A hidden gem

I had to wait in the car today while John attended to some bank work at his branch in Kilpauk. As we turned into the compound and drove around the bank building to park in the rear I saw this beautiful building that is totally hidden from the main road.

It houses the Tamil Nadu Naval Unit NCC and was painted a lovely rich ochre colour. The louvred windows, the railings, trellises and eaves were a grey-blue and the plaster balustrades were white. I didn't get as much time as I thought I would since banks have become faster of late so I took a picture and hopefully will attempt a water-colour of this soon.

poolside doodling

Decided not to swim last evening and sketch instead. John took 24 minutes to do his 30 laps so I got to do two doodles. Sunday evenings are crowded at the Boat Club pool and I was quite entertained watching eager parents  prod their kids, lazy aunties gossip in the corners of the pool, seasoned swimmers navigate through meandering beginners and noisy teenagers show off.

IPL 2011

Last night was the first qualifier of IPL 2011 which the Chennai Super Kings won. We snatched the victory out of the jaws of defeat. What a glorious match it was! We decided to watch it at the Madras Boat Cub since they have a large screen up in the lawn on the river front.

Office and Home

I just realised its been quite a while since I blogged and I felt really bad! But recently I've started working from home  for myself and some big deadlines have invaded my evening hours so I've finally decided to cheat and put up a couple of not-so-current sketches. Continuing where I left off in the Sankriti post here's some more about my house which is also now my office. This sketch has been done sitting in my living room looking into our office room through the window.

Of puppets and shadowy characters

On sunday evening, all members of Perch were invited to see Rajiv's new play - a work-in-progress. The show started at seven at Skills and it was a near impossible task finding parking at Elliiot's Beach. After an animated fight with an agressive security guard and a docile policeman we squeezed our car in somewhere and arrived at skills to meet the gang.

Sankriti

That's the entrance door to my house. Its an old house with two floors and we rent only the upstairs. It wasn't designed as two houses so the entrance door just sits at the top step on the dog-leg stair. We have to lock and un-lock it standing one step down and I always feel tall when I stand at my door talking to someone standing just outside :)

All systems down!

Madras is struggling under the strain of massive power deficit. Actually the whole state is. Since the last week, every area in the city is being subjected to one hour of load shedding to save power "equally and fairly". The timings are put up for each locality and everyone just plans for it and deals with it. While this is the official status of things, the ground reality is worse.