About Opacity

This is a transcript from an interview that never happened.

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Jul 14, 2023

Meghna: It all started with a phone call in May, 2023. *Looks at Nandini and chuckles* We are partners in… ‘thought’. That’s probably the best way to describe us. We think similarly, care about similar things in life, we enjoy articulating our ideas, and we love setting lofty goals for ourselves.

Nandini: True, we do! And on a typical weekend phone-call, the conversation turned to how we — avid readers and writers in the yesteryears — yearned to read and write again.

Meghna: What followed on that two-hour conversation is a story for a Friday night dinner perhaps, but what came out of it was Opacity - back then, fondly known as “lemonstack”, and before you ask, “lemonstack” started with an emoji and then just stuck with us. 🍋

Nandini: Yep, so the premise for our blog was simple - we wanted to continue reading and writing - activities that both of us love, but which had taken a backseat given our packed schedules. And since both of us shared this goal, we teased out another common thread between us — education. Reading and writing about learning and design and education, ensuring that we’re consistently investing time doing things we enjoy; investing time in learning new things and evolving as learning professionals is a prospect both of us find stimulating.

Meghna: Yeah, the rest is history, well, it’s happening now.

How do you guys know each other?

Meghna, looking at Nandini: When did you join SOAL? Was it 2020?

Nandini: November 2019

Meghna: Right! So I was working as a learning experience designer at SOAL, Mumbai, and Nandini was interviewing to join as a Learning Designer. I remember meeting her at the reception desk of our workspace.

Nandini: Why would you remember that?

Meghna: Because I had just washed my coffee mug and my palms were still moist when we shook hands, and I walked away from you nervously wondering if you thought it was a clammy handshake!

Nandini: Hahahaha well I had other things on my mind then, so no I didn’t think this!

Meghna: Good for me… But yeah, we met at SOAL, and in the following months of working together, we just hit it off and stayed in touch.

Nandini: And now here we are.

Meghna: Here we are.

Why “Opacity”?

Meghna: Opacity was an unexpected idea. Lemonstack had grown on us, but also it meant nothing and did not speak to this space. So we needed a new name. I’ll let Nandini share how we came up with it.

Nandini: Right, so I really enjoy art and painting and colours bring me joy. The concept of opacity in colours has always fascinated me and there was a time when I wanted to start a blog dedicated to design by that name. But that aspiration is behind me, and so when we were brainstorming names—

Meghna: —and ChatGPT was NOT being helpful—

Nandini: —I suggested Opacity. And it sort of clicked.

Meghna: Yep, I really appreciated the brevity of the word, though it did take some getting used to. We had to sleep on it before we locked it in.

What does “Opacity” stand for?

Nandini: So once that name was locked in, we wanted to make sure that it made sense for us and spoke to the purpose of this blog. And we discussed it.

Meghna: We actually made a list of things it alluded to—wait let me open it on my phone… Yep, here it is:

The education system — and learning in general — feels opaque and inaccessible to non-education folks. We’re trying to address that through our writing.
Opacity is a range. How learning works is opaque for us too and our objective is not to find the ultimate right answer, but just to make things less opaque than they were when we started.
Our knowledge is not 100% complete - that’s part of why we’re doing this in the first place. Our writing is going to be contextual and it depends on what we are able to see and deduce at a given point of time.
And finally, sometimes things are opaque and that’s ok.

Nandini: These are our unfiltered thoughts. Meghna and I made a pact that we’re writing primarily for ourselves. If we gain an audience in the process, nothing like it. And if we don’t, that shouldn’t stop us from continuing to write.

Meghna: Absolutely. So there you have it. This is Opacity, and we’re glad to see you here! ✨