Category: Wanderings

What is the point of literature?

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

There are many. I found this compelling, from the writer Karl Ove Knausgaard:

Saying what is self-evident is repetitive; the repeated is the already-known, and the already-known is the enemy of literature, its nemesis and true opposite. The self-evident confirms; literature challenges the confirmed. It is easy to describe what I see; it is easy to describe what I think. But why do I see what I see? Why do I think what I think? That is harder to grasp. For what I see is the world; what I think is me. What literature can do is establish an outside.

Source: The Reenchanted World: On finding mystery in the digital age, Harper’s Magazine, June 2025

This epic rant is worth your time if you read the news

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

LiveMint journalist Sidin Vadukut’s rant was partly based on a reading course he was designing

How I got my pixel avatar

Akshat Rathi1 Comment

My sister, Surabhi Rathi, is a graphic designer. After much hassling, she relented to making a new digital avatar for me. And then she did a nice thing. She let me have a peek at the process.

Step 1: Some examples

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 16.58.41

 

Step 2: John Maeda looks like this…

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 17.00.27

And Debbie Millman looks like this…

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 17.01.18

 

Step 3: So how would Akshat look?

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 17.02.53

 

Step 4: Let’s create a skeleton

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 17.04.05

 

Step 5: Let’s refine that

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 17.05.01

Step 6: Adding colour

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 17.14.04

 

Step 7: Final touches and beautification

Screen Shot 2015-01-23 at 17.16.05

Voila! Thank you, Surabhi!