I spent the day editing. I managed to send some help Ustad Anb Jogi’s way. It’s tough for anyone to survive without the ability to earn. Sudden things like health problems can really knock anyone out. As it is, I feel like most people everywhere are just getting by, so how do we cope when things happen? I thought about this as I listened to the work we have done together and pieced together the framework of “Risalo”.Umar and I are trying to figure out a design for the outer section of Raja Rai Diyach’s fort. I began a design a few weeks ago. I like some bits and several others just are not working. It takes a process to get to that final design that feels right. So we put together some shapes and start playing with flat colors to overlay, since the end result will be sewn out of pieces of colored cloth, selected based on whatever design we paint and finalize digitally.We end up talking about the design, then painting in sections, suggesting colors to break things up, push things back, bring things forward. Then when it gets overworked and messy, it is time to clear things up, and get back to those basic shapes, possibly retaining new bits of anything that seems like it may be going in the right direction in terms of the shape, the size and focal points we wish to create. The court scene that Umar is currently sewing, went through a similar process, before we felt the design was effective and had the beauty, and a different influence other than Mughal architecture in its shapes and design. Raja Rai Diyach is from about the time of the Gandhara civilization who were Buddhists. So I found some photos of an old fort in Junagarh and interiors from an old Buddhist monastery to pick apart pieces and create a design that provides the space and technical requirements needed for the actions that will take place in it as well as meeting the design requirements of the time and place these stories come from. There’s no way to be historically accurate and that is not my purpose anyway. I’m just taking pieces of influences from different places and then as Shah Latif did, wrapping it in Sindh and my own ideas.