We had a nice Vijayawada teaching-road-trip last month. It was the first post-Covid-lockdown offline course (abstract doc) for Communication Design so the benchmark for awesomeness/okayness was set quite ground-level and below. The bachchalog did well, with some well-written books in the last week. I was impressed (capital I) with the depth and breadth of work; kind of reminded me of the good old times as a student in Paldi. R cooked everyone dinner (like the good old times in Paldi). We had fun (capital F) and some spicy Andhra food. On the way back (Vij–Chennai–Coimbatore–Kozhikode) there were friends, Tamizh food, football-field-sized roads, shady hotel rooms, aeroplanes, Burmese food, near-miss Tollbooth stucknesses, etcetera. (More on all that later.)

Here is everyone making posters out of thin air and newspaper at the makeshift CD-studio (IT Lab) at Vij. Capital F.

At home in Wayanad, Podimol is ‘in’ the Monsoon way more than we are. We just had her power-washed yesterday (because she was looking more terracotta-sculpture and less metal-sheet-stamped) and today, she looks like this (below). We—not so—accidentally drove into a green patch that turned out to be a Rasayanam-consistency patch underneath. Getting out was harder than getting in. The mud flew everywhere.

The Monsoon (coupled with rising prices for everything) is really hard for many people in many places in Kerala, but we are okay. Dealing with leaks in the kitchen and more-slash-bigger wasps-and-technicolour-bugs is not much of ‘dealing with’ really. We had some hard-ish times a couple of months back (delayed payments and some such logistical effups) and sailed slowly through them.

KL11 has resumed work on River and I’m looking at multiscript wordmarks. We are also looking for interns/project-associates to help us for three months (more on that too, later). Some expansive icon-sets, web-design, brand-guidelines and extending the product identity, etcetera, are in the works. Drop me a line (KL11 mail) if interested. I’m putting together a document on the what and the why and all that soon. We are kind of particular about some basics (like third-year-in-college-basics; not unreasonable basics) of type and form but are hoping to be able to mentor people as well. We shall put our semi-abandoned Instagram page to some use, maybe. And I have so many emails to catch up to.

Chelgato has put on good weight and has no hesitation anymore before jumping into bed before we do. That usually means we end up fighting her for realestate but are also kind of halfhearted about it thanks to the added warmth. (Our part of Wayanad gets cold like most other parts of Wayanad). She pretends to guard the house while secretly hoping for strangers to come and pet her.

Sulthan Bathery’s arguably-best print shop is called CopyCat. We moved here (not exactly SB but close/far enough) in March and sometime last week was the first time we needed to commit-control-pee anything into pulp. This (below) is from Nellarachaal, a buffaloe-grass-carpet showroom over a hill overlooking some water that seems to be going nowhere in particular. Chellam likes the place despite the three dogs who are a bit too jumpy, and because of the one who is a sweetheart. (R—obviously because everything is photographically appropriate—took the pictures.)

Chelgato loves taking naps in moving vehicles way better than any of us can ever hope to. (She’s halfheartedly sleeping off a vet visit to Aruma in this picture.) She finds nooks where there are none apparent.

This is home. It is an old (60+ years) singlestory sloped-roof affair with flawed wooden ceilings and a kitchen that leaks in five places (so far) when the rain turns extrabold. Like many houses from that decade, ours is a simple square-plan divided into two big rooms, two small rooms, and the kitchen-cul-de-sac-combo next to a bathroom that stays consistently in winter-mode. It is a 3-column modular-ish grid with odd gutters. We lost the green cover in the backdrop to some seasonal clearance sale. On the plus side, the fore-noon sun warms the house up in time for night-chill. Out front, there are birds (bulbuls, kingfishers, tiny sparrows in a rainbow’s worth of hues) everywhere. Plus everyone’s chickens are everywhere all the time. Chelgato has kind of stopped barking at some of them regulars.

We welcomed a puppy to the family and she’s prone to flying at us with ears flapping in the least aerodynamically efficient way possible. She’s also good at stealing everyone’s hearts while at it.

Arguably, I did not start out as a dog-person (or any kind of -person really). Only past meeting studio-dogs at NID, Ninja and Saboo at Co (third year of college, internship-driven) I grew comfortable enough to let them rest on me while working. Then Kalyani changed a lot of the ways I dealt with animals; she came to me—an intelligent, somewhat aloof like many cats—baby who needed a lot of time and very little space for herself. Now I can—with 62% success—tell a Lab-Retriever puppy from a Golden one.

The title is an inside joke with R on alternate, modular names for the puppy. (Inspired in parts from Elgato’s announcing a new camera. I was researching building a Pi-Zero web-camera for the computer; we share a webcam and on days with meeting-s it is awkward.) It was R who spent hours talking about canines, sending pictures of them in irresistible lighting, etcetera and made me warm up to the idea of befriending a puppy. The furball did the rest when she arrived.

Photo thanks to R. I am responsible for cropping the original (portrait) weirdly.

PS: I think it was essential that we got her. So much stress and anxiety and fatigue in our lives post COVID-uncertainties and general COVID-uncertainties. Work has been super-slow and mind-boggling at all times.