Tag Archives: sketching

A snack and a dessert

Last week while lunching with my sketcher pals at Tiong Bahru Hawker Center, I had two new additions to my ever expanding knowledge of local dishes.

I was ploughing through a plate of noodles topped with roasted pork slices and a bowl of clear soup with light fluffy wantons floating on the surface when Paul landed a plate of Chwee Kweh and a bowl of cooling Cheng Teng on our table and said, “try these”. He seemed rather pleased and glanced over his loot with such undeniable sense of achievement that I wondered if mountains were moved and demons were slain to win these back from the dragon’s den! Pretty close actually, considering the heat, humidity and long lunch time queues he must have endured to score some of this hawker center’s best offerings.

Chwee Kweh, a white muffin shaped item (top right on my sketchbook) is a kind of steamed rice cake which was served on waxed paper and seemed bland by itself but when eaten with the salty, garlicky preserved radish relish, it hit all the right notes. “It’s a very popular snack in Singapore”, said my friends understandably when they saw me stealing second, third..fifth helpings. I managed a muffled “mmm…hmm” in between mouthfuls. They withdrew their chopsticks gently and let me finish every last bit of it.

Cheng Teng, sketched on the bottom right wasn’t an instant hit, maybe because I’m not big on desserts but what won me over eventually were its mild sweetness (from rock sugar) and cooling nature. The dish looked like brown frozen soup in a glass bowl filled with a slew of goodies known to have health benefits like gingko nuts, dried longan, winter melons, dried persimmon, sago, barley pearls, red dates and such, making it a dessert that you can sip and chew and have fun with, apparently. Paul kept asking me to dig deep with my spoon to scoop up the dried fruits along with the frozen soup and every time I did, we checked what was unearthed. “Look, persimmons.. there, get the water chestnut, quick! Aw.. it slipped. Try again”.

The ‘Plus Five Hundred’ walks

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The title maybe beguiling but isn’t misleading I assure you. Here’s the story.

Right after returning from our trip to New York, we were hit with severe jet lag. Time difference had throttled our body clock. It was agonising to stay awake during the day and by night time we felt so alive and active that it was impossible to sleep. So to ease back into the GMT+08:00 time zone as quickly as possible we hatched a plan and decided to execute it immediately. Being the long new year weekend, timing was perfect and the idea was simple – we must tire ourselves so much during the day that we’d just zonk out by nightfall. But how does one make that happen?

By taking very long walks to get our morning coffee.

Okay, hmm…but where could we go? Maybe to a cafe/bakery that opens really early and is far enough to warrant a long walk. Quick search on the internet revealed that Tiong Bahru Bakery on Eng Hoon Street is about 5kms from our house and if we set off slightly before 7 in the morning, we could be standing first in line when their door opens. Trust me, there is a line of eager beavers queuing up to grab a seat even before the door opens.

Some of the goodies at TBB

Besides solving the problem which it was designed for, the walk itself seemed enjoyable, more than we imagined because the two bugaboos – heat and humidity were missing from the equation. Save for the construction workers, a handful of buses, bicyclists and domestic helpers speeding towards Lucky Plaza to spend their day off, the roads were empty, the street lights were on, the sky was mellow and there was a breeze that blew our hair and dried our sweat when we climbed up an incline.

About 7000 steps later we pushed through the wooden door of Tiong Bahru Bakery where giddy with self approbation (and air-conditioning), we rewarded ourselves with sugary buttery treats to accompany the beverages. I wouldn’t mention how they fared because in Singapore, the city of gourmands, the queue for food does all the talking. And there was one snaking from the already house-full cafe’s entrance door till the cash counter which revealed how popular their goodies are with the locals and expats.

Patrons queueing up inside Tiong Bahru Bakery

Suffice it to say that if you’ve eaten here once chances are you will come back, many more times. Unless we are out of the country, this is where we can be found every Sunday morning swirling in the glistening folds of a Kouign Amann or nestling inside the flaky comfort of an Almond Croissant. Because it was so enjoyable we started walking our way back home from the cafe, making the journey a total of 10kms which should’ve made it the most salubrious habit we ever nurtured if we didn’t know counting. But since we do, here’s the math – for every 500 calories we lose on the walk we pile on 1000 more from our cloying lapse in judgement making the count, you guessed it – plus five hundred. If there’s a lesson to be learnt from this mood dampening revelation it would be to never overthink when you’re having fun.

So naturally, the plus five hundred walks are very much on. Also, should jet lag strike again, we now have the perfect antidote.

A month’s worth of hosting

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Two grinning faces, actually three, including the portly Malay helper who was pushing my dad’s wheelchair ( probably happy from sighting relief beyond the arrivals gate) waved at us from the luggage carousel. I wrapped my scarf tightly around my shoulders; it wasn’t just the air-conditioning giving me chills.

Ever since we moved to Singapore, we’d been wooing our parents to visit us. Five years later and about a month ago, I and my husband set off one early morning to pick my parents up from the airport.

Baba sitting on the window sil and playing Scrabble first thing in the morning

Baba sitting on the window sill and playing Scrabble first thing in the morning accompanied by a cup of tea and two Jacob’s cream crackers.

Even though we keep in touch i.e virtually ‘nudge’ each other everyday when a scrabble move is due, it was thrilling to see my parents in person and most importantly find them emerge out of the immigration gates unscathed and unflustered.

Most first time visitors i’ve met wax lyrical about Singapore’s airport, it being one of the world’s best or at least rave/ rant about inflight food and entertainment, which make the usual post flight conversation, but my parents, and I should’ve known, drove straight to the point. “I can’t download Whattsapp on my tab, how soon can you fix it?” asked my dad as I bent down to embrace him and my mom said she had to pee, urgently.

Mom playing scrabble too, only when every other member in the house is playing that game

Mom fiddling with her phone or perhaps playing Scrabble but only as a last resort

Back home, unpacking and settling down went unexpectedly smooth. Making a tiny couple’s apartment habitable for 4, that too for a month wasn’t easy but after an extensive and exhaustive bout of spring cleaning (I am backslapping myself as I write this) I had miraculously created space inside wardrobes, bathrooms, bookcase (since my dad travels with at least 6 books) and on the study table. Not only did I arrange for extra mattresses and linen, I also found clever nooks in the house to store these bulky items neatly without making our pad look any smaller.

Icing of the cake – my husband got a leaking pipe replaced the day before our guests arrived, so we were even mould-free. Only if the wooden door to our electrical closet – hoarding space for all displaced items in the house – would hold up for a month without crashing under pressure, we’d pass off as perfectly conscientious hosts.

Baba's Samsung Tab encased in a bright orange cover became a permanent fixture on this table because he would hog this charging point day and night.

Baba’s Samsung Tab encased in a bright orange cover became a permanent fixture on our TV table because he hogged this charging point for the entire duration of his stay.

The door did hold up for a month but circumstances didn’t. The thick pall of haze over Singapore (from forest fires in Indonesia) rendering the air quality ‘unhealthy’ compromised imminent sightseeing plans. A family emergency on my husband’s side needed him to fly out for 2 weeks the next evening, leaving two overeager elderly raging to make the most of their first visit abroad at the hands of their hapless daughter scrambling for plan B.

I didn’t have plan B. What I had instead was this incipient fear. Retired folks like my parents being creatures of habit become petulant once their rhythm is upset. How long until the fascination and wide eyed wonder of the new place started to wear off? Surely the novelty of clean and safe roads, manicured parks, disciplined traffic, cars that didn’t honk and gave way to pedestrians and the miraculous ability to ‘drink water straight from the tap’ couldn’t keep them dazzled for a month? I had to give them a routine and get them to repeat it everyday till it became second nature.

And so I did.

Baba would often relate these simple yet pithy sayings that he read/heard somewhere. I thought of writing them down one day.

Baba would often relate these simple yet pithy sayings that he had read/heard somewhere. I thought of writing some down one day while he was so eagerly delivering them.

Mornings would be dedicated to tea and Jacob’s cream crackers. My trusty canary yellow teapot which sadly met its end in the line of duty, entertained my guests with countless cups of champagne coloured beverage from Japanese Green Tea, Chamomile to lemongrass, lavender and Chilli Roiboos infusions. While I let the tea steep, my dad, always in white pyjamas and vest when indoors, would sit on the wide window sill and watch the constant retinue of cars, schoolchildren, infants in prams and fancy dogs being walked by their owners, all the while clutching his Samsung Tablet encased in a lurid orange cover.

If he made a word of considerable points in Scrabble, my level headed father, a man of few words and fewer displays of emotion would pump his fists into the air and let out a victorious cry – ‘yes, yes, yes’. He’d also bite into his biscuits and dribble the crumbs on the floor. I started skipping all the double and triple words just to watch him get animated every morning, and then clean the floor inconspicuously with a brush and a dust picker.

We would always watch a movie post dinner. Here’s my dad reading the book ‘Chanakya’s Chant’ and watching a hindi comedy flick on Youtube

My mom would sit on the sofa, propped against two cushions, sip her tea and either continue to read a particular travel article on Antarctica she’s been following or fiddle with her phone like the rest of us. Meanwhile I’d check the hourly psi readings and declare if it would be safe to venture out of the house. If all was fine, we’d quickly pick a place to visit and I’d try to convince dad to come with us and eventually get into an argument because he wouldn’t want to exhaust me by pushing his wheelchair and I wouldn’t want to leave him behind. Some days he let me win and some days I let him win, especially when I and mom wanted to go shopping.

Baba's precise infallible routine contains an hour of meditation twice a day. I've caught him nodding off couple of times while at it but he denies the accusation fervently.

Baba’s infallible routine contained an hour of meditation two times a day. I’ve caught him nodding off couple of times while at it but he fervently denies the accusation.

There were days when our mornings would stretch longer and take on a didactic tone with my dad drifting into a discourse about religion, spirituality and life in general and how to live it, occasionally concluding in pithy sentences drawn from the Gita, Vedas or his life’s experiences. My mom, having heard these before would contribute background score to his soliloquy in the form of soft snoring sounds.

On the days we stayed in, I’d cook an elaborate lunch, usually cuisines my parents were new to, from Greek Lemon Chicken, to Indonesian Red curry, Vietnamese Rice paper rolls to SriLankan Prawns. They’d always fuss over the dish when I laid it down on the table, saying how beautiful it looked and how good it smelled and then surreptitiously grab some ketchup for added flavour until I started sweetening my dishes more than my taste buds would allow. We were getting along perfectly well.

Evenings would mean a walk (minus the wheelchair) to the park and then on to our neighbourhood Starbucks, where he'd first read his books and then play scrabble.

Evenings would mean a walk (minus the wheelchair) to the park and then on to our neighbourhood Starbucks, where my dad would read his books and update his scrabble moves. He’s very competitive and somewhat of a sore loser!

Around 3 in the afternoon, come rain or shine, my dad would hobble to a quiet corner in the house, spread a mat on the floor, set the timer for an hour and sit down to meditate. Though on several occasions I’ve found him in a state – shoulders slumped, back relaxed, head tilted forward, taking deep slow breaths – that could only indicate post-lunch dip, when confronted he would fervently deny the accusation and counter it each time with some iteration of ‘I could not have dozed off. I was alert the whole time’. I sketched him in the said posture one afternoon to tease him and also to prove my point but then didn’t have the heart to show it to him.

Nearly 10 years ago, a severe cerebral haemorrhage had permanently incapacitated my dad, rendering him unfit not just for his day job as a mechanical engineer at a Steel Plant but for performing simple tasks like buttoning his shirt or wearing a shoe. Then again, I haven’t met a more positive person who’s picked himself up from deathbed and constructed a life without regrets. Years of care, support and physiotherapy may have improved his situation by a minuscule percentage, the rest was his own doing, with sheer will power and conviction. I couldn’t trample on that, not even in good humour!

This is the trusty wheelchair that saved the trip - I had to draw it before returning, although the moment wasn't quite agreeable.

We had hired a wheelchair for a month to take dad around for sightseeing with ease. I had to draw it before returning it the next day.

Unless the haze was terrible, on most evenings I would take my parents to the neighbourhood park, where they’d spend a little time on a wooden bench watching people go about their businesses, and then walk another 150 meters to the mall to lounge at a cafe, listen to jazz, drink lattes, read books and most importantly, at least for my dad – play scrabble until dinner. Back home, we’d huddle on the sofa, put on a Satyajit Ray flick on Youtube and end the day in the throes of monochromatic Kolkata.

After my husband was back we did manage to take them around Singapore, and though it was precious to watch my parents get excited at every sight just as we did when we moved in here, it is the rhythm of our days together – the little tasks that cumulatively formed our routine – that I’ve come to miss the most after they left. Goodbyes are hard and this one was too, but then again, ‘distance’ – however menacing it is in the beginning, is restorative eventually. With each passing day our memory fades out the disagreeable and holds in light only the best of times. Like when I taught my dad the phrase ‘ni hao‘ (‘How are you?’ in Mandarin) one day and he went crazy with it by testing it out on every unsuspecting cab driver, shop assistant, waiter and school kid that crossed his path till the end of their trip. It was incredibly funny!

Almost gutted

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I was heading home after a long day when this charming old lady on Blair Road with teal coloured facade embellished with classical motifs and louvered windows fringed by waxy Frangipani leaves jumped out at me.

Giving credibility to my artist friends’ claims about my inclination towards a certain kind of sketch subject , that range from lighthearted banter – ‘show her shophouses and she’s all perked up’, ‘Shophouses..well, that’s her middle name‘ to exaggerated assertions like – ‘suppose she was bound, gagged and comatose, I bet she could still land a decent shophouse in her sketchbook‘ , I lingered and toyed with the idea of, well, sketching this shophouse.

A Blair Road terrace house with Frangipani in its courtyard

This Blair Road terrace house sketch came back from the dead

By the time I put pen to paper, sunlight was licking the last bar of the grilled gate. Construction workers from the renovation site next door had stopped hammering, hung their helmets and boots and were heading back in a group that moved like one composite unit of droopy shoulders and dragging feet. Except a house cat chasing a squirrel, I was alone on the street and the meditative silence brought out some satisfactory linework.

I went home and painted it.

And then I loathed it, with all my heart. Harder I looked, more limp and lifeless the painting became. Feeding it to the paper shredder seemed like the right thing to do, but I put it away and tried to pretend it never happened. But mistakes happen, more often than you like, in different shapes and forms and turns out you can’t quit the game and press ‘restart’ every time you make a boo boo. You need to step on them to climb to the next level. So I dug this one out after months in exile and retouched it today and guess what – I can finally live with it and move on!

Trip to Bali Lane

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Stamford Raffles’s rationale for dividing Singapore into ethnic subdivisions while town planning in 1822 may have been geared towards achieving orderliness, but it is the 21st century traveler who’s thanking him today though for a slightly different reason. With modernisation changing the look of cities across the world and making them increasingly homogenous, it is such little pockets that offer character and variety to a landscape of highrises and shopping malls.

The buzz around the alfresco fruit and vegetable stalls crowded with saree clad women bedecked in gold bangles and flowers in hair, stooping over mangoes or tomatoes to check their ripeness is what defines Little India for me; the vibrant Chinese lanterns, souvenir stalls, Chilli crab outlets, calligraphy shops, temples, mahjong playing elderly uncles and the constant ebb and flow of backpackers jump out at me when I set foot in Chinatown and finally when I enter Kampong Glam, I’m steered by the palm fringed gold dome of the Sultan mosque, shops selling carpets, perfumes, silk, batik and laces, Middle Eastern eateries embellished with lamps, chandeliers and other moorish trinkets and the smell of biryani and shawarma filling the warren of narrow streets around mealtimes.

Blu Jaz and Muzium Cafe on Bali Lane, Kampong Glam

What’s common to all these precincts however is the ubiquitous shophouse – a timeless beauty, which is a delight to sketch, photograph or just be in the company of. On my last week’s trip to Kampong Glam, I sat under a huge shady tree and sketched this pleasant corner of Blue Jaz Cafe and Muzium Cafe both housed in quaint shophouses on Bali Lane with plenty of potted plants in between them. For the two hours I spent on my line drawing, I watched the cafe staff sweep leaves off the floor, dust, mop, wipe and arrange furniture, and finally grow antsy and glance uncomfortably at our direction. The footsteps of the lunch crowd descending from the nearby offices was unmistakable. We did put them at ease by wrapping up our easels and clearing off in seconds!

Not a rookie anymore

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Last year, around this time I took a leap of faith, went to Ikea, got myself cheap black frames into which I put my paintings and sent them out to be showcased at an art exhibition. Even before sending them out, I had marked places on the walls of my apartment where I planned to mount them if they made their way back home. A part of me agonised over our parting and the other part wanted to know if someone out there would actually pay money for something I had created.

The Entrance to the ‘We Draw Singapore Together’ exhibition

Besides the exhilaration of selling paintings for the first time in my life, last year’s experience helped me gain insights into how paintings should be priced and more importantly presented. So, this time round, I got my artworks professionally framed and sent them out to the world with slightly less drama proving that I’m not a rookie anymore. The hard part wasn’t letting go, but to choose three out of the five I had sketched and painted for the occasion. These were the contenders :

A random house at Everton Road drawn with a dip pen with flex nib, Brown Calligraphy ink and a lot of patience

Contender 1 is this random terrace house on Everton Road that stood out for me because it was the only one in the row with such an incredible number of decorative plants on its porch emerging from all kinds of pots. I was also drawn to the building’s teal coloured window frames and when I saw the owner eventually drive off in a teal coloured Volkswagen Beetle wearing a teal coloured dress with matching shoes, I was glad my palette didn’t have enough teal to deal with this kind of fetish.

Buddhist Library at Geylang Serai and more

A saffron clad monk with an American accent emerged from the Buddhist Library on Lorong 27A to look at our sketches and chat with us

Contender 2 was drawn with a fine nib pen which I realised can be a boon and a bane. Ever since I started using the Pilot Kaküno, I get caught up in details and take hours to finish the linework, which is what happened here in the above painting. Although the process is therapeutic and the painting gets beautifully embellished, sometimes slow and careful drawing, I feel steals some of the energy and spontaneity of the piece. I sketched this from right to left and as you can see I gradually broke free and finished the sketch with broader, indicative strokes to strike a balance. Not spelling out everything and leaving my sketches somewhat unfinished is important to me because that way the viewer gets to participate in the process by mentally joining the dots.

Colourful shophouses on Spottiswoode Road

Can you believe that this red house on Spottiswoode Road has a frontage of only 4.2 meters, while it is 36 meters deep and has 7 rooms?

Contender 3‘s cute little red shophouse at number 66 is the reason I plonked my stool opposite it and even though a series of cars and trucks took turns to block my view and tons of tourists stopped by, breathed over my neck while pointing fingers at my sketchbook, I managed to finish it. The owner of the red house, Mr. Seah, came over to chat and answered my barrage of questions without breaking a sweat.

He said my subject is a 1886 built house, that was owned by a Chinese family and handed down to family members over the years till in 1924 a nun from Malacca or perhaps Penang bought it for 4800 dollars. After she passed away in 1995, the house went to the trustees and finally Mr. Seah, a property agent and restoration contractor bought it. I say who needs to book a flight ticket when venturing out with a sketchbook lets you rediscover places like these locally!

House No.56 on Spottiswoode Park Road

Contender 4 is another beauty on Spottiswoode Park Road but a beauty with a sinister history. Apparently as per a lot of sources, a murder took place inside those walls. If it was up to Agatha Christie, I’m sure ‘Murder at House no. 56’ would be available in paperback and in the televised version we’d see monsieur Poirot pacing outside the wrought iron gates, tilting his egg shaped head to the side, twitching his waxed moustache and saying to Hastings, ‘Mon ami, let us eliminate the suspects one by one’.

L’Entrecote – a steak and fries bistro at 36 Duxton Hill

Wonky lines and all, I like how my contender 5 turned out. Duxton Hill is pretty as a picture, so settling on one subject is difficult until I found this lady in red and sketched her pronto. Two grey haired gentlemen hurried out of an office probably for a meeting and stopped briefly to check what I was doing on the floor of their corridor and on their way back asked if I take commissions. Then came a realtor cum historian who shoved his business card into my ink stained hands and asked to get in touch for future prospects. Nothing came out of both, but I still love how regular people going about their business get excited by art and are forced to stop by, linger and sometimes have heartfelt conversations with this absolute stranger!

So, if you’re wondering which three I chose for the exhibition, well, I took an opinion poll – asked friends, relatives, acquaintances for their choices and then of course went with the ones I always had in mind. Isn’t that what everybody does?

My three musketeers!

Anyway, by now if you’re feeling the unrelenting desire to drop everything and rush to the exhibition to check out my artwork, well then, who am I to stop you. Here’s the invite –

This is the invitation card with details of the venue and opening hours in case someone feels like buying local art

Go feast your eyes!

Club Street in the afternoon

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..is lifeless. But that’s not a turn-off. At least not for everybody.

At this ungodly hour, you can have Club Street’s dainty rows of higgledy-piggledy shophouses all to yourself. Empty five foot ways, deserted barstools and straight uninterrupted views all around make for perfect sketching conditions except for the ginormous supply trucks that come by to stock up the watering holes and restaurants so they can wine and dine every last one of their evening revellers. Now whether these hulks will park in front of the very subject you selected after prolonged scouting will depend on the alignment of your stars.

View from Ninety Four ( a bar) at Club Street

Mine were in perfect constellation. None of the trucks blocked my line of vision. From the barstool of ‘Ninety Four’ I enjoyed unhindered views of Ann Siang Hill. Plus the man in front, resting on the stool, kept fairly still and stayed long enough for me to include him in the scene. Also none of the cars drove off mid-sketch, which is rare. Now if only the bar would open and I could get a drink..wait..it did!

Kindness of Mr. Potato Head

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It so happened that on a bright sunny, excruciatingly hot and humid morning, a bunch of sketchers descended on Keong Saik Road and captured the five-footways of its shophouses for three hours of intensive sketching.

Easels were set up, field chairs were pulled out, pigments, palettes, brushes, pens, pencils, charcoal, mounds of Artist grade paper and large plastic mugs of water appeared. Rolls of kitchen towels and packets of tissues were kept by the side. Sunscreen was rubbed, sunglasses were donned and stretchy UV protecting sleeves were worn on arms. Wide brimmed hats and baseball caps crowned every head.

The 1939 Art Deco building with red border on the left houses Potato Head Folk – a burger joint on Keong Saik Road

And while we braved through the day, observing, sketching, painting and spurring each other on beads of sweat trickled down our backs and bloomed on our foreheads. In the absence of breeze, not a single leaf or a strand of hair moved. The air’s oppressive stillness clung the clothes to our bodies, forming dark, damp patches.

But then just as the morning turned into afternoon and became increasingly heavy with languor, respite came.

I was at the intersection of Keong Saik and Teck Lim Road, sketching this iconic pre-war building with bright red borders when I saw a uniformed staff of Potato Head Folk – a burger joint that replaced the famous 75 year old Tong Ah Eating House- approach us lugging a bucket filled with green glass bottles.

Preserved shophouses along Keong Saik Road – one of the prettiest section of Chinatown, Singapore

“Here, have one”, she said handing me a chilled bottle of mineral water. I may have snatched it and gulped its entire content down my parched throat before thanking her. ‘No worries. My boss saw you’ll sketching in the heat, so he sent these’, she added and moved on to other dehydrated souls.

The weather continued to be gruelling but Mr. Potato Head’s benevolence had already injected vigour into the listless air. We picked up our brushes and marched on.

When you hang out with sketch artists..

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a) You always get invited on Sketch dates.

And it’s pure joy. More often than not, the location is exotic and even if it isn’t, you have great company and even if you have great company you aren’t obliged to socialize, make small talk or mingle. Misanthropes fit right in. You get to sit in your own little corner, do your own little thing, talk as much or as little to the next person and it still doesn’t affect your chances of getting invited again.

Row of terrace houses at Emerald Hill. Tried sketching in a big format – about 40cm x 20cm

Last week’s location was Emerald Hill, right opposite Orchard Central and undoubtedly one of the most accessible and prettiest places in Singapore with rows of exquisitely conserved pre-war terrace houses turned into business establishments and homes. It is really hard to be not inspired here. Even though our path and enthusiasm was marred with a veritable rainstorm (for it is the wet season) the show went on as you can see from this fruitful harvest! Each one of us left feeling inspired, contended and with promises of future hangouts.

A dainty blue shophouse at Emerald Hill. This looks really well as my iPad wallpaper!

b) You order food that would render well in a drawing.

Colours, shapes, sizes take precedence over taste. And most importantly, right after the food arrives at your table and the tantalising smell starts flirting with your senses, you are able to exercise monastic restraint in choosing the fork over the pencil and an inimitable ambition to finish sketching before the food gets cold and/or your dining companion starts fidgeting.

Lunch at Sakae Sushi

After my sketcher friend finished placing her order at Sakae Sushi, she turned to me and brightly declared, “The Salmon and Tuna sashimi..aren’t they colourful?…I ordered these, coz they’d look wonderful in our sketchbooks”. I might have teared up a little.

c) You get programmed to see ‘interesting’ things wherever you go, in the most unassuming places and at all possible times and want to document that.

And in doing so, with practice, you become a chronic chronicler with benefits aplenty. When you start documenting something, you are forced to slow down and observe more. You become mindful of every moment. You learn to live in the present. This may seem like bumper sticker wisdom but actually has much longer shelf life and is a widely practiced philosophy even. Peter Matthiessen in his book Snow Leopard, says, ‘..the courage-to-be, right here, right now and nowhere else, is precisely what Zen,..demands : eat when you eat, sleep when you sleep!”

Drinking Honey lemon Juice at Toast Box

Only because I was with a sketch artist, did I take away time from my honey lemon juice to join her in drawing this bunch of vintage items exhibited at Toast Box – a ‘reflection of coffee shops in the 60s and 70s’ – as part of their decor. I walked away knowing every item on those two shelves and the ones I liked the most – the palm sized TV and a pair of antique looking (or antique) binoculars. Probably this information won’t serve me a great purpose but when I was there, sketching, I wasn’t thinking of checking my phone, answering emails or figuring what to cook for dinner. I was involved and emotionally invested in what I was doing. It seemed like a therapeutic exercise in mindfulness and left me richer than anyone walking off with just the taste of that overly sweet honey lemon drink.

Playing with food

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I love books that influence the state of my mind and the state of my being. When I’m reading such a book, I can slowly feel it pitching a temporary tent inside my brain – stretching the canvas, hammering the stakes with a mallet, inflating the air mattresses, checking the flashlights, lighting the firewood and so on. Together we make happy campers, spiritually and emotionally invested, till the last word on the last page has been consumed, and then we pack up and go our separate ways.

It so happens that I’m ‘camping’ with M.F.K Fisher’s, “The Art of Eating’ these days and quite predictably, all I am mulling over is food and how meditative cooking, feeding and consuming can be, especially if it is one of your favourite pursuits. From the precise moment when the potent stomach growls of your guests give way to their appreciative ‘ahhs’ as your luscious creations land the table to the prolonged hush with shoulders hunched over plates, ending with loud placid sighs, you know everything’s gone right. It is a process that’s unnerving for the cook to watch, yet immensely fulfilling at the same time.

Illustrated Recipe of Chicken Tikka

However, what you always end up with, after such unnerving yet fulfilling sessions, is at least one curious soul enquiring about the recipe, which I have trouble giving out, not because it’s some closely guarded secret handed down through generations (though this sounds much more dramatic) but because I don’t follow recipes to the T. This explains why I am a sloppy baker. Anyway the thing is, when I try something new, I have the taste of that dish registered in my mind and I gear my ingredients towards that taste while cooking. Yes I look at the recipe for structure and method, but I am not a slave to it. I use imagination, I tinker around and make it my own.

When I say this to the recipe-enquirer who was expecting a list of carefully measured cups, teaspoons and tablespoons, I can see disappointment creeping across her face like dark approaching clouds. To avoid reciting an insipid list of measurements and yet pacify my guest by conveying the message in a tangible and useful manner, I tried illustrating one of my favourite Indian recipes – Chicken Tikka. Well, I had fun! Playing with food has its merits. Hope it goes down well with others.