In this episode, I’m talking to Chidanand Hiremath who is a Visual Designer, Photographer and former Digital Nomad. He has travelled 30+ countries till now and currently living in Berlin and getting his Masters in children’s rights and childhood education. His love for travelling started since his childhood when one day his father brought him an old NatGeo Travellers magazine from 1949. In his early 20s, he left his first job and started freelancing as a graphic designer. Since then he’s never looked back, he’s doing what he loves and exploring himself as an artist and as a creative.
In this conversation, we talked about how he got started with travelling, why he doesn’t like travelling as a tourist. How he started out with freelance graphic design and did his first solo trip in India with his own earned money and subsequently internationally. His perspective on how being a digital nomad may look attractive externally but how hard it is when you actually go ahead and do it.
He also does nude art (sketching and drawing) and we get into the detail about how it practically works out. He also talks about why he doesn’t like selling work of art or photos on stock sites. There are a lot of interesting topics in this conversation. I really enjoyed talking to Chidanand.
So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Chidanand Hiremath.
This past week had been a rollercoaster again for the entire nation. Sushant Singh Rajput’s death came as a real shocker. An actor who was doing so well, or so we thought from the outside. He might have been doing well on the monetary level but at an emotional level apparently he wasn’t.
It was a shock to me personally as well, as I liked him as an actor, his movies like Kai Po Che!, his portrayal of MS Dhoni (the ex-Indian Cricket Captain) in M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and many more. He would get into the character so much that you couldn’t tell him apart from the character he was doing. Plus he was a really intelligent human being, his keen interest in astrophysics was really rare to see in any of the Indian Artists. In fact, he was one of the person in my interview dream guest list for my podcast. Gone too soon. I surely am going to miss him as a human being.
On the other side, tensions on Indo-China border are increasing day-by-day. I just hope things settle down. But if chinese forces keep on intruding, I don’t think India will stay with hands folded. War is the least we all want at this moment, where we are are in the middle of a historic pandemic. So I really hope that things calm down on border and China gets their shit together now. It’s high time.
Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I moved forward on below books –
Atomic Habits by James Clear – 25% done (Audible) – finally started out on this book, I really wanted to read it since it launched last year. So many insights. I’ve been following James from 4-5 years now and love his actionable writing.
Read – 6 | In progress – 6 | Pending in Reading list – 4 | Yet to discover for reading for yearly goal – 8
That’s it for the personal updates.
Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.
Issue 189 // Week 25 // 2020
An event I’m looking forward to —
WWDC 2020 (Virtual Event) – For the first time in the history of Apple, WWDC is going virtual this year due to the Pandemic. I’m so pumped about this virtual event. Updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS are awaited. I hope they live up to the expectations of customers’ feedback.
Not sure if they’ll be launching any new hardware in this event. But big software updates are for sure awaited. Fingers Crossed.
If you are as excited as I am, click the link in the title to go to the WWDC page, for following up on updates and on the WWDC days the event can be tracked here.
WWDC 2020 (Virtual Event)
A podcast conversation I loved —
Ali talks to his roommate Molly – Ali Abdaal is one of the rising YouTubers who talk about productivity and lifestyle design. In this video he has a conversation with his long time friend and roommate Molly, where they talk about Molly’s cancer survival, being a doctor and going through the situations to be where they both are.
I resonated a lot with this video’s realness and totally recommend for watching –
A video which made me understand things at a deeper level (after Sushant Singh Rajput’s Death) —
Parents Who Have Lost a Child – Call it serendipity or something, the below video surfaced on my YouTube feed after I had been hit hard like others (after Sushant’s death).
I was amazed at the ease with which some of the parents spoke about losing their child. It shattered my heart to listen to the mother when she was telling the story that how his son was sitting on the dining table and crying in front of her maid (caretaker) that “Mom, I’m Sorry”, “Mom, I’m Sorry”. Then he jumps out of a high rise building and dies.
But listening about their pain and how they have gone through it all, made me realise not to take things for granted. I felt grateful in a weird way.
Check it out.
P.S.: If you are someone who’s in depression and can be triggered to see people talk about suicide in detail. Please don’t watch this video.
Music I’m loving —
The Important Song (Live) by Joe Anderson – I stumbled upon this song via an Instagram Story. This is from a 2009 album from Joe Anderson. He put out an important topic in the son literally named “The Important Song”. The idea is brilliant.
Quote which I found meaningful –
Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.
and if you haven’t checked out my podcast episode yet with Shashank Murali (Co-Founder and CEO of Tapchief), then what are you waiting for! Check it out now. Here is the YouTube link –
Until Next Saturday!
Thanks for reading.
Himanshu
About Author
I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories.
Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!
No spam, ever. Only great stuff.
Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 189 // Week 25 // 2020
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In this episode, I’m talking to Shashank Murali who’s the Co-Founder and CEO of TapChief. TapChief is an Indian Start-up which aims to build the future of work with it’s focus on Solopreneurs and the gig economy. A freelance professional can register on TapChief and can access thousands of projects to choose from and TapChief handles all the things around this and help the freelancer earn well.
Shashank is a BITS Pilani Alumni. Like many tech founders, his journey also started in the hostel room of BITS Pilani where he created the early version of what today is TapChief.
In this candid conversation, we talk about his journey and how TapChief started out from his hostel room and has now become one of the top Indian Start-ups and is having 1 Lakh plus professionals on their platform. How BITS Pilani shaped his thought process. We go deep on TapChief’s focus on people with Attention to detail and empathy. Their goal of getting 2 Million people to the platform and much more. There are a lot of nuggets in this episode for anyone who’s aspiring to start a company or a start-up which is looking to level up.
So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Shashank Murali.
In this episode, I’m talking to Aditya Kalyanpur who is a world-renowned Indian Tabla Maestro. He has trained under the Tabla Legends Ustad Allarakha Khan and Ustad Zakir Hussain. Since his first appearance in the Wah Taj! ad in the 90s where he played the Tabla along with Ustad Zakir Hussain, to now when he has become the Tabla Maestro and taken the Indian Tabla Classical Indian music art form across International boundaries. He’s played along with the Indian Legends like Shivkumar Sharma, Amjad Ali Khan, A.R. Rahman, Rahul Sharma and western legendary artists like Katy Perry, Herbie Hancock, Larry Coryell and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones to name a few. He also popularised the colourful Tablas. He’s wearing multiple hats at the moment, founder of 2 music institutes in the US and a non-profit in Mumbai India which helps out kids with Cancer.
In this conversation, we talked about his initial journey, his time with his Gurus, his creative process, how to perfect your craft and much more.
It was amazing to talk to Aditya jee and I hope you’ll love it too.
So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Aditya Kalyanpur.
In this episode, I’m talking to Stuart DaCosta, who is a music composer and bassist in the band The Yellow Diary whose songs like Na Tere Jeha Hora Disda and Rab Rakha have been rocking the charts since the day 1 of launch. I absolutely love this band.
Stuart has been in the indie music scene in India from a long time. He has played in various bands like Something Relevant, Baycity Lights etc and then eventually made his way into The Yellow Diary. Which is now signed by Sony Music India. On the side he’s also working for bigger projects with his music production company – Salvage Audio Collective and have worked with films like Gully Boy which had chartbuster songs.
This is an episode with which most of the musicians might resonate. A lot of tidbits for musicians. But for everyone else also it will be a good episode and teach you if you keep working on what you love with all your passion, you definitely will get there.
So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Stuart DaCosta.
He is also a productivity expert and start-up mentor. He works with many start-up incubators to nurture and support start-up companies who are focusing on clean-tech, energy, Internet of Things (or IoT).
There are a lot of small tools and apps you’ll learn in this episode about and can implement to improve your productivity.
My most popular Instagram post recently —
Quinoa Salad, coffee and some Instagram Flatlays . …Click the photo below to read the entire story.
Fragile Forests – Even thought this short film is an ad, but go and see like you didn’t know and you’ll never ever know, that it was filmed entirely on a mobile phone.
Just mind-blowing shots and mesmerising music both by Tim Kellner.
Join my reader’s list – It helps us a lot when you become a subscriber, it smoothens you experience on Lifestyle Architecture Lab. Being on the email list provides you additional benefits like some exclusive content, webinar’s, free goodies and all of it will be FREE. Please click the link above to join now or put your email address in the below box and hit subscribe.
How Cork Is Harvested To Make Wine Stoppers – A very interesting video showing process of harvesting the cork oak to create a wine stopper. It takes precision, years of practice, and a good axe. Here’s how cork goes from bark to bottle.
A song I loved –
Martbaan by Samar Mehdi – Found this amazing artist via Nimisha Verma and I’m mesmerized by this song. Just how stupendiously beatuiful this song is and many more of his songs.
If you are craving for some original music, check this out.
Quote I’m pondering on lately –
If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
Join my reader’s list – It helps us a lot when you become a subscriber, it smoothens you experience on Lifestyle Architecture Lab. Being on the email list provides you additional benefits like some exclusive content, webinar’s, free goodies and all of it will be FREE. Please click the link above to join now or put your email address in the below box and hit subscribe.
In this episode I’m talking to Aditya Shroff popularly known through his blog as “The 5AM Guy” who is also an author of the book “The Best Life Ever”. He is also a competitive runner and frequently gets podium positions in various running races. He leads quite a simple but interesting life at a farm in a Village of Gujarat. After doing his engineering from Mumbai, he got a high paying job in Germany but eventually dropped that job and came back to India to work on his passion which is writing.
In this conversation we cover a wide variety of topics – how he took the brave decision to drop the job and work on his passion and live on a farm, his creative process while writing the book. How he got the book published and even got a forward from a celebrity whom he didn’t directly know. How someone, who has a passion can convert it into a profession. All of this and much much more is in the episode.
So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Aditya Shroff.
In this episode I’m talking to Kuntal Joisher who became the World’s first Vegan to scale Everest in 2016 and now in 2019 he has summited Everest again from the North Side becoming the only vegan on earth climb Mt. Everest from both the sides. Kuntal’s expeditions are driven by compassion as a Vegan and he also spreads awareness on Dementia. He has also been on the cover of multiple international Vegan magazines. Apart from his mountain expeditions he works as a technology professional and also speaks at various events through out the globe as a public speaker.
In this conversation we talk about his story, how the early exposure to the idea that it’s ok do crazy things seeded his life with the sense of adventure. How his journey as a mountaineer started and the moments when he was first awestruck with the magnificence of Mt. Everest. His training regime and advise for people who are aspiring to summit Mt. Everest. It’s all in this episode.
So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Kuntal Joisher.
In this episode I’m talking to Gopi Vadsak popularly known on Instagram as Aawaari. She is a visual designer, stylist, photographer and a creative director. Her creative photos and videos go viral every now on then on the Interwebs. Her work has been recognised by the likes of Adobe. We touch base on a variety of things in this conversation like – Her story, her struggle with anxiety and her way out of it, her creative process. How creatives like her make money in this profession and on what scale they should charge. How to work with whatever tools you have in hand to make something awesome! All of this and much more.
So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Gopi Vadsak.
