Tales of Rajkot: Eight Street Studies

Eight pen studies of people working on the streets of Rajkot, drawn on site. A chai stall, a sugarcane press, a carpet seller, a woman doing the washing. Each one is a working position: what the person stands behind, what they reach for, and how the stall is built around them.

Open the interactive version : eight tiles you can flip to read what each drawing taught me.

Context : Rajkot, Gujarat. Drawn between 2022 and 2026

Medium : Pen and pencil on paper, drawn from observation

Why:

A street stall is a piece of architecture that someone assembled without drawing it first. The counter sits at the height the work needs, the signage is hand-lettered by whoever owns it, and the storage is whatever fits underneath. Drawing one takes about an hour, and in that hour you notice the decisions: where the gas cylinder goes so it is reachable and out of the way, why the cups are stacked on the left, how far the awning has to reach before the afternoon sun becomes a problem.

I did not set out to study anything. I wanted to draw, and the drawing is what made me look properly.

8:

Pen drawing of a chai stall with two figures, hand-lettered Gujarati signage and stacked cups
Chai wala. The gas cylinder sits at the customer side of the counter, where it is reachable and where nobody queues.
Pen drawing of a coconut and sugarcane juice stall with a hand-cranked press
Nariyal. The sugarcane press is the largest object and takes the corner, so the whole stall is arranged around the machine.
Pen drawing of a pani puri cart
Pani puri. Served fast and eaten standing, so the counter is the full working surface and there is nowhere to sit.
Pen drawing of a carpet seller with rolled stock
Carpet seller. The stock is the display and the display is the storage.
Pen drawing of a pan masala stall
Pan masala. Everything is within one arm span, because the seller does not step away from the counter.
Pen drawing of a woman doing laundry
Wash woman. The work happens at ground level, so the whole body is the tool.
Pen drawing of a public worker
Public worker.
Pen drawing of a newspaper vendor
Newspaper. Stock that expires in a day, laid out to be read from a moving vehicle.

I had fun:

Every one of these was designed by the person using it, adjusted over years, with no plan drawn anywhere, and this taught me a novel approach to innate user-centric design in age-old design systems that design everyday life.

Open the interactive version – eight tiles you can flip to read what each drawing taught me.

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