Love and other icky things

 If one wants to see what Valentine's day is all about, you just need to go to any place that sells cards and other ridiculous things like stuffed white bears holding hearts and flowers. I went to Landmark the day before and as always the silly jewelry counter guy asked me if I wanted to buy diamonds. I was already annoyed that they don't sell recycled paper (but very craftily label them all as "Recyclable" and have the recycle symbol) and I almost stopped and asked why on Earth would I buy diamonds from a bookstore. I mean, what kind of book-hating bookstore would diversify into jewelry and cosmetics (this attracts hoards of people who don't read) ? I also wanted to tell him that it being Valentine's day, he should be asking all the guys if they wanted to buy diamonds. If I didn't hate talking to people so much, I'd be a great salesperson.

 

  

 

You'll notice how I very cleverly did not answer any of the questions.

Also, if there is a bunny in any of my strips, it will almost inevitably get whacked. This reminded me of a funny post my friend had put up which had a bit about rabbits which led to me coming up with these rabbit cooking instructions:
1. Cut off and use tail to brush off any extra dirt.
2. Dip bunnies in veet hair removal cream to get rid of their stupid bunny fur.
3. Wash thoroughly.
4. Chop off ears - can be fried and served as chips.
5. Stuff bunnies with required stuffing (carrots and other silly stuff) and roast and toss into stew.

Title credit goes to my friend Dumpsy.

I'd like to clone my very own Sheldon

I was not very pleased with my Sheldon Cooper. I will most definitely attempt him again (Jim Parsons, if you're reading this - If you come visit me, I'll give you the original of this strip). And I apologise for the poor excuse for The Big Bang Theory set. Backgrounds are just not my specialty.

ps - For those of you who don't watch this show, Sheldon doesn't let anyone sit on that particular seat. He has a brilliant lecture that he gives to anyone who asks why he cannot sit elsewhere. I recommend that you watch it.

Souvenirs of a me-date.

I love those photo-booth photo sequences people do (usually to synopsize a great day in movies). I don't have any of myself though. Probably because most of my photogenicness (my spellchecker says that this is not a valid word. Somehow "spellchecker" made it into the dictionary. It sounds like it has more to do with witchcraft than with checking your spelling) has been stolen. And also because every time I've come across such a photo-booth, I've been alone and while shopping alone or going to the cinema alone* appeals to me, taking pictures of myself  in a photo-booth does not. I do set limits to the patheticness. I can't believe that's not a word either. So many words that sound like legitimate words are not.

*Anyway, yes, I do like going on "dates" with myself. It's good to have some self-time to think about things or do things that you can't with other people around because you don't want to waste their time or need to worry about them being bored.

Apparently I cannot boil an egg

It's a standing joke in my family that I'm lousy at keeping house and so they find it hard to believe that I could be a somewhat decent hostess. I had a friend of mine staying over once while my mom was also staying with me and using my most nonchalant, casual, everyday-use voice I asked my friend what she would like for breakfast. You know, since the options at my house are as varied at the brunch at the Taj. And she thought she would make my life easy by asking for what she assumed was the easiest - a boiled egg. Now, I've never boiled an egg in my life - mostly because I don't like the yolk in a separated form. My mother knows this but instead of being a good parent and offering to save my reputation, she stands there making conversation with my friend with the biggest grin/smirk on her face. So I'm like "Um, how many minutes should I boil it for?" and my friend says "4 minutes". How am I supposed to know it should be on the stove for 4 minutes after the water begins to boil? I just put it on the stove for 4 minutes and very nicely presented it to her. My mum, very innocently asks why I'm not serving it on an egg holder, fully aware of the fact that I don't own an egg holder because I. Don't. Boil. Eggs.
My mother watches with utmost interest and curiosity as my friend breaks open the egg only to find it all gross and gooey. It's not my fault that eggs don't come with instructions or that people did not stay satisfied with scrambled eggs and simply had to go and invent the boiled egg. And in my family, they like replaying such stories and asking me if I've boiled any eggs for guests lately.

Normal people would have just given you a card.

This is probably the longest and most complicated (character-wise) strip I have done. It's quite painful to draw so many creatures. But this was for my friend's birthday and it works out to be a pretty cheap gift (kidding!). For those who are wondering how/what/why this bizarre concept, allow me to de-confuse you. My friend has been very difficult to anthropomorphize (if that's a word). And she gives me a hard time about not doing any sketches with her in it! Then there happened a facebook discussion about the kind of animal she would be and some of the random suggestions were "fish" and then "An armadillo! No, a cockatoo! No, wait -- a slice. of cheese." Thus was conceptualized the Armacockafishadillo. Which I thought would be kind of interesting to attempt. Oh yes, there's the cockages bit which if I don't explain could sound a bit dirty. The above mentioned friend has these little fingers that made me laugh out loud so much when I first saw them. I was like "hahaha, they're like cocktail sausages... we could name them cockages for short (no pun intended)!"

 

 

Anyway, I was quite happy with the way it turned out and then had the nagging feeling that it looked very pokemonish. I hope it's not my subconscious awareness of a pokemon creature that surfaced! I don't really have a goldfish that I pretend is Igor while I create characters. I tried having an aquarium once but that fizzled, literally, when I thought my fish would like a warm water bath.

I was supposed to do a "An Armadillo and cockatoo cross with cheese in its mouth being attacked by a wolf-squirrel cross with wine in its glass" but I shall save that for later.

ps - The fish part of the armacockafishadillo is that it has scales. I didn't want to add fins or puffy lips. I also labeled the fish bit as "tuna" so as not to confuse it with the goldfish. I wish I could draw fish a bit better.

"You must listen to me. I am the eldest member of the family. That's it."

I wanted to do a tribute to my grandpa (Lionel Morris Devasahayam) who passed away a week ago today. I've rambled on an on about who he was and how much he meant to me on my boring blog. You can read it if you want to. I don't talk about him much - I've only sort of hinted in one of my old posts. He honestly believed I was flawless - it's so very blessed to have someone who thinks the world of you. He would buy me everything I wanted (my parents had to work extra hard to keep me from getting spoiled. They failed miserably). I loved horses. I desperately wanted one. He took me to London Stores and bought me a wooden rocking horse. It was just an ordinary, orange (don't ask why they painted it orange), tiny little rocking horse. But I loved it so much. I suddenly, desperately wanted to buy one last year - one of those awesome Victorian type horses (unfortunately, they're over a thousand pounds).

My grandpa hated it when I got sick. Even if it was a mild cough or cold. He thought it was ridiculous that I could be affected by germs. Every time I coughed, he'd shout from somewhere "chæ". It's like an Indian thing, like aiyo or something. I thought it was hilarious.

 

 

He's take me with him for his Police Parades and let me wear his hat and salute at his officers. He got a medal from Rajiv Gandhi once. I think for years of service and also because he was Superintendent of Police at one point. He took me to all these events no matter how embarrassing I was. Apparently, I pooped in the ballroom of the Mysore palace and he cleaned up after me while my parents pretended not to know who we were. He'd stick up every doodle I did on his cupboard and he used to draw stick figures of him catching criminals for me. I owe a lot of who I am to him. Flaws and all. I'm so very lucky.

Ironically, his favourite food in the world is fish. He's never seen my character. He'd ask me why I was drawing a fish, something that was meant to be eaten.

A little bit of History

I thought we could do with a tiny break from the regular strip and walk a little backwards. I've been feeling very nostalgic this week.
I don't have too many of my earliest doodles so I'll just jump about randomly, as always.
This tiger one is from 1993, I think. A friend of my dad had drawn it for a greeting card and I recreated it on a larger sheet of paper. I still like it enough not to notice any imperfections or errors. I figured I'd put it up since there are a lot of "Save the Tiger" messages going around. The Tiger is definitely in my top ten list of animals. And this was when I had the patience to ink out my drawings.

I went through this Disney mania phase when I drew everything Disney. I have an entire folder filled with scenes from almost every Disney movie ever made.You'll notice that I actually spent time shading the picture. I could have scanned more of my favourite ones but since my scanner's decided to behave badly, I decided to stick with as few as possible.

In school, I drew a lot of characters that I liked or came across. I even have one of that Cheetos character. I drew the Ninja Turtles a lot. A whole lot. I can't believe I even titled them all.

As most moody teenagers, I had my celebrity smitten phase. I was in love with Jim Carrey. And we couldn't even get posters of him in this Country. So I had to make my own. This was on my wall for a while and I suppose that's why it's turned brownish. No, let's call it sepia.

This was an attempt at Prince William (no comments, please). I think I gave up doing real people after these.

In fact, the moody teenage years left me so sullen and emo that I gave up sketching completely. Then I went to college and hated life more. That's when the gifts God gives you come back to smack you back to your senses and help pull you together. I'd been out of touch for a while so I didn't know what to draw. So I drew myself drawing.

Then I went on to draw more animals. Realistic ones. Here are my favourite subjects (I'll put up the horses next time). You'll notice a shark silently swim into my life. I drew this out of a Reader's digest book of Sharks that we have and I read almost everyday while growing up.

These inspired me to doodle during classes and in-between when I felt alone or confused. There were all these random characters, of God knows what species, that kept me company when I didn't want any.

The anthropomorphic shark looks so horribly primitive and undeveloped. When he wouldn't go away and I kept doodling him and thought I should maybe do a strip, the other character was originally a boy. You know, like Calvin, Charlie Brown, Christopher Robin, Rob Wilco... Exactly. Too many boys.

 

  

(Someone dropped my sketchbook into a bucket of water so the quality of these are not entirely because of the scanner.)

Anyway, you know the rest - shark character shows up on my regular blog everytime I don't have the words to write. It becomes more popular than me. Goes on to get its own blog. I decide to piggy-back for the fame. The end.  

ps - Yes, I do hold the pencil that way or in a way that the pencil is perpendicular to the paper. I get asked that a lot.