Having a TV dinner tonight? If it's a sad microwavable food tray we'll just let you wallow in self pity, but if it's a TV show theme dinner party you're planning we can help. bpb brings four experts to help you put together music, food and wardrobe based on some of today's buzziest television shows. Room with a viewership?

Our experts

Vandana Verma- Former food editor at a lifestyle magazine and editor at The India Tube.

Mihir Sharma- Columnist at The Business Standard, food reviewer and from what we hear a Game of Thrones afficianado

Latha Sunadh- Self-confessed shopaholic and ex-editor of Vogue.in and Strut120

Akshay Rajpurohit- Ad man and Scribe guitarist.

Mad Men

What to Eat: You can’t party like it’s 1962 without a lineup of classic cocktails and a seriously well-stocked bar: think Old Fashioneds and Dirty Martinis, all blended up strong. Don Draper’s own beverage of choice is an Old Fashioned made with rye whiskey in place of the traditional bourbon, a splash of club soda and a brandied cherry, although we recommend replacing that cherry with a twist of orange peel.

Classic cocktails call for classic canapés: try pigs in blankets and anything on toothpicks. Or if you’re going all-out, a suitably retro fondue! Try Megan Draper’s tip: give the fondue pot a good rub with a clove of garlic and double the amount of Kirschwasser (or use Sauternes in place).

- Vandana

As the show reveals, the 1950s was a decade sexist, luxurious and kind of tacky (check out http://lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html for examples of how tacky).

So, for the men: Beefsteak. Bourbon. Chicken Stroganoff. Prawn Cocktail. For the vegetable element: cigarettes and apple pie.

For the overworked women: Frozen prepackaged food. Cheese and cocktail olives on toothpicks. Something in a Jell-O mould. Martinis. For a bit of luxury: oysters. After all, they're an aphrodisiac and, in the 1950s, people had a very restricted idea about what women were good for.

- Mihir

What to Listen to: Count Bassie. A force of nature or a jazz player. Depending on how you take your music. Try April in Paris.

- Akshay

What to wear: Peplums are all the rage this season and lucky for you, they’re part and parcel of the Mad Men series. Go for flouncy skirts, strands and strands of pearls, elegant jewel-toned cocktail gowns, office pencil skirts and tweed jackets. Get the Joan Harris look with well-fitted knee-length dresses, full skirts, big retro studs to adorn the ears and vintage broaches. Well-fitted suits, thin ties and white shirts are the way to go for men. If you want to keep it casual , the essential polo tees, tennis shoes and fitted vests work very well. Casuals for the ladies go as far as pussy bows, peter pan collars, kitten heels, buttoned blouses, cocktail rings, floral scarves and messenger handbags.

- Latha

Game of Thrones

What to Eat: Like everything else in his world, George RR Martin makes sure that food is incredibly detailed. There's even a great website with recipes from Westeros: http://www.innatthecrossroads.com/

I'd suggest one haunch of roast meat. Herby chicken broth. Hot cheese and vegetable pies, obviously. Baked apples and pears to follow, with cream. And chocolate-filled eggs, painted to look like dragons' eggs. To drink: sweet wine, herbal tea and lots of beer in medieval-sized flagons.

-Mihir

Winter most definitely is not coming, but you can pretend it is at your GoT party. You will, most likely, struggle to find a black swan or a hundred live doves to bake into a great pie in the markets of Delhi, and I think I’d struggle to keep down unborn puppies, which is why it’s probably best to stick to adaptations of a Westerosi feast. Try goblets of mulled wine, a wintry stew and raan (look, it’s a leg of mutton, which is pretty medieval, and a crowd-pleaser). Plus, have your guests do a shot each of ice (vodka) and fire (whiskey) as they walk in and you’ll be partying like Lannisters in no time at all.

- Vandana

What to Listen to: London Symphony Orchestra. Much like George R R Martin's world, there is nothing small-scale about them. Try Romeo & Juliet for an intense moment. Also Enya, because she sounds other-worldly and you imagine her singing atop a sea-facing cliff with winds raging around her. Just like some of our not so likable GoT characters ( The Red Priestess, anyone?). Only Time for both, its haunting quality as well as ironical relation to the plot.

- Akshay

What to wear: The simpler options are the lace dresses, lavish pastel-shaded gowns and armoured accessories – read flowy diaphanous materials thrown together with bell-sleeves and draped bodices accessorized with metal cuffs, ear cuffs, arm bands and major head gear. Add a little faux fur vests or long-ish jackets for an authentic feel. The richer the look - the better! Men can wear anything in leather and get away with it– from leather pants, to big leather boots and lots of leather jackets. Try maxi dresses with bell-sleeves worn with vintage jewellery and brocade capes like queen Cersei, draped cleavage-showing gowns worn with arm bands and flowers a la Daenerys Targaryen (before she became Khaleesi) and fur overcoats like the stark family. Wavy hair accompanies vintage broaches and leather gloves. Try lots of gold embroidery and Edwardrian collars, power shoulders and obi belts. - Latha

Community

What to Eat: Community is all about the in-joke, the meta reference, the hipster twist given to well-loved brands. So I guess it would have to be Kentucky Fried Chicken, the subject of an extended product-placement parody. Lays' chips and frozen pizza, frequently reviewed on-screen like fine wine. Cafeteria-style chicken fingers, the subject of an episode on power-madness (seriously).

For drinks, coffee in talkshow-host mugs; diet coke for long TV marathons; lots of alcohol, to enable incestuous hooking-up.

- Mihir

What to Listen to: Blink 182. One of America's favourite rock bands, we can almost see the Community crew arguing to All the Small things in the background.

- Akshay

What to wear: Nothing too fancy, obviously. This is community college, not prep school. Perhaps ditch the poodle in your purse?

Annie is all florals, ruffles and a cardigan; or channel your inner Britta with skinny jeans, old band t-shirts worn with this season's bomber jacket. Or, just come dressed as a puppet and pretend it's that episode.

Newsroom

What to eat: All Aaron Sorkin creations are weak on things like food, because he likes to imagine humans run on ego alone. I would suggest rolls and beer and bottles, so it's easy to do the lightning-fast walk and talk that's the Sorkin hallmark. -Mihir

What to Listen to: German born composer Hans Zimmer takes his soundtrack as seriously as Sorkin's cast take their stories every episode. With a legacy rich in historical epics, we expect the Newsroom fanboys will love this.

What to wear: Sorkin talks about the immediacy of Newsroom in this Vanity Fair article. Functional clothing with clean lines is what would work best. Put that linen suit away, it will crease twenty minutes into a stressful situation. Try pencil skirts (for women), button down shirts. Men, a pair of chinos and a polo might work if you throw a jacket and a pair of glasses on.

Breaking Bad

What to Eat: Meth cookers aren’t exactly known for their culinary knowhow, so break out the blue curacao, because all you need for a Walter White-worthy bash is an array of Tex Mex nibbles (stock up on Cornitos), buckets of fried chicken and test tubes shots of the blue stuff to give your party that meth lab feel. Try equal parts vodka and curacao and top with sprite, or for the rum lovers, a shot each of rum and pineapple juice, and top with cerulean Curacao to tint the drink to your desired shade.- Vandana

Nothing. Meth addicts don't eat. -Mihir

What to Listen to: Massive Attack, Bristol's very own musical group. The lab could use this tune.

-- Akshay

What to wear: Dress up as Walt and Jesse in gas masks, hazmat suits and windbreakers. The essential Walter Tightey-whitey look works well for the bold ones with an old loose shirt worn over a white tee and nothing but your tightie-whiteys on. Carry a packet of blue ice ( blue crystals from a nearby odds & ends store). Or try the classic Walter look with a green apron, boxers and just your day-to-day socks and shoes. Oversized hoodies, baggie (almost-loose-and slipping off your bum) pants and a beanie work very well for the Jesse Pinkman look. Go for the Heisenberg look with a maroon shirt, a faded out zippered jacket and a flattened fedora. Add a bald cap, a fake goatee and a pair of khakis for an authentic feel. - Latha

Now we rarely feature stuff for kids on bpb, but this one's just too cool for school.

Through @parmeshs we discovered NuVu, a super summer program for students (standard 7-12) that originated in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2010. Setting up shop at The American School Mumbai from June 2013, NuVu describes itself as a studio model that "provides young students the opportunity to work collaboratively with professional and academic experts to solve real-world problems in an intensive and fun studio environment." This is a four week satellite program that is centred around the subject of interactive music and art.

Enrol your kids in this summer school and they'll get to program and build robots, create digital musical instruments, fabricate interactive T-shirts and story books, and invent new toys under the guidance of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) coaches. The best part is that students require no prior skill set or experience in the field. Their past project section reveals lit up tutus, shared cities, non-annoying car horns, robo flowers and breakfast re-inventions.

Sounds like a class for Dexter and his white coat. The animated child genius not the serial killer.

Getting there: Visit https://mumbai.nuvustudio.com, to book a spot email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In this weekly column, filmmaker Danish Aslam will be your purveyor of the finest quality random facts, useless trivia and other esoterica from the world wide web. He lives mostly behind a keyboard and may or may not be a wizened old green man who speaks in grammatically incorrect aphorisms. You can find more on his home page http://pictually.me/dontpanic

The History of Music

Stop the presses! This is officially the coolest video you'll see this week. Created by California-based acapella group Pentatonix (http://ptxofficial.com/), this video showcases the evolution of music from the 11th century right upto Bieber-fever in one giant mashup. And it's all done by these five people, no instruments. Extreme talent! I especially like the sweet little touch where the video transitions gradually to color, somewhere around the '60s.      


How To Make A Hit Song

And on the flip side of musical excellence, Norwegian musical comedy group Kollektivet take the formula that seems to be applied to every EDM hit over the last few years and create the perfect Hit Song. If you've ever "put your hands up in the air" at a club, you'll relate to this completely.      


How To Find A Bomber

The search for Tamerlan & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was probably the first crowdsourced manhunt in the history of crime. Thanks to the internet and the fact that a cellphone camera is the most ubiquitous tool in today's world, the search for the Boston bombers became a giant version of "Where's Waldo?", just on a much larger scale. While memes about Redditors becoming armchair investigators went viral, the actual investigation was a brilliant combination of technology, citizen cooperation and good old-fashioned police legwork. And it's all detailed in this longread put up by the Washington Post, right from Reddit's controversial contributions (and accusations) to how watching 400 hours of video can help crack a case.


Obama, As Played By Daniel Day-Lewis

Hate him, love him, don't give a sh** about him: whichever side of the fence you fall, the fact remains that Obama is probably the coolest president that we'll ever have the privilege of seeing. Well, at least the funniest. And the one time every year when his latent comic talents come to the fore is the White House Correspondents Speech. 2011 had the standup routine that showed he had an alternate career as a very straight-faced Jay Leno. And this year, they've got a certain Mr. Speilberg to make a short promo for his next movie called 'Obama', starring Daniel Day Lewis. Now imagine a certain Mr. Singh trying to pull this off.    

In this weekly column, filmmaker Danish Aslam will be your purveyor of the finest quality random facts, useless trivia and other esoterica from the world wide web. He lives mostly behind a keyboard and may or may not be a wizened old green man who speaks in grammatically incorrect aphorisms. You can find more on his home page http://pictually.me/dontpanic

The world economy is collapsing. Well, perhaps not, but almost every time I switch on the news it seems like we're right on the edge. Between Greece & Iceland & Black Wednesdays & the price of oil, it seems like we're living in a state of perpetual, almost-crisis. Which is how Satoshi Nakamoto felt too, which is why he went ahead & invented his own currency that would be independent of government. Unlike the many crackpots who've done this over the ages though, this attempt stuck & is known around the world by the name Bitcoin. Now if, like me, you find the convoluted pathways of economic theory too foggy to navigate, then this video (http://vimeo.com/63502573#) by Duncan Elms might help clarify a few things. Caveat emptor: it's not all as rosy as it looks. And Felix Salmon's article (https://medium.com/money-banking/2b5ef79482cb) on the Bitcoin bubble explains why.

And I leave you with one of the most thought-provoking ad campaigns I've seen in a while. Dove (the guys behind this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U) brilliant ad as well) hired a forensic sketch artist to draw women based on the description they gave of themselves. And then draw the same woman based on how someone else sees her. The results are illuminating, as you'll find when you see this viral video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=litXW91UauE).   

What: Adlabs Imagica amusement park at Khopoli, visit www.adlabsimagica.com, call 42130405, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Rs 1,200 for a regular one-day ticket for adults on weekdays and Rs 1,500 on weekends with unlimited access to all attractions.

Why: Pitched as “India’s Disneyland”, Adlabs head honcho Manmohan Shetty’s new theme park claims to house India’s biggest rollercoaster, a free fall from 132 feet at 73 km/hr (Dare Drop) and a dome theatre. But a friend who visited the park on opening evening, says the main attractions are the movie and folklore-themed rides such as the Mr. India Ride, I for India, Alibaba Aur Chaalis Chor, Bandits of Robin Hood and Lochness Explorers that have non-tacky, augmented reality-style effects. Split into different continents, Jambo Africa, Arabia, Viva Europa, Asiana and Americana, the park houses 16 rides, plenty of other attractions and themed restaurants serving cuisines from around the world.

When: You want a different kind of coaster for your drink.

Art Class for Grownups

So you’ve been out of line lately. There is one place where that kind of attitude will be accepted. Art-sound-creativity store Aurobodh at Peddar Road now holds art classes for grownups, where teachers who are graduates from JJ School of Art and Rachna Sansad, will encourage you to colour outside the line.

We’d told you about Aurobodh a while ago, where shelves stock art collectibles by artists (bags and mugs by Shilpa Gupta, pillow covers by Anju Dodiya and Ram Kumar notecards), as well as unusual musical instruments and super cool Frida Kahlo colouring books.

What To Expect At The Class

Designed with the idea to make art non-intimidating, the classes organised for adults (as well as kids) follow a method that lets participants hone their skill gradually. It’s not bound by rules or set ideas of art, and instead, the four art school graduate teachers at Aurobodh make sure the experience is exploratory.

During the first few classes, teachers will tell you to use pencils or crayons and let go completely – this helps them judge your style of work and skill level. Next is learning to draw, figuring out what style works best for the student and then moving on to learning about design and proportion. Finally, the student will be ready to draw on canvas. You can enroll for just one class or drop by for classes all year.

Either way, let them know and they’ll pencil you in.

Getting there: Aurobodh, studio no 5, Vasundhara Building, next to Cadbury House, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mahalaxmi, call 23514884. Open Monday to Saturday from 10.30 am to 6.30 pm. The art class is priced at Rs 300 per class for 1.5 hours, inclusive of art materials.

Potholes As Pets

Ditch that Saint Bernard you wanted to break the bank for, and adopt a pothole as a pet instead.

A cool new marketing initiative by Apollo Tyres, Adoptapothole.in finds the company on civic duty and promises to repair a pothole for you if you get enough support for it. All you have to do is click a picture of a crater near your home or on your daily commute, upload it, and share with your friends. If your photo gets over 25 likes (support), Adoptapothole.com will fix it for you, with a little stencil painted over the road with your name and the pothole’s name on it.

So don’t be surprised if you find a Dixie, Sleepy, Sweeto and funnier ones, Jack the Ripper, Django and Bumpy pinned in red on the website’s map. These are just pet potholes waiting to be fixed. Skippy is brown and muddy, Dixie hates the way she looks, and Sweeto is becoming the most photographed celebrity. The site is simple, the idea clear and the campaign, endearingly useful.

These personified potholes now seem cuter than before, and you can’t wait to get one of your own. Who still wants a star named after them when a crater is so much more romantic?

Getting there: Log on to www.adoptapothole.in, www.facebook.com/pothole.project

In this weekly column, filmmaker Danish Aslam will be your purveyor of the finest quality random facts, useless trivia and other esoterica from the world wide web. He lives mostly behind a keyboard and may or may not be a wizened old green man who speaks in grammatically incorrect aphorisms. You can find more on his home page http://pictually.me/dontpanic

The Story Behind The Story

One of my earliest memories of seeing the power of television in India involved waiting for a flight at Jammu airport on a Sunday morning as the clock struck 9. And if you were growing up in the 80s, you probably know what happened next. As if by magic, all the chairs in the airport were dragged from their places and rearranged around the various wall-mounted TV sets as rows of numbers on flight information screens were suddenly replaced with one word being flashed in English, Hindi & Urdu as Mahendra Kapoor's voice repeated it every time: 'Mahabharat'. B.R. & Ravi Chopra's adaptation of this classic remains one of the seminal works in Indian TV and in this article for Caravan, Akshay Manwani recounts the story of the phenomenon that was Mahabharat. Ranging from how Mukesh Khanna turned down the role of Duryodhana to Puneet Isaar (fresh off the Coolie incident) finally getting it after reciting a 20 minute poem in Hindi, this is a fascinating read.

Game Of Thrones

Speaking of great TV mythologicals, there's another one doing the rounds lately that you may have heard of: Game Of Thrones. And for those of us who're glued to the latest developments in the lives of the Starks and the Lannisters and the million other characters in the story, this collection of behind-the-scenes shenanigans put up by Buzzfeed should bring forth a smile. It's called 'Game Of Thrones Actors Doing Normal Stuff Is So Weird', which pretty much encapsulates everything you need to know before you click on the link.

32 Mind-Blowing Early Roles Of Famous Actors

And sticking with Game Of Thrones (sorta kinda, I'm just trying to link the two pieces together in an extremely flimsy way really), if you ever saw Batman Begins after the GoT juggernaut started rolling, you may have had a small WTF moment in a scene where Batman saves a little blond-haired kid on a fire escape. Because that sweet little child grew up to be the boy-king everyone loves to hate: Joffrey! This and other stunning moments abound in this collection entitled 32 Mind-Blowing Early Roles Of Famous Actors put up by Cracked.  Jean Claude Vandam (sic) as 'Gay Karate Man' in Monaco Forever? It doesn't get better than this.

Because We Need More Improv!

Improv Everywhere is back! I love what these guys do, the scale at which they do it and the sheer general goofiness of it all. For the latest episode of "Let's just do this because it's fun and it'll confuse the shit out of everybody else", they got two people to walk backwards through Times Square for five minutes. Worst person to be in this scenario:  the multiple-cameras-toting unlucky Japanese tourist who just saw his perfect vacation snap and ran out of batteries at that precise moment. Apart from the standard WTF reactions, what I also love about this video are some of the nonchalant New Yorkers not batting an eyelid because "I see three weird things before breakfast every day, m^%$f%#$@!".

The Garden Paths Of The English Language

For all you language enthusiasts (*cough* grammar Nazis *cough*) out there, this article up on Mental Floss is going to make your day (or other sexual innuendoes that we shall refrain from using). Essentially, it's a collection of seven sentences that sound completely wrong on first listen, but actually are perfectly fine. Yes, English is a funny language and never more so when you use a reduced relative clause in a garden path sentence. Got that? If the answer is yes, you definitely deserve to read this. My personal favourite: Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo.

You Didn't Know You Needed This, But You Do

Now I'm just being lazy, but since the good folks over at TED have done so much of the hard work already, it seems like a shame to let it go to waste. While compiling the lineup for TED Global 2013, they've stumbled across some sites which they feel "you didn't know you needed in your life' (much like most Apple products). So here's the list including juggling robots, The Cloud Appreciation Society and much more. Enjoy.

The Future Of Photography

And here's the tech eye-candy for the day: the future of cameras. At least according to the photography enthusiasts over at Artefact, who claim that the future holds nothing more than a lens and a chip. But the design of the WVIL Concept Camera takes it a step further by making the lens detachable as well. While you're taking a shot. If you're remotely interested in photography, this video is worth a dekko.

This is the second story in our series that sets out to reveal, credit, and interrogate Delhi-based citizens who are invested in living the kinda old school arts in our contemporary time. While I thought I’d never get over how a real-life desi Betty Crocker had me blushing just last week, this session had me tingling with the joy of uncovering a gentleman’s inner-most passion which he is finally ready to talk about and share. It would suffice to say that the classically trained, way laid-back musician knows how to tickle both the ivories and my humor.

Attuned to every fluctuation in tone, Sahil Vasudeva is a classic pianist who advises to ‘keep it chilled’ as he cracks open a beer in shorts at his house on an early Saturday evening. Lesson one: long-term dedication equals eventual gratification. Later, in reference to our conversation about the accessibility (and lack thereof) Western Classical music as a genre – of which he is a scholar, practitioner, and now able teacher - he claims that his outfit rather than an awkward suit, is precisely what he’d like to perform Chopin’s most serious pieces in. And this minor but actually major fact, like the narrative that Sahil sets out to tell, reflects the windy, deep-rooted and self-reflexive relationship he’s developed with what he describes as the instrument akin to basic grammar for all other instrumental languages.

At age “twelvish,” Sahil’s mom picked up his baby grand at a junkyard and placed it in what was then, a limited residential space. Being at the center of his life, home, and world, the act of listening and thinking about Western Classical Music – its form, theme, depth and meaning – became a daily and enjoyable, post family-dinner affair. This method, accompanied by other causal activities like visiting piano recitals, is one that he plans to incorporate into his own private lessons. “You have to make it fun for the student,” Sahil states, recounting his own restlessness as a twelve year old and the multiple attempts he would make to get out of his classes. And this priority for fun at the outset, a condition he makes clear whilst showcasing his tiled, orthodontist-labored teeth, is one which bears the mark of sincerity for any auntie who wants to learn the piano, “but never had the time to pick it up” or maybe for her pill-popping son, who “is so naughty," the teacher would definitely approve.

Though Sahil says he’ll keep his lessons at 45 minutes each “because more than that requires a stronger attention span which doesn’t just come like that,” the ‘hi-hello’ time you will get with him outside of class time is delightfully free. And this chitchat opportunity, possibly lightened by a glass of cold coffee, is the time in which you may understand that you’re being schooled in more than just Western Classical piano. The man declares that if you’re his student, he’s ready to see you pissed off, delighted, oblivious or aware of your own mood swings, and hopefully stunned at the magically surreal moments when your fingers may learn a piece while you sleep (this does happen, he assures). And at your worst, he’s ready to squirm if you “bang on the piano:” an act that unlike the most conventional associations the word banging has acquired, here, even in its cacophony, forces you to introspect in an intelligent way.

“But it’s not easy,” he lets you know, just in case you were thinking otherwise (you weren’t). Learning a piece on the piano—being exactly a metaphor for process, progress, and its discontents—can give you the feeling of achievement for maybe just that afternoon, your whole life, or just an off-beat night. This possibility of perhaps delivering temporary satisfaction and/or building a dedication to a life-long addiction and commitment is what Sahil explains as the stipulation that allows the piano to become a life-long companion unlike say, a guitar and all its ahem, players. “The piano has the ability to always lure you back in, and reminds you that you can never be too good for your own good…. or basically become like a lame rock band.”

“When was the last time you heard someone say, “Oh that concert pianist really sucked?” Sahil asks me, only half-serious now, beer killed.  Our theatrics imagine that this made up character wouldn’t have gotten the memo about grammar being key way back in middle school.

Getting there: Email Sahil at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , lessons held at 43 Prithviraj Road, Monday-Friday, individual classes only, price on request.

This story was contributed by Meher Varma, who looks at clothes, aesthetics and beauty through rose-tinted anthropological lenses.

What's a seedy jacket? A coat found at a shady market? It's been so long since you heard the term, you've forgotten about the time  you used to browse shelves to buy music albums,  smile at the art work, surreptitiously peel off the parental advisory label, look hungrily inside to confirm the lyrics to track number five. Ah, CD jacket! Yes, remember those?

bpb's lovely new writer  - hi Bhairavi! - finds some yummy Indie album covers and tells you why you should use the designers behind them to do your stationery,  paint your shoes and spray your walls.  There's also a giant planet hug in there for you somewhere.

Spook, Lyrical Cynic (2013)

By Shilpa Shanker Narain, illustrator and designer, South Africa

Pedro comes of age in this dark yet comical album artwork. But who is Pedro? Pedro is Spook’s band mascot – an owl that smokes Cubans. With the second album titled Lyrical Cynic, the four-piece pop-rock-alternative band needed Pedro to grow up and still be innocent and quirky. So Shilpa, a freelance illustrator and designer based in South Africa, “suited up” Pedro and gave the artwork a super grungy feel with fierce details, just like the music. She has worked on creating the new, cynical, wise and damaged version of Pedro by hand illustrations  using the Wacom Bamboo Tablet and then adding a touch of Photoshop work to it, primarily the technique she applies to all her music work. She has also created a cartoon strip illustration on Pedro for the inside of the CD jacket. Her other music work includes poster art for indie artists Slow Down Clown and Caesar’s Palace. Along with music, she is also happy to work on books, canvases, wall art and home décor. We bet she's a hoot!

Visit www.be.net/shilpas or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Dualist Inquiry, Doppelganger (2013)

By Harikrishnan Panicker, graphic designer and illustrator, Denver

Doppelganger’s artwork captures extreme dualism by representing two characters, who are so far apart – a warrior and an astronaut that share a common love for music. This bold abstract artwork is nothing short of a collector’s piece, involving you in its little symbolic details. Harikrishnan, who is now based in Denver, has worked on design projects for  MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon, has previously worked at MTV India, Rolling Stone India cover design and wall art for Comedy Central and MTV offices. Harikrishnan also has a range of products that includes toys (Mr. Drips), hand-painted shoes, sketchbooks, spray can canvases and T-shirts. You will also find something on his website called ‘The Giant Planet Hug’, super squishy and it'll mean the world to you.

Visit www.thumbdemon.com

Swarathma, Topiwalleh (2012)

By Vasu Dixit – lead vocalist, ad filmmaker and visual designer, Bangalore

Inspired by newspapers and headlines, Vasu has designed the band’s second album, borrowing much thought from the songs on the album. The socially relevant music is encased in a CD, whose art has been given the feel of an old newspaper, rough and unfinished, printed on a Tetrapak. A commercial art graduate from CAVA, Mysore and wielding a degree in filmmaking from NID, Ahmedabad, Vasu has not only designed Swarathma’s Indian kitsch and colourful albums, but has also worked on his brother Raghu Dixit’s debut album art. When he is not touring and gigging with his band, Vasu is busy directing ad films, and sometimes working on logo design, brochures and other projects that use design in context to content and idea. He brings in his expertise of drawing and sketching into the project, and also ropes in illustrators and photographers to add to the job under his supervision. Every name and sound evokes a particular feeling, and he is keen on working with other indie bands to create their identity and album artwork.