Quilting, Bollywood

The past two weeks were probably the most fun and more-than-ever-learning courses possible. The course called Quilting Bollywood, was part of an Open Elective at NID. The whole thing is about choosing a course that you want to do from any other discipline in the Institute.


The theme for this year was Sustainable Futures and from almost a million-and-one-awesome courses I chose Quilting Bollywood, where my main aim was to learn how to stitch! The course was wonderful, where we had to use waste material and old cloth  to create a quilt based on a cult Bollywood movie.


LOkesh Ghai, an eminent designer was our faculty for the course and we had a lot of fun doing it. We watched two movies, chose one of them, made an installation based on one of these films and then moved on to the quilt. We worked in pairs, with artisans who specialise in quilt making. My partner, Aarti, a beautiful and energetic 20 year old, was always ready to discuss and to do what I decided. She taught me a lot of things, about stitching, material, cloth and small things about life too.


My quilt (also called Godhdi in Gujarati) was based on the film, Teesri Manzil, and is made in layers, using the characters in the movie. The first is an integration of 3 and a question mark. The next is a layer of black for suspense, then a layer for Helen, in gold and shimmer (this also has the word ROCKY- Shammi Kapoor's character, in sequins, from the sets of a song) then asha parekh-bold and bright colours . Finally, red and white pattern of the border, from the stone that gives away the actual murderer of the movie. The back of the has a silhouette of a body embroidered,  which is how the movie starts.  Everything is made from waste and is all handstitched.

The course ended with a super awesome Bollywood themed display of all ten quilts. We made posters and write ups for our quilts too. 

This was probably the coolest thing I have done here at NID, a tangible product entirely hand done. It was tiring, difficult and challenging, but a lot of fun and learning.

PS: I learnt how to stitch, finally.

Sourcing of material

Working on the front

Working on the back

The front

With Aarti, full Bollywood style

Back of the Godhdi

The Godhdi-zoomed in 

With Aarti at the display

With Pree, at the display

Poster 

Write Up

Colour for this Chappal: BOLLYWOOD!!

Redoing Hajira

The last semester, in the Typography course we had to design a typeface for a place that we visited in Ahmedabad based on the observations we made. The initial typeface I made was based entirely on the architecture of the place, after tweaking a serif type and adding arches of the place.

First Execution

I decided to rework on this assignment (even before my jury happened) because I wasn't happy with the outcome at all. I tried to think without being influenced by the earlier executions, keeping the constraints of the colour in mind.  After a few explorations, I decided to highlight what one saw immediately on entering the place, the 'jaali's' with the detailing in them. This is what I came up with, though its something I would work on more, by the end of it, I learnt that its important to open your mind to things and be ready to redo them, even if its long gone.

Redone Execution

Colour for this chappal: Brown