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By:

Kiran D. Tare

21 August 2024 at 11:23:13 am

Designing Life With Courage

From Thane to Chicago, Ilisha Sharma turned curiosity into courage, building a career in design while quietly shaping how people see, feel and trust. When Ilisha Sharma looks back, she is still surprised by how far curiosity can take a person. Growing up in Thane, India design was not an obvious career path, at least not in her family. Yet she was always drawn to grids, patterns and the aesthetics of nature, long before she had the words to describe those instincts. As a child, she explored...

Designing Life With Courage

From Thane to Chicago, Ilisha Sharma turned curiosity into courage, building a career in design while quietly shaping how people see, feel and trust. When Ilisha Sharma looks back, she is still surprised by how far curiosity can take a person. Growing up in Thane, India design was not an obvious career path, at least not in her family. Yet she was always drawn to grids, patterns and the aesthetics of nature, long before she had the words to describe those instincts. As a child, she explored many versions of herself — basketball player, swimmer, Kathak dancer, singer and pianist. But the artist was the one who endured. She was the child who stayed up late designing school posters, making birthday cards and filling notebook margins with doodles. Creativity was never separate from who she was. That instinct led to one of the biggest risks of her life. At 18, Sharma moved from Thane to the United States to study design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). She had never lived alone, navigated airports or crossed continents by herself. She landed in Savannah, Georgia, without a U.S. phone number, a bank account or any real sense of how far from home she was — just an email from SCAD promising a shuttle at the airport. She remembers telling herself, “As long as I get off at the right terminal and find the right bus, I’ll be fine.” Quietly panicking, she still chose courage over comfort. That journey became the first defining step in a life shaped by uncertainty and conviction. At SCAD, Sharma majored in graphic design and minored in user experience, discovering that design shapes how people feel, think and trust. She graduated summa cum laude and, more importantly, found the kind of designer she wanted to be — one who blends creativity with strategy and emotion with clarity. Another leap came soon after graduation, when she secured an internship in Chicago at the exact agency she wanted: Design B&B. Her employment authorisation card had not arrived; she could not legally begin work without it, and she had no housing lined up. Still, she went. She booked an overnight flight, packed her life into eight suitcases, reserved an Airbnb for two nights, and arrived in Chicago without knowing where she would live or how long she could stay. That gamble paid off. Within two months, the internship became a full-time role. She eventually rose to the position of designer and head of social strategy. Brand Collaborations Today, her work includes collaborations with brands such as Pop-Tarts, Mars, Kellogg’s, Bic, IAMS, Town House, Simple Mills, Cadence OTC, Pull-Ups, Huggies and Aveeno. One of the most surreal moments in her career came during the rebrand of Naked Smoothies, when months of strategy and design finally appeared on supermarket shelves. In 2026, Sharma is also leading Design B&B’s Good Egg Grant, a programme that offers pro bono branding support to a Chicago nonprofit each year. This year, the agency is partnering with Friendship Center, a food pantry in Albany Park that provides groceries, hot meals and dignity to families in need. From Thane to Chicago, Sharma’s journey has been shaped by curiosity, courage and a willingness to choose uncertainty over comfort. In the process, she has done more than design brands — she has designed a life on her own terms.

Hindi Cheeni bhai bhai 

A brave new world of March 2026, where geopolitics has finally achieved what decades of border tensions, “Boycott China” hashtags, and that one uncle at family dinners who still calls it “Chindian” food never could: it has banished Indian Chinese from our plates. Not through diplomacy, not through taste evolution, not even through the slow realization that schezwan sauce is basically spicy ketchup with identity issues. No, the great exile has come courtesy of… LPG shortage. Yes, cooking gas. The same blue cylinder that once fueled our midnight hakka noodle cravings has now become the villain in this culinary tragedy.


Picture this: it’s Friday night, you’re scrolling Zomato like it’s your last lifeline to joy, and suddenly every “Chinese” option is either grayed out, replaced with sad “only pizza available” notes, or the restaurant itself has a status update that reads like a hostage note: “Due to unforeseen gas issues, limited menu. No wok, no stir-fry, no joy.” You refresh. Nothing. You try another outlet. “Sorry, chili chicken unavailable.” Unavailable? That’s not a menu item; that’s a national emergency.


Because apparently, Indo-Chinese cuisine—our bastard child of soy sauce, ajinomoto, and pure desi optimism—requires more flame than a Ramayana reenactment. High-pressure burners for that signature wok hei (the smoky breath of the gods that makes hakka noodles taste like they were stir-fried by angry dragons). Deep-frying for golden baby corn Manchurian that crunches louder than your boss’s feedback session. Slow-simmering for that greasy, glorious chili garlic noodles where the oil separates like a bad divorce but somehow tastes like home. All of it guzzles LPG like a thirsty uncle at an open bar. And now? No gas, no glory.


Thanks to some delightful escalation in West Asia (because nothing says “affect Indian dinner plans” like international conflict), commercial LPG cylinders have become rarer than honest politicians. Households get priority—fair enough, can’t have aunties rioting over unfinished dal—but restaurants? They’re left holding empty regulators and dreams of better days. Chains like Mainland China are slashing menus faster than you can say “schezwan fried rice extra spicy please.” One owner reportedly said 70% of his menu is Chinese. No gas means 70 per cent of his business is now “vada pav or bust.”


And oh, the irony is thicker than manchurian gravy. For years we’ve joked that Indian Chinese isn’t Chinese at all—it’s just aggressive seasoning on vegetables that never asked to be deep-fried and then drowned in corn flour slurry. We’ve called it “Chindian,” mocked its authenticity, posted memes about how Beijing doesn’t know what hakka means. Yet when it’s actually threatened with extinction, we panic like we’ve lost a family heirloom. Suddenly everyone is a connoisseur: “Bhai, without that gas flame, it’s not real chili chicken!” As if the gas was the secret ingredient all along, not the half-bottle of dark soy and existential regret.


Restaurants are adapting in the most Indian way possible: improvisation laced with passive-aggression. Some switch to induction—bless their optimistic hearts—but induction can’t replicate the volcanic fury needed for a proper stir-fry. The noodles come out limp, the veggies steamed instead of seared, the whole dish tasting like a polite apology. “Here is your hakka noodles, sir. It’s… gentle.” Others cut hours: “Open 7-9 PM only, come early or cry later.” A few brave souls are doing cold salads and sandwiches, because nothing screams “Chinese” like a cucumber sandwich with zero chili.


Delivery apps are in mourning. Swiggy and Zomato order volumes for “Oriental” categories have probably tanked harder than the Sensex during a budget speech. QSRs selling burgers and pizzas are quietly celebrating—electric ovens don’t care about geopolitics. Meanwhile, the street-side Chinese carts, those glorious mobile woks that once lit up corners like Diwali, have gone dark. No blue flame, no sizzling sound, no “one plate chowmein bhaiya?” The vendor is probably at home, staring at his empty cylinder, wondering if this is how civilizations end—not with a bang, but with a whimper and a switch to dal-chawal.


And let’s talk about the home cook, the real martyr here. You, who once proudly proclaimed “Chinese tonight!” while raiding the fridge for cabbage, carrots, and that one suspicious green chili. Now? Your gas stove mocks you. You try making hakka on induction—it’s like asking a moped to win the Dakar Rally. The sauce doesn’t cling, the veggies stay stubbornly raw, and your family looks at you like you served them betrayal on a plate. “Yeh kya hai?” they ask. “This is… fusion depression,” you mutter.


Until then, pass the pizza. And maybe a tissue for the tears.


(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai. Views personal.)

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