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Bob Biswas Amar Rahe

'Nomoshkaar. Ek minute. Bang!'. That's all. Bob does the job. Trust Bob Biswas to do the kill without a hint of trace. He doesn't need roaring laughs, black clothes, masks or any disguise. He is beyond the needs of amateurs instruments. This pudgy looking LIC agent who can doze off at any given moment is just the kind that no body bothers to give an attention in a crowd. But with his nerdy glasses and well combed hair, he streaks down to his kill, a muffled gun shot and he walks off like he had just gone to the corner to take a leak. 

Bob Biswas in a still from the movie 'Kahaani' 

Bob Biswas has been one of the best pick from the director Sujay Ghosh for his movie 'Kahaani'. I really wish to see him making a return somewhere and grab some screen time. For now, Bob has taken the cult status and is making comebacks through memes. 

Here is my pick for the next Bob Biswas movie. After having a good chat with my friend Ojasvi over the terror of this rum ball Bob. I decided to do a sneak peek poster for the movie 'Bob ka Job, Jeevan Bina Gam'.

Do check out Ojasvi's take on Bob Biswas. Click here. We have got a new blog dedicated for all the fan artworks and memes on Bob Biswas - ekminit. You are most welcome to pay your respect to Agent Bob here.

Typoday and Bombay

The Typoday 2012 was hosted in the IDC, IIT Powai campus, Bombay. Bombay as a city has it's charm for a visitor in it's auto driver's willingness of going by the meter. But when you just walk out of the airport, you are a new species that has yet to disappear in the crowd. My very first auto ride left a bad taste in the mouth but then as I said once you are without the numbered luggage tags, you are ready for the regular Bombay ride. Thanks to my friend Aditi's company, I got to know the basic mapping of places in Bombay. I took the local and moved around in the old black and yellow premiere padmini taxi too. But the trip was planned tightly with little time to sit and draw the city. My fellow passengers were my subject again. 

There was one thing that I had planned to do in this trip that was to visit Mondegar for Mario Miranda's drawing. Although I had  gone to Mondies in my first visit to Bombay but this time it was meant to pay a homage to Mario after he passed away last year. 

Some of the work featured at the Typoday 2012.

A wall of all the Indian Newspaper publications.

The Typoday this year was centred around publication design but it also had a lot to offer on type design for various scripts, expressive typogrphy, book making, Unicode and Open Type etc. There were many elders from  the design background present over there and talking of elders it was difficult to miss on Mahendra Bhai's presence. Especially when he was walking around in his black and gold sneakers. It was good to see him still making conversation in the squirrel like gestures and keeping occasional rift alive with other elder design thinkers. Out of the many presentations, the two which really stayed with me were -
1. Ken Botnick's talk on how our mind works with the information when reading.
2. Bishwadeep Moitra's talk on the design history of Outlook Magazine. 
Both the talks made me realise that a lot of design research and practice is only thoughtfully worked for the grown up consumers. While the younger lot's mind patterns are still an unexplored area which makes it difficult to look and work with any guidelines when designing for a young audience. Mr. Bishwadeep Moitra shared an important insight on how children generally take the print media in Indian culture quite seriously. Therefore  succumbing to the use of loud colours and cute looking pictures for kids is not the most ideal solution as what the grown up mind imagines it to be. 
I think the April issue of Brainwave is going to be a balance of Robert-Crumb-inspired drawings and Typoday-learnings on design and typography. 
Now, I shall end this post by sharing a photograph of two matchboxes I got as a gift during this trip and a stop motion series of photographs that Hazel stitched of me sketching. You can see the stop motion on her blog - halfchai

Matchboxes from Prague, gifted by Aditi.

The last gentleman of the game

This has to be one of the most overwhelming day in the past twelve years of me following Indian cricket. Rahul Dravid has finally called it a day putting his test cap to rest and the time has come to bid farewell to the man who taught me what it takes to be a sportsman.
Rahul Dravid made his test debut before I started following cricket. I must have missed the first four years of his career by the time I got into cricket. I can't seem to remember why I chose to follow Dravid. One of the only reason that makes sense is that I didn't want to follow Ganguly who had already gained much popularity and was my elder brother's favourite. Silly does it sound but I am thankful to it. 
I remember well how the nickname 'The Wall' used to be bent backwards to make fun of him. 'The Wall' who shielded the Indian innings from its downfall often was also ridiculed for his lack of scoring quick runs. These taunts had always been with me as a Dravid fan, but soon I grew thick-skinned to it. Because Dravid was never about letting the ball fly out of the stadium, he was all about the grit to stay in the middle and make pedestals out of crumbled pitch. But, I am not here to talk much about his cricketing side. I am sure pundits have flipped his long career pages many times. I want to talk about the Rahul Dravid who helped me be what I am today. No, he didn't teach me his elegant square drive but he gave me his battling guts to go the distance. 
In the year 2004, Dravid's biography, written by Vedam Jaishankar was published and I had picked one copy of it from Patna book fair. Through this book, I got to know about the Dravid who studied in bus to make time for his cricket practice, skipped parties to work for his commerce exams and practiced his shots relentlessly like air guitar even when waiting on the airport. It inspired me to pull out my lab books in a jam-packed auto to study when traveling back from school. I couldn't do it for long but I tried to. 
I know I am going to miss those grueling test match sessions with Dravid taking the flak on a menacing pitch. But, I will walk with the legend thanking him for keeping the sportsmanship alive on and off the pitch. 

Brainwave. Issue16. Gassing Around

The travel season has finally come to a halt with the Typoday conference at Bombay. The past month has provided me with inspiration in terms of drawing, comic art and typography. Now, all I have to is to put it in my work. So before the new changes show up in my work, I think it's time to look back at the work done before from the latest issue of Brainwave. The March issue is about Gasses. This omnipresent word that floats around everywhere has been similarly treated in the magazine. We looked at Gases in the planets, bellies, balloons, wars and in many more areas where it keeps popping. Here's my share of gassing around in the new issue. 

Splash page for the cover story

Spot Illustration for an article on Captcha.

Spot illustration for an article on Auto rickshaw.

Page design and illustration for an article on farts and burps.

Infographic on Gaseous Giants.

Comic strip done on the invention of ball pens. The Hindu - Young World.

I have tried to maintain a variety of illustration styles in the past issues of Brainwave but I think the next one will have a more uniform style of artworks. And sorry kids if it looks very Robert Crumbish in nature.