Professor R. K. Joshi has a beautiful morning ritual: as soon as he gets up he gives water to the plants. Then, standing first to the east, he drinks water in all ten directions one by one. Stay tuned, more rituals to follow. And finally, an unbeatable praise for speech, for spoken word.
R. K. Joshi has three books that he values as his gurus. Those books made him fall in love with the calligraphy, to the whole process of how you concentrate, how you take care of the tools, to spiritualism of calligraphy. Sound of words. For him, the sounds are more important than the written meaning of word – a good example is the holy syllable ‘om’.
‘You’re not a master of your own creative work – the master is your assignment. You do your work, and then leave this world.’ Why signing works is not part of general Indian philosophy? This podcast contains a fantastic side track to R. K. Joshi’s cooking habits and to his favourite dish. Does R. K. Joshi’s two daughters follow daddy’s artistic activities?
R. K. Joshi gives a short introduction to India’s 22 languages, to their common phonetic sounds. Maybe it’s possible to develop a common script for all Indian languages? What kind of difficulties there is? Why did it take his whole life to reintroduce Indian calligraphy for Indian students, and why the task is still not finished? About his passion to carry the aesthetics of old time Indian scripts for new digital tools and typefaces. Who was the first guy in India to carve text on the stone, during King Ashoka’s time?
Professor R. K. Joshi is designer, artist, calligrapher and poet. Multi-lingual communication, art history and reviving of India’s calligraphic tradition are close to his heart. Currently he is working as a Visiting Design Specialist at National Centre for Software Technology (NCST) in the area of language technology and type design. Typeradio talked with R. K. Joshi at ATypI in Lisbon, September 2006. He talks about his long affair with calligraphic books, how he got in to an Indian advertising agency and how he got inspired by Italian writing masters like Arrighi. In the early days of his career he went to a printing press to learn practical problems in Indian typography. He was also keen on to bring western influences to Indian scripts.