trying to onboard an application that will help us test our designs and live app+ web. Since our app is a fintech app, it’s harder to record information and customers may not feel safe having their details being recorded. We’re trying to find a workaround. I’ll let you now if I do.
I don’t have any recommendations this week - so why don’t you recommend me something instead?
Until next time!
You write with such flair. Delight pro max :)