My many Indias. Part 1: Getting there, Bangalore

Getting from San Jose, California to Bangalore, India is a 30+ hour trip in itself. Lots of time for sketching. But I mostly slept and watched the odd movie. Just had to throw in a sketch I always make: my family doing what they always do on long hauls: Hari watching movies back to back, Kavya reading and sketching, and Nishant watching a movie on Kavya’s video monitor while listening to music on his headphones while playing with his stuffed animals.
My first sketches in India are almost always about food Here is our breakfast a day after we arrived. The kids share a crispy dosa and substitute milk with Mirinda for breakfast. I go overboard and make my way through a plate of idli-wada followed by set dosa (yes, all 3 dosas!) and then top it off with filter coffee.

Food sketch #2. At a little Tiffin Place in Jayanagar, Bangalore. The kids are still obsessed with Mirinda. I eat my dosa before I can sketch it, so all I have left to draw is the banana leaf it was served on.

Quick capture of a fast-disappearing trade: the tailor who sits with his sewing machine on pavements and in front of shops. You can walk up to him and get stuff repaired, hemmed, taken in or totally transformed- all while you wait. He always has a tape measure hanging around his neck. And he’ll pull out his little blue chalk and mark up stuff you ask him to alter. This guy sat before a wall that was a colorful collage of posters. I spotted one with Ganesh the elephant god, and another that advertised a service that offered ‘Computer Horoscopes’.This one is hard to decipher: I sketched this looking up from the ground floor at the balcony of an apartment. Urban Indians love their potted plants and fill every little square inch of space that gets direct sunlight with potted plants. This balcony is crammed full of plants and clothes drying on clotheslines.