Months after Mumbai’s train travellers were deftly sketched and sorted into types, Delhi’s citizens are also getting the same treatment.
Priya Kuriyan, an illustrator in Delhi, has been posting sketches of people in the city that are at once detailed and irreverent, from a man wearing boxers instead of shorts in Defence Colony to a Punjabi father escorting his daughter and her science project to school.
“For someone who likes watching people, Delhi is like a gold mine,” she wrote in an email to Scroll.in. “A lot of these characters can seem abrasive at first, but there's also something endearing about them. Finding humour in situations around you, even when the joke is on you, is perhaps the best way to survive Delhi or any other city for that matter.”
Kuriyan has lived in Delhi for six years, but she began this series only in April, when she saw two women wearing similar animal print clothing. Something about them, she wrote, epitomised a section of Delhi.
“I usually sketch anyone who catches my eye, really. I'm usually shy about sketching people on the spot, so a lot of it is from memory,” wrote Kuriyan, who added that if she exaggerated any features, it was only because she wanted to put down what interested her quickly. “I think [what I find difficult to draw] would be people who might be considered 'beautiful' in the very mainstream sense of the word.”
Kuriyan is juggling this series between working on two picture books for children, a book cover series and an animated television show. She posts updates to her blog.
Here is a selection.
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
Priya Kuriyan, an illustrator in Delhi, has been posting sketches of people in the city that are at once detailed and irreverent, from a man wearing boxers instead of shorts in Defence Colony to a Punjabi father escorting his daughter and her science project to school.
“For someone who likes watching people, Delhi is like a gold mine,” she wrote in an email to Scroll.in. “A lot of these characters can seem abrasive at first, but there's also something endearing about them. Finding humour in situations around you, even when the joke is on you, is perhaps the best way to survive Delhi or any other city for that matter.”
Kuriyan has lived in Delhi for six years, but she began this series only in April, when she saw two women wearing similar animal print clothing. Something about them, she wrote, epitomised a section of Delhi.
“I usually sketch anyone who catches my eye, really. I'm usually shy about sketching people on the spot, so a lot of it is from memory,” wrote Kuriyan, who added that if she exaggerated any features, it was only because she wanted to put down what interested her quickly. “I think [what I find difficult to draw] would be people who might be considered 'beautiful' in the very mainstream sense of the word.”
Kuriyan is juggling this series between working on two picture books for children, a book cover series and an animated television show. She posts updates to her blog.
Here is a selection.
