From tying knot to Chhota Bheem Shoes

Must admit that the last 45 days were madness and it has ended. Golden period has begun. Yes. I got married to Gautam on 13-12-13, after dating him for over seven years. And whattay moment of our lives that was. We dated, fought, argued, celebrated and did all that we did for last seven years and more for this one moment, our wedding. 

Wedding got over, we went for a short holiday, not honeymoon mind it. Went to explore the ruins of Hampi, Karnataka and had time of our lives. The moment we came back, there was an assignment knocking my door. My cousin Ishita was super impressed with the Angry Birds shoe I painted for Gautam and Tin Tin for my lovely nephew Agastya. And she wanted to surprise her nephew Nivaan for his 6th birthday.

And there you go, immediately after I came back from my road madness in the hinterlands of Karnataka, I got my simple brief from Ishita to make this shoe before year end. My colours and all brushes were in Surat and luckily I happened to travel to Surat. Whattay co-accident, I mean co-incidence. So I got my research in place, found all the famous characters of Chhota Bheem cartoon series and started work with all enthusiasm.

I decided to put Chhota Bheem, Chhutki, Raju, Jaggu Bandar and the village setup on the shoe, without imagining that this would be really, really tough. Getting the right shapes and curves of the characters wasn't as easy as it seemed. I continued to push hard to get it right and come December 29, the final product came out well. I was satisfied.

As I am writing this, I am travelling back from Surat to Mumbai to be with Gautam on our first NYE as a married couple. And the shoe has been delivered to Ishita and my professional fees have also been paid ;). More than the fees, its the appreciation that mattered.

All my cousins, my friends including Ishita and my in laws loved what I did. Whatsapp wonders. And now I am getting a lot of enquiries too. Suddenly everything has fallen in place. Shoe came out well, Gautam's trip has been postponed, appreciation, enquiries. Golden period looks Golden as of now. Fingers crossed!!! Enough talking, check out my new creation. 

Tin Tin Shoes for my Tin Tin

It's been a while since I have posted something. But haven't been doing much work these days. Well, getting married soon, so am enjoying the shopping phase. But honestly, that's what I have been doing for sometime now. But in between, I got this request to hand paint a shoe, and the request was from my loving and little genius nephew Agastya.

He had seen what I did for Gautam, the Angry Birds shoes. And mind you the 3-year-old vividly remembered the background of that shoe and wanted exactly the same light blue background but with his father's favourite character Tin Tin in it. Yes, Tin Tin was and is favourite comic character of Agastya's dad since his childhood. 

Agastya got to know about Tin Tin after seeing scores of Tin Tin comic books and VCDs lying in his house, preserved by his doting father since his childhood. And in this smart phone and tablets age, Agastya has more often than not has seen Tin Tin cartoon videos on his dad's phone. And that's how the request to spray Tin Tin on his shoe came to me.

Now, there was a challenge here. I had to hand paint the smallest possible size available canvas shoes for someone who is obsessed with its details too. Due to my shopping ways, I kept the request on a back burner. But one fine day, the cutie pie, called me and said 'Maasi, what's happened to my shoes?. I replied casually, "Sorry Agli, I forgot." Pat came the typical sweet kid response, "Please maasi, get it done naa, please." And my heart melted like an ice cream.

I decided to get on with it on war footing and mind you the result is nothing less than impressive. And I am not the one evaluating my work. Agastya has decided that he will be wearing these shoes for my wedding. Which essentially means, he has 'LOVED' it. So the process was no different from what I did during Gautam's shoe. 

Just that Gautam, at 29, wasn't the one looking for details and Agastya, 3, was. Yes, by mistake a rocket that I had painted on the shoe was filled with wrong colours, and I was told to change it to white and red like its in the comic series. But then it was worth it. I completed the shoe in a matter of three days.

Delivered it to him the next day, and since then, Agastya hasn't worn any other pair of shoe. And has also promised me that he will wear them to my wedding too. That's all what I wanted, the joy he has and the smile he wears is worth more than all the hardwork. 

The beginning

Work in progress

Adding the right colours

The wrong rocket

The finished product with right rocket colour

In love

The rocket with the right colours

Agastya wear's them with some attitude

And mind it he doesn't like anyone saying a word about it

Hand of God

No. This is not about Argentine footballer Maradona who scored a goal with his hand and got this term 'Hand of God' coined. This is about one of oldest friend Dhruvi Reshamwala's skills. This mother of a cute little, 2 & a half year old girl Kavya is one hell of a Rangoli maker. Not that I didn't know about it. But what she did this time around was stupendous, splendid and awe-inspiring to say the least.

Just before Diwali time every year, there is a Rangoli exhibition organised at Surat Science Centre year on year. Dhruvi and her sister Shraddha are hardcore Rangoli enthusiasts and no wonder they were keen on being a part of it second time this year. Luckily I happened to be in Surat this time around, managing to maintain some distance from my hubby-to-be. And let me accept I thank my stars I was in Surat.

Just for the sake of catching up with Dhruvi for old times sake, I eventually ended up spending hours with her for a day or two even while I was feeling sick and unwell. And yes it was worth the pain. Dhruvi was attempting to design a 3D rangoli of 6 feet x 16 feet size. And impossible was not a word she understood. And after a gruelling 7-8 hours of dedication for 5 consecutive days, the result was nothing short of outstanding. 

And what was more compelling is how she managed to switch from being a mother of little Kavya, wife to Devang and daughter in law to Devang's mother. And all this wasn't possible without their support. And it was worth their support. In an exhibition with over 50 rangoli designs, her stood out solely for its 3D perspective and one has to see it to believe it. The disappointing part was the meagre compensation that she received from the organisers, but that was never her motivation. 

So see this and tell me if I was wrong to say that she has a 'Hand of God'

The final rangoli

Yuvaan's Day Out!!!

It's never easy to capture those candid moments when your kid is angry, happy, playful, especially when he is just about a year old. But you want to and don't know how to do it. The choice is between holding a diaper and a camera, and its not a difficult one to make. Mansee, a very close friend, also happens to be my 'always-up-for-a-late-night' friend Purav's wife. And yes, she is the mother in question here.

The job became easier when the Mehtas (Mansee & Purav) decided to trust myself and my fiancé Gautam's photographic instincts to capture Yuvaan's moods. They knew we were decent if not excellent to do the job, especially knowing our talent to make a picture out of anything ;). And then one fine day, this shoot happened after lot of planning around my travel, Gautam & Purav's work schedules, Mansee's daily chores and of course Yuvaan's whims & fancies.

With a tripod, two Canon SLRs and bucketful of enthusiasm, especially since this was our first kid photo shoot, it happened to be one of the most satisfying and gratifying assignments. The 11 months and 358 days old Yuvaan was being good to all of us. He knew us (his photographers) well because day in day out we are together out for a dinner or spending late nights at their place. 

And the ultimate conclusion to the 5-hours of hard work was worth a million dollars. A good 35 pictures were filtered out of the 700+ that we clicked. And here I have put up five of the 35 we selected. More of these will be put up in installments. Before all that, Yuvaan has been a very good client to say the least, our first and still the cutest client of all. Mwaaaahhh!!!

Our obsession with Angry Birds just got better

Yes. Its true, we are obsessed with Angry Birds. Me and my fiance Gautam both. We had Angry Birds slippers, Angry Birds keychains, and yes as a part of my wedding ka saamaan I have bought an Angry Birds bathroom kit, which has Angry Birds soap dispenser, loofah, soap case, toothbrush stand and what not. In fact there was a point when we decided to order Angry Birds cake for our engagement too. But common sense prevailed then and the cake was conceptualized differently.

So coming back to Angry Birds' new obsession, this time I decided to take it to next level. We bought plain white canvas shoes on which I decided to make the most of fabric paints which Gautam gifted me on my birthday. Falling short of creative ideas on what to do with the shoe, both of us unanimously decided to get it 'Angry Birded'. And yes, as you see in the given below pictures, you'll understand how serious we were about our obsession.

It took out a couple of nights from my life, but it was worth when Gautam was floored seeing it. 

P.S.: We are taking orders. Don't feel shy if you are obsessed with some other characters. And by the way, you may soon see another shoe design for our cutest client. Keep watching this space.

This is how it started, sketching it with black marker

Then chosing the exact colour

Sometimes, I had to combine two colours to get the right shade 

Before which I got the light blue background

Semi finished

And then the ultimate obsession

My first travel blog

It's been a while, like really long I must admit. But there was a better temptation then just writing a blog I must admit. Yes. I was busy shopping for my wedding. Like I was really busy. My friends have suggested that I should get a rented space inside Shoppers Stop or my fiance Gautam should take up a job there. That's the kind of frequenting I have been doing at malls and shopping paradises. 

Nevertheless, this post isn't about design. But this is my first jump into a travel blog. Yes, as I write this post, I am about to commence a 55 kms trek. And that too have to complete the circuit in a span of 3 & 1/2 days. Am already nervous and legs are feeling heavy. If I had to cover 500 kms of a shopping mall in 3 & 1/2 days would have done it without blinking an eyelid but this is real stuff. 

My tour plan. As I write this I am on day 4 of the trip.

So with my effervescent cousin Pinal, I decided to bunch of 14 people for a trek to Kinnaur-Spiti and areas around it on August 1, 2013. Just by the name these places sounded exotic. Mind you, after landing in Srinagar, the moment I hit the road towards our various destinations, life was in a different world then. Here is a small collection of picture from the first three days of the trip and you will realise what I am talking. 

View from my room in Fagu

Road to Fagu, through clouds literally

A clear view of River Satluj on our way to Sarhaan

View from my room in Sarhaan

Our hotel garden in Sarhaan. We climbed about 200 metres from there as practice drill before taking the real trek

And in these 200 metres only I was done. Like I was down at 25% capacity. But just the location and its beauty gives you the strength to move forward and in that hope I will do the trek and will add some more pictures of the uphill movement in Mulling and Phustiang Balda, our trek destinations.

Till then see yaa later folks!!!

April Fool in Mid July or call it Sau Sonaar Ki, Ek Lohaar Ki

This one is up and above all the rest of my achievements in life. I FOOLED GAUTAM. Yes,  for the first time ever, I pulled a fast one on my fiancé and how. Like 9.5 times out of 10, he would, using his poker-faced expressions, he would make a fool out of me. But this one time, he was completely foxed. In the language he loves and understands the most, he was clean bowled by a googly. 

During the last weekend, I was in Surat for some wedding shopping and of course for being the privileged visitor to my doctor. And in between all that, I managed to spend sometime with my effervescent as ever cousin Pinal. The two of us are like a house on fire and yes we were together this time for a purpose, planning for our trek to Kinnaur Spiti in August first week.

In between all that, we managed to go to various places and  a coffee shop was obvious. And Gautam would believe that me and Pinal would do anything under the sun to keep ourselves entertained, shopping of course is a no-brainer. So, this one time, while in a coffee shop, I sent this picture (below) to Gautam and asked him if he liked this. 

The googly

He was stunned and excited at the same time. He just loved the concept of a photo coffee. And felt so embarrassed that a small city like Surat had this novel concept and his Maximum City Mumbai didn't have anything close to this. He took the bait and hook, line and sinker. He was now looking forward to come to Surat at the earliest.

He was to travel to Surat anyway to catch up with my folks and of course help me bring back the heavy luggage that I had to bring to Mumbai. But the torrential rains in Mumbai and parts of Gujarat on Friday (July 12, 2013) stalled his trip as the trains were cancelled and roads weren't the best option. 

The trip got cancelled and he was upset, seriously. He updated his Facebook Page with this post also. 

Gautam K.Sheth

Friday near Bombay Vile Parle via Mobile

One of those rare days when I have hated the rains. Will now miss my date with Locho, Coco, photo printed coffee, saasu maa's lasunn chutney. Ohh and also Gopi. All trains to Surat have been cancelled due to musalaadhaar paaus 

Now he was seriously looking forward to this photo coffee and I didn't know how serious he was. He showed his colleagues and a couple of them sent him their pictures for ordering a photo coffee, click and send the pictures to them. Another friend of his Ankur also bought this idea and showed it to his friends too.

But just half an hour back today, he messaged me to know the details of the coffee shop and other things to post it on his blog, is when I told him that this was my googly. And yes, he was as stunned as he was when he had first seen this. Gautam, you have heard of this naa, "Saau sonaar ki, ek lohaar ki"

In my blood is colour and design

I may sound like some lunatic or a madcap here, but then all artists are some what eccentric at some level. Isn't it? After overcoming the pain of my Humpty Dumpty fall, I underwent a tooth extraction. That precisely was the reason I was travelling to my home town Surat. 

So it's the wisdom tooth which was bothering me for some time now. I know it sounds weird to have wisdom tooth at this age, but I didn't decide to get married to Gautam till common sense didn't prevailed in me. And yes, Gautam gave credit to this tooth for my decision to marry him.

Anyway, so I underwent the painful procedure of getting the tooth sliced first and then extracted. I believe I have lost bucket full of blood after this. Gautam says it is not a big loss, as the blood lost was his, which I have been sucking for last seven years now. To avoid the pain, I was asked to pop some pills. Some which I didn't like, one which I loved. 

Now trust me this isn't about the flavour of the pills. So what makes me say some I didn't like, one I liked. Yes, the creative juices inside me analysed the design, colour and fonts used on the pills too. And believe me you, I endured the pain but only had one I liked (picture below). 

Amazing colour with classy fonts used

Now this pill or capsule to be precise may look like many others you, me or people around may have consumed. But the colour is just so attractive. I don't know if anyone actually bothers checking out the colours of their pills, but I do. And have been doing for as long as I realised I wanted to be a creative person.

For the record, the above pictured medicine contains the active ingredient Amoxicillin, which is an antibiotic and it's used to treat various types of infections. But does it matter to me? Not really. I liked the colour, design and fonts on it. And trust me, I have almost overcome the pain, no more blood leaking from my tooth extracted area.

All other pills are hidden inside my cupboard. Only Mox 500 is in my system, in my blood for its colour and design.