I trained as an artist and designer, and I am deeply interested in the confluence of culture, commerce, art and technology. I work and play in this unique, unpredictable and volatile space.

Table of Contents

Where I work

I am a co-founder of Ideasutra, a Design Lab that uses visual-thinking methods to help its customers solve problems.  I am responsible for the Business-Design Consulting discipline.

I am also a founding director and serve on the board of Nabachika, a not-for-profit that works in the area of the Citizen Arts. One of Nabachika’s best known projects is Penciljam, an open community for people who like to draw on location.

Places I’ve worked at

In the past, I have held the position of Director UX, Head of Information Architecture and Head of Retail Design in companies such as Netkraft, iVista Digital and Vaspar Retail. In 2021, I served as a Senior Director for Learning Systems at Byjus, an Edtech firm for a year, and was responsible for conceptualizing the Visual Arts category, building the curriculum, student experience and teacher functions.

I am also a speaker on the theme of design and business at various art and design institution, and briefly served on the Board of Studies at the College of Fine Art (CKP), Bangalore.

Things that interest me

Art, obviously. I like drawing from life, especially, drawing people. There are subjects I’m not very good at drawing, like buildings and machines, but I try.

I love comics. I started reading them as a child, and haven’t stopped. I still own a few hundred comic books, which I really should offload to a younger generation, but I can’t get myself to part with them. Needless to say, I also occasionally draw comics.

I guess my love for fantasy fiction is an extension of the weird worlds in comic books. The time I worked at Byjus was the most stressful work year in my life and I read 57 books that year.

I like running, but find reasons to avoid it. Ditto with martial arts. In my 20s, I won a few karate tournaments, and so, some years ago I joined a Muay Thai Kickboxing class. It didn’t stick, so I watch martial arts movies. Vicariously.

I love the idea of the Open source software movement, and am grateful for the tools it has provided me with. I use Linux Mint, with Gimp and Inkscape for creating graphics, Libre Office for documents, and a bunch of other utilities. I’m not a programmer, so I try to contribute by writing tutorials, creating graphics and so on. At this point, there are only a handful of commercial software I use, and most of them are for the workplace.

I particularly like using Emacs, the venerable text editor (and large hadron collider) because it lets me tinker. A fair number of posts on this website are about Emacs, which should tell you how a text-editor can be an entire hobby on it’s own.

About this website

This is my personal website. I don’t blog all that very much, and when I do, I tend to draw comics, write about the tools I use and attempt essays and stories.

I like to think of this space as similar to my sketchbook. A space for ideas, often half-baked and not yet fully formed because I enjoy working with the garage door up. Also, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. My views are my own and do not reflect those of the people I work for, the places I studied in or the party that I voted for.

I’m glad you dropped by. I don’t do newsletters, but you can add this site to your feed reader if you’d like. I also use Linkedin so you can connect with me there.

This website was created using a static site generator called Hugo, a fact that thrills me for no reason.