Mirrors

Our new home in Bengaluru has four mirrors (two tall, two small, and three large glass windows that turn into translucent mirrors past sunset). The Wayanad home had one (01) A5-sized mirror we awkwardly hung too close to a wall and never managed to look at unless we were leaning on to the wall purposely trying to catch it at the right angle. So, more reflection this year. It seems.

Moving

We moved here in the first week of January with a lot of anxious preparation and general anxiety about moving to a city. We also moved with a tiny house’s worth of stuff—kitchen utensils and all the accoutrements; foldable furniture from Decathlon and everywhere else; a wooden cot (that we had to prove wasn’t made of sandalwood); bicycles—in a fruit truck that would replace all this stuff with strawberries and such on its way back. While both of us (not all three of us) have lived in cities for weeks at a time for work, we hadn’t needed putting-roots-down kind of stays since 2014–15; life in cities was always out-of-backpacks and eating-at-canteens. In the three weeks we have been here, we’ve dealt with a couple of angry people, a couple of insecure vendors (especially print; long story) and a lot of nice neighbours and neighbourhood dogs. We are warming up to the city. We miss Wayanad too much to embrace all that the city is all at once.

App-solute Everything

While I knew life here would be run on apps, I did not expect this level of dependency and ease. We got a water purifier subscription and that took a while to sink in. The society has app-driven vending machines with funny-slash-scary-looking 360-degree cameras and some sophisticated weight-triggered payment system that I don’t look forward to checking out anytime soon. I also got blank RFID entry passes for River’s HQ and live the corporate-ish life everytime doors magically open.

Stuff

Once the money situation gets back on track—Bank-of-India treats online banking like it is a luxury; KL11’s accounts are stuck at Silk Street—we need curtains for the translucent-mirror windows. It looks like we may also need something to fill the hall with. We both love sofas but are open to ideas that involve other ways of pet-friendly seating. (That should be good reason to check out the ‘Say Hi’ WoT link up in the menu, if you’re reading this on the browser.)

Chelgato

Since the weather is comparably cold, Chellam is having a great time; she eats, she plays, she sleeps—a lot. She also figured out her bathroom business on day uno and hasn’t given us trouble since. We go for long walks in the evening, staying away from that one RottweilerLab from two houses away and staying close to the really curious Beagle from the other end of the society. The neighbours across from our balcony have a golden and a lab, both older than Chellam. They do a pitch-bending jugalbandi once in a while but haven’t met snout-to-snout yet. There are also two chonker-cats—one ginger, one grey—who visit the translucent mirror at night and mock Chellam for absolutely no reason. She has grown to ignore them, somewhat.

Everything Else

No teaching this year; except when/if Jodhpur calls—I loved that place and the enthusiasm. I am also done compromising on everything—quality, detail, being nice—all at once.

Worried that I have started having an early (mid?) designer-life crisis on the work that I automatically do. We did some nice layouts and made some nice typography choices for the River Store over the last month but it starts to feel ‘default.’ The guidelines are solid, perhaps. (Pats back vigorously.) Will need to start looking at side-projects to break from the (self-inflicted) mould.

So that is that and 2024 looks nice so far. Read the ‘How About Now’ magazine earlier—nicely done for most parts; I would’ve added a little more leading to the bodytext and dwelled less on some stuff. I’ll make a ‘Needs More Leading’ sticker like the old DesignPolice stickers maybe. (I had this one on the laptop-lid in 2013–14.) Here is wishing everyone a happy new year!

PS: I’m also testing the Paper app (just got a subscription to evaluate before submitting to iA again). There is a lot to love but I wish there was no AI integration.