Happy Holidays

A super late post .. this is something which I did and very clearly intended to post at the actual holidays time .. and clearly forgot.

Wishing you all a very lovely, happy and a trasformatory 2016.

Happy Diwali

May this Festival of light touch your heart and reach your soul 

To give you the beautiful experience of love 

The power of knowledge 

The joy of an enlightened soul

Wishes ~ Mridu, Ratul and Sanvi

A journey revisited

When was the last time you got an unannounced parcel find its way to your doorsteps? I do not know about others but for me its been a very very long time ago. We didn't even realize when the virtual world with all it's commanders - Emails, Mobiles, Facebook, Smart Phones, Online Shopping crept into our lives and became one inseparable part. As if we carried one more Trojan horse inside our lives. Just that, this time the horse carried a virtual kingdom inside. Gradually, our lives had been taken over by virtuality while we were asleep.

The Virtual King had his own rules. We were forced to forget the touch of our own real kingdom. The kingdom where we left our childhood. The kingdom where we used to climb on the mango trees in the backyard of our small homes. The kingdom where we left the real taste of having the tangy tamarind with salt under the sun. We had to even forget the art of making those tiny little paper boats which were left to float on the puddle created by heavy rain. 

The ruthless king has taken away our small sunny real world. Everything in our childhood was so real that reality was often undervalued. That was the time when virtuality was the coolest kid in the block and we tried to befriend it with video games and Super Mario, not knowing that one day it will grow so big and swallow us alive.

Communication started pacing so fast that it did not even spare our parents' generation and today I am not surprised to see my mom on Facebook or Watsapp. In this journey the waiting moments faded away, and so did our tolerance levels.
All we wait for now a days, is a book or a product that we ordered online. Even the food parcel from home is no more a surprise as the recipient usually already knows the tracking number to track down the parcel, just in case it does not reach us the expected day. 

In days like these, one fine day I receive a parcel in my name and to my surprise there was pretty package tied with orange ribbons and newspaper. It was from Paperboat and it did bring a smile in my face. My two year old daughter jumped with joy because she thought its a happy birthday present for her. And with her giggles and laughter I relived a little piece of my childhood, thanks to paperboat. As I unwrapped her so called happy birthday gift, I was delighted to find "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome

A long time ago I wanted to write a review on the concept of Paperboat and its experience .. but I just never managed to do that, though I loved it so much. I love Paperboat as a drink, but I also love it for its capability to take storytelling to a whole new level. The packaging design, the illustrations, the story copy, the Facebook page, everything that they thought of has the same story to tell and the same memories to tickle. 

Very happy with the entire visualization and not to miss the taste of the products. My favorite is jaljeera, imli, kokam, golgappa pani and jamun. Did I just name all of them? :) Cheers!!

Design for Kashmir

Here is my interpretation of hope and faith for Kashmir.

Illustration done for an initiative Design for Kashmir.

New found love _ hand lettering

Trying my hands on some hand lettering ... Here are some of my initial attempts.

Loving it.

Doodle and be happy

Doodling is a very easy and beautiful way to keep our self motivated and creatively charged. Being at work does not allow me much time to do so with finesse .. and being at home and trying to do so is even more difficult with my toddler so curious about what mamma is doing?
But stopping to doodle is the worst thing one can do. I did that too and I know how big it is a challenge for people in the creativity field to sit with pen and paper and spend time deciding what to doodle.
I recently got over it and started doodling again. Here are some of them.

Anniversary Cards

“It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. 

Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. 

Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon 

find there is nothing else. 

Without a central loyalty life is unfinished.” 

― Fulton J. Sheen, 

Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

I have tried to keep this habit of making an art every anniversary .. just with a thought that later in life it will be just nice to look at them :) 

So in our four years of marriage here are the four cards.

Second anniversary I was pregnant with Sanvi, my beautiful girl.

And we were eagerly waiting for her.

The 3rd one we had a new member with us and the journey begins with a new passenger on board. Also, my husband was passionately visiting the gym those days ;)

The fourth one was a beautiful one with our lil girl more responsive and making us laugh and happy all the time. It was raining and I had my obsession with patterns. Sanvi loved her Hello Kitty.

Also it will be a nice way to know my own art skills and the changes over the years.