#28 - New World 2.0
a new corner of the new world for our new life
It is a very sad thing to leave Chicago. I know, because I have left this city four times in my life. Yesterday was the fifth time.
The reason I have a newsletter is that I am an artist who needed to speak with his audience. I became an artist when I was walking the streets of Chicago, falling in love with this city. I found moments of art everywhere, and decided to use them to learn to draw. That turned into SneakyArt. I was walking around looking for inspiration because I had quit an academic career in order to become a full-time writer and cartoonist. I took that leap of faith - 5 years ago - because of Chicago.
The first time I visited Chicago, I came from TU Delft (in the Netherlands) as a PhD researcher in Neuroscience/Biomechanics. By day, I was running 8-hour long experiments with chronic stroke patients. By night, I was doing open-mic stand up at comedy clubs all over the city.
The engine of my life is fueled by curiosity. Curiosity took me to engineering, where mechanical engineering hooked me to the unseen processes that run our world. We made two race-cars while I was in Manipal, representing India in the university edition of Formula One. I was chasing curiosity again when I applied for a Master’s degree in Biomechanical Design at the TU Delft. I had met students of Delft at the race-car competitions, and was fascinated by something in them which we lacked in India — sincere interest in what they studied. So much of education in India is a rat-race that we are conditioned to never pause or consider what we really want. The opportunity cost of giving up one line of education is too great, and nobody around you understands your wanting to study something less ambitious. I think of my generation as Abhimanyu in the Maharabharata - trained from before birth to enter the chakravyuh (maze). We can do anything to get in, but we don’t know what to do once inside, or how we will get out. After a Master’s degree, I joined a PhD program, again motivated by curiosity. I became a researcher working with chronic stroke patients, collecting gigabytes of micro-second data from their brains and muscles as they did carefully controlled tasks in carefully controlled environments.
But at some point, my fountain of curiosity ran dry. Maybe I went too deep. Maybe my curiosity runs more horizontal than vertical. Whatever it was, I knew I could not fake it any longer. I was surrounded by earnest people, dedicated to their jobs. Watching them, I knew my responsibility was to find something to which I could be just as sincere. Again, Chicago to the rescue. I saw people - musicians, artists, comics, and poets - perform in dingy bars on Wednesday night, then try another set at a cafe on Friday afternoon. I saw them late on Saturday night at the Second City Comedy Club and on Monday on the other side of town in a small club. It is an uphill climb to be a successful creative, but they were pushing everyday, climbing a little higher every time.
Chicago has the resilient spirit. No matter how cold or how windy it gets, the city never stops. Concealed behind mufflers and hoodies and jackets and gloves, Chicagoans go out and they do things. I learned from them that I had to push too. What else is life about?
You see, while curiosity and academic achievement ran rings around me, I had always wanted to be a writer. I kept a blog since Class 10, I ran a webcomic, wrote YouTube scripts, and made short films while completing my Master’s degree. But I never had the courage to go full-time until I saw the people of Chicago.
This is why it hurts to leave this city. Chicago will always have all my love, and publishing SneakyArt of Chicago is a dream I intend to realize soon.
Movers & Takers
I am writing this piece on Day 2 of quarantine in Vancouver (Canada). We took an anxious flight after frantic packing over the last week. I split my sketchbooks between the moving boxes and my check-in luggage. I am paranoid about losing everything we gave to the movers.
I love drawing at airports because I see them as places for humanity to congregate. We could be different in our ethnicities, citizenship and politics, but at the airport everyone is united by the common goal of wanting to go somewhere. In that sense, I feel closer to the strangers I see at an airport.
But with COVID, that closeness is lost. We shy away from it, glaring with suspicion if someone coughs or does not wear their mask properly. I wonder if there are COVID-deniers among us, or anti-maskers muttering about the airport rules. We retreat into the safety of our bubbles quite naturally in fear of the virus. And just like that, we are isolated from one another.
I hope this changes soon, because surely there are deep psychological impacts of seeing the world in this way.
The Seattle airport was full of people, but with enough space to keep distance. I hope we did enough. There was a temperature check before boarding to Canada, and they also looked at our residency papers.
Immigration in Vancouver was also smooth. What happens in Canada, and not in the US, is that they smile when they welcome you to the country. “Welcome home,” they say. In America, they look you up and down with deep suspicion, and make you feel unwanted.
It is the morning of Day 2 of our 14 day quarantine in Vancouver. The BNB is a loft, very beautiful and well furnished. I will have more drawings next week, but here’s a glimpse.
Okay, I’m done for now. That was a lot of sharing. I hope it wasn’t too much.
Some art of the historic cricket series next week, and more SneakyArt of life in quarantine. Thank you for reading!
Podcast Links
Spotify | Apple | PocketCasts | Google | Web | Gaana | JioSaavn
Throwback
This time last year, we went out for drinks to mark the wife’s birthday.
This year the birthday was spent in packing up our life.
Beautiful Nishant. I am in love with your lines - black ones and those formed with words!
Love these drawings as usual. I do like your style --- something about the style that resonates with me. The last drawing --- low how 4 strokes of which 2 are dots, one is a dash and the last is a curl defines her face! Also fascinating backstory --- you are a good left + right brain combo Nishant!