This has one spoiler – without disclosing that one spoiler, this article would be no fun at all. I’m sad that I’ve finished reading the book. Including it’s sequel, The Eye Of The Moon. They were both fast reads although the latter had a tad more hare-brained plots than the first. But very digestible. It’s [...]

Watched this Russain movie made in 1986. For that year, I think the movie’s fairly advanced in thought. The only aspect I couldn’t swallow was that the main protagonist kept returning to ensure the safety of the two idiots who’ve made him suffer while on the planet Plyuk. Apart from that, nothing seemed far-fetched enough. [...]

Speaker : Simon Sinek We make assumptions based on incomplete information and our perception of the truth. Our behavior is governed by assumptions. Do we know why is a customer our customer and how to keep the ones that are loyal? There are two ways to affect human behavior : to manipulate [ drop prices, [...]

Maybe I need to start listing out things I’ve accomplished each day and then I won’t feel that I’m wasting my time. Although, there might be a tendency to count things that don’t quite matter – but they’re still chores that need doing. Worth giving it a shot. Stuff I did today Field-tested the spy [...]

It was December 2006 and I was visiting my parents – flew in from Bombay to New Delhi for more-than-a-month long vacation. The long vacation was primarily to clear my head and take a decision on whether the marriage was working or not and also to wind down and let my parents pamper me some. [...]

Just because I’ve had a bad experience with a service provider or someone else, does not mean that you will too. There are too many variables at play to ‘blame’ someone squarely. At the same time, it helps to know. Not to deride but to be aware of the areas or factors that ‘could’ have [...]

Be it tradition at the company you work, the family you were born into, the city you grew up in, the school you studied in, your friends’ circle, your career, the vehicle you drive, the clothes you wear. Everything is steeped in tradition. Over time, traditions turn into pseudo-rules. They’re not written by anyone, anywhere, [...]

Special Marriage Act, 1954, India Special Marriage Act allows any two individuals to marry (including intercast marriages), irrespective of their religion, caste and nationality. It even applies to people living abroad, with Indian nationality. Therefore, any marriage under the Special Marriage Act is a Civil Marriage by registration. However, there are some conditions to be [...]

You need to go to the Mini Secretariat. Once there, you need to go to the Deputy Commissioner’s Office. Once there, you need to meet with the DC’s Reader. His / Her assistants and typists will then proceed to tell you how it’s done. The office is open from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. and [...]

Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse. In one interview, a lucky volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs. I asked him whether he still felt lucky and he [...]

Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at [...]

Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as [...]

This excerpt is from Paulo Coelho’s, Like The Flowing River. Page no. 154. He adapted this from “a book was written in Japan about the spiritual art of the sword : Impassive Understanding, also known as The Treatise of Tahlan, which was the name of its author [ who was both a fencing master and [...]

I’v just finished reading the 9th book from the Malazan Book of The Fallen : Dust of Dreams. And it ‘does’ end as a cliffhanger. How could I possibly cajole myself to wait another 12 months for The Crippled God, which is the tenth and final novel in the series. Of course, the news that [...]

Thanks Priyanka! No one’s EVER sent me a bouquet earlier! In all of 28 years! I’ve forced one to buy a bunch of flowers for me. I’ve kept flowers I was supposed to give to someone because they were not there to take them. But I’ve NEVER been at the receiving end! And my mother’s [...]

aside has launched a new venture called Bootstrap Logo. As the name suggests, that’s designing logos for startups. It’s a fairly simple proposition : INR 11,160 [ or USD 225 approximately ] for two logo option sketches based on the creative brief, three iterations on the chosen sketch and file delivery in transparent PSD and [...]

And the longer they wait, the more they convince themselves of how perfectly that idea should be executed…But the bummer is most ideas kind of suck when you do them. Ze Frank said that. Got from the 43Folders blog

Finally the first post on the STUDIOASIDE blog. The website will be a gallery of photographs I have shot and edited. Not yet figured out the design and did not want to hold back on photography engagement posts. Nice WordPress theme – still tweaking and making minor adjustments as well as getting the branding elements [...]

Tip for shooting falling snow at : Topleftpixel. “To freeze the snow in the air use a fast shutter speed like 1/160s or higher. Shoot in Shutter priority with relatively high ISO if you have to. This one is shot at 1/200s at f3.2 with ISO1600″ Not that I’m going to shoot snow anytime soon [...]

The technology and software business seems to obsess with what is in flux and changing. Always new stuff. New languages and frameworks. Focus on what doesn’t change and think about the things that matter today and will matter 10 years from now. Jason Fried of 37Signals said that. I liked it and want to remember [...]

If you’ve seen any of my photography, you know I’m in unconditional love with Post-Processing my images in Adobe Photoshop. Just as an example, this is how a typical image progresses. [ Of course each image is tweaked individually so no automated-actions. And post-processing would obviously depend on what I'm trying to achieve - sometimes [...]

A couple of new sketches. My keyword for 2009 is FAITH and it had been swimming in my head for a while so I thought I should write it down. The other sketch is just one of those doodles. A tree trunk mostly. I’ve used a sky-blue micro-tip pen for this and they’ve been sketched [...]

Someone once told me to design my life, that was the best advice I ever got. Having a beautiful view is designing my life. Have a commute that’s a walk down the block. Choosing not to work in a glass cube with a view of a brick wall. It’s being closer to nature… Breathing fresh [...]

Shoot. Photoshop. Shoot. Network. Shoot. Talk. Shoot. Smile. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. That’s me in the mirror with my Fuji SLR film camera. I’ve used it for two commercial shoots. When you’re starting and have no experience doing a commercial shoot, don’t diss another photographers work in THEIR face. You don’t ever have ‘nothing’ in [...]

Here are the photographs of This Diary Will Change your Life 2009, that I was to have shot this morning. I follow Seth Godin’s blog regularly and enjoy what he writes. I have not read any of his books though. He’s mentioned something about passion in today’s post. It’s more important that you be passionate [...]

A much awaited revamp of this website and blog [ although ] not yet complete, ushers in a brand new 2009 for me already. I’ve had a crazy day – in a good way. With my personal life finally showing sings of reaching stability after the move from Mumbai to Gurgaon, work is picking up [...]

The RSS feed address has changed to http://nainaredhu.com/blog/?feed=rss2 and the blog has moved to http://www.nainaredhu.com/blog as a first step toward consolidating my online presence. Eventually there will be changes on all the associated websites as well like www.aside.in; www.emotionvoid.com; www.protoface.com; www.studioaside.com; www.taps97.com and other websites that I have profiles on – like Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter [...]

I am moving from Bombay to Gurgaon [ from the state of Maharashtra to the state of Haryana in North India ]. Just completed the website dedicated to the apartment in question. Briefly, it is 1,080 sq. ft. in area with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, one kitchen, one living plus dining room and one balcony. [...]

aside has created a new promotional code in collaboration with Dreamhost, which gives you $10 off from any of the hosting packages you choose. The promo code to be entered on Dreamhost’s website to avail this offer is aside2008 Dreamhost is a hosting provider based in the United States. I’ve been with them since March [...]

The snake charmer. Micro-tip pen on A4 paper. And the wallpaper that I made after editing the illustration in Illustrator and Photoshop. [ Download the wallpaper at the end of this post on aside. ] 1980. Micro-tip pen in A4 paper.

More details on the aside blog here and here.

I was trying out some photo-paint transparent colors. White A4 sheet of regular paper.

I’d read about this sometime back but did not get the time to post. Three Indian artists have sold their paintings for a total of $70 Million via an auction on Christie’s. The complete article as reported by DNA can be found here. I managed to get thumbnails of what the paintings look like – [...]

This is done on A4 size art paper, with ballpoint pen, while traveling in a local train in Bombay!

This is done on an A4 sized normal paper with pencils. It’s my own foot

This is done on 20 cms x 30 cms handmade cotton-waste art paper using pencils.

This is done on an 20 cms x 30 cms sized handmade cotton waste art paper using ink and felt pens.

I’ve been fascinated with Lord Ganesha and related mythology. Typically I am not a superstitious or even religious person – more of an atheist really – but for some reason I almost feel as if Ganesha’s a friend I’ve never done a Ganesha earlier so am not even familiar with the various elements. I started [...]

This is done on an A4 sized glossy art paper with ink pen. I love drawing eyes – mostly because my name means “eyes”

This is done on an A4 sized card paper with pencil and Staedler micro-tip pens. The earrings belonged to me and I don’t wear them any longer because my ears can no longer tolerate junk jewelry.

This is done on a 15 cms x 20 cms art paper in my old green sketchbook. When we were en route to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, we had a one day stop over at Chennai in Tamil Nadu and we traveled to Mahabalipuram, where I sketched this.

This is done on an A4 sized card paper with Staedler micro-tip pens. This was drawn while I was at Abohar, Punjab.

This is done on an A4 sized normal paper with pencil, while sitting for a lecture during my MBA days. It was the only sketch I did in class during the two years of MBA!

I recently met up with an art dealer – someone who represents the artist and works for them to sell their paintings and artwork. This person informed me that the main reason why a lot of Indians [ and other interested parties ] are buying art is not because of their love for it but [...]

This is done on an A4 sized card paper with Staedler micro-tip pens.

This painting has been done in acrylics on canvas board. The size is 15cms x 20cms. Part of my personal collection.

This is an oil on canvas board. I had a field day looking for stuff at home that would allow me to create texture on the painting. This is 20cms x 15cms.

This was inspired by the floods in Mumbai. The red and white splotch represents an umbrella and on a macro level it represents hope. It’s done in water color and oil on art paper. Size is A3.

This one was done primarily to experiment with gesso. There’s gesso under the paint and there’s gesso over the paint as well. The triangle in the center represents an eye – similar to the eye of Arjuna when focusing on his target and the eye of the bird that he was going to shoot his [...]

Sometimes I have the urge to pick up a pencil/pen and just draw “something”. This was one of those “something” episodes. It’s open hair on the back of a girl’s head falling onto her bare back. It’s microtip pens on art paper initially drawn on an A3 and then cropped to enhance the feeling of [...]

Black ballpoint pen on art paper. Size A3.

This is oil on canvas board. Size is 20cms x 15cms.

I recently finished painting [ and sold ] one of my art pieces. Acrylic on handmade cotton-waste art paper. It’s called Birds of paradise [ although I would still prefer to change it's name to "Face in the Swamp" ] but the former name is better in terms of saleability! The size of this painting [...]

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