Sourav Das | Everyday People 119

Everyday People

Welcome to Everyday People, where people balance work and life every day.

Thank you for listening and sharing this podcast with your friends. 😄

What’s new with TxU

This past week, I wrote a short blog about my decision to stop trying to read for pleasure. I’m gaming instead, and I discuss why they’re comparable hobbies.

I’ve been making week-long to-do lists for a while, but it’s been on-again, off-again. This year, I’m trying to do it weekly, and I thought it’d be interesting to share insights from that here.

3 things I learned from Week 2:

* I started off hot in the week and then slowed down. Fatigue management is super important, especially as items get added to the list later.

* Maybe I should count my habits, because they’re effort items - workouts, journal, and language learning.

* The 46% completion seems low, but some of the remaining items are low-effort items that just didn’t get done, while a huge-priority item got done. I should look at balancing the difficulty of items that get added to the list.

Thorough and Unkempt is a reader-supported publication. Thanks for becoming a free or paid subscriber!

Everyday People with Sourav Das

Sourav Das is a textile designer and revivalist in the Indian fashion space, and has his own brand, Label Sourav Das.

On the influence of art on him:

I started like going from my music classes, like vocal classes. I did Hindustani classical music for almost 17 years when I was in schooling. Yeah, that was the time I was simultaneously going for musical classes. I also had a brief introduction to Odissi. I am also a dance practitioner. I love dance and music and designing. Then also I had a diploma in fine Arts.

So it was an amalgamation of all sorts of maybe odd mediums which were available at that point of time. So I always have thought of bridging every art form that the soul carries in itself. And then to come up with a sense of aesthetics - getting sensitized to every medium, and creating something which is me, which is mine.

On his work experience:

So after my post-graduation, I started working with Gaurav, who is also a very affluent textile designer of this country. I worked with him for a couple of years and I got a chance to work with Mr. Sabyasachi Mukherjee. I was a design associate at Sabyasachi for a few years.

And then after working for renowned fashion brands of our country, I thought of chasing my idea of designing in my own way, with full liberty. Because I also hold a certain sense of aesthetics, which I didn't get a chance to explore working for other big brands.

So I thought of just starting it in a very humble way. Most artistic minds end up doing something of their own because what keeps pushing us is the liberty of chasing art the way we want to. This is why I left and started my own venture. It’s been two and a half years.

On being admired and recommended by Geetanjali Gondhale (EP 110):

(laughs) I think Geetanjali di is biased about me. Like, we have been more like brother and sister since years. I call her Didi and it's been a beautiful bonding since the time we met. We met at an exhibition in Bombay and then we just had a random chat.

I don't know with passing time how this bond has become so strong and firm. Every time we would do some art projects, we would discuss with each other, whether with her jewellery-making or my textile-weaving. We love to discuss our thought process on artistic ideas with each other.

It gives us so much satisfaction getting views from one another and implementing those ideas in our process. Because what I see in Geetanjali and probably Geetanjali di also sees in me is the aesthetics, the understanding of aesthetics; the closing your eyes and totally believing in somebody else's work. This is the bonding which has brought us very close together.

And that is when they talk about the work. But as a person also, she's like, so perfect. She's the face of perfection to me. And I totally adore her as a person with a good heart. So kind, so compassionate.

On balancing hours as an entrepreneur:

Well, that's a very corporate way of thinking. Like how many hours you are working and how many hours you’re giving to your personal life. But trust me, me being a creative (or any creative person), it is some sort of work which is never enough. Even though we are not physically working, there would be something which is constantly going on in our mind.

So maybe there will be always a doodle diary in front of us, note making. It keeps happening throughout, even though we are munching, we're in a cafe sitting there, talking to friends. Something still goes on [in our mind]. It's never enough - deriving inspiration from everywhere, jotting down notes, implementing.

On reviving older styles of textiles:

Recently I'm working on something called Charkhana. [It has] the design nuances which have been practiced in Banaras earlier. So today the idea of Banarasi sari is to have some floral or curvy patterns to it. It is mostly about decorative elements which are more curvy and floral.

But Chaukara or Charkhana is something which is a design language or design vocabulary, which is very much linear in terms of its pattern and designing. More geometric. So this was something which was there earlier, but very few people have made those.

And I thought of recreating those because these weren’t introduced to a wider scale of people, because Banarasi as a cluster, as a textile tradition, was only accessible to the noble class.

On adding art to your life:

Earth is still a livable place only because of art. Everything is beautiful because an artist exists. He makes a life entertaining and gives us a hope to live again. Otherwise life would have been so materialistic.

We are human beings. Even animals enjoy music and whatever artistic is there in nature. So any form of art definitely gives you more willpower, I feel. And I've seen this in many artists - artists of great excellence who have been at this for years and practicing it religiously - they have better willpower than a commoner.

Sourav’s Recs:

See his work on Instagram: @labelsouravdas

Sourav recommends the following artists in the Drupad space:

* Gundecha Brothers (see below)

* Uday Bhavalkar

* Pelva Naik

Letters to Myself

Hello Vaibhav,

We’re in the third week of the year, which is where the motivation starts to drop precipitously. I’ve been battling some illness, some long-pending work, and a lot of fatigue.

Yesterday, I was getting ready to go to the gym and I fell asleep somehow. I woke up four hours later, drooling over myself, unsure what had happened.

And yet, I see things happening. A lot of the show, the journaling, everything I’m doing - these are all reflective in nature. I see things happening because I’m paying attention.

It’s so easy to stop trying because we sometimes aren’t able to look past the fatigue of effort and see what has been added back into our lives. I feel very blessed that I’m able to look at myself and see what I am, not just what I’m chasing.

Looking ahead constantly,Vaibhav.

Last week:

Get full access to Thorough and Unkempt at vaibhavguptawho.substack.com/subscribe