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Hero Cycles is one of two major bicycle manufacturers in India (the other being Atlas). Both manufacturers produce cycles that have remained unchanged since the departure of the British over 50 years ago.
This shot was taken in the countryside somewhere south of Bangalore, where we spotted this bike among these colorfully clothed clusters of women and girls, sitting about outside, preparing for something. Not sure what, but they were very nice with us :)
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I have no idea who Dr. Shah was, but I am informed that this is a memorial poster, as opposed to a wanted poster. Very Deadwood :)
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We had a motorcycle-related mishap while on the road a couple of weeks ago. A good samaritan hooked us up with this village guy who could fix Enfields. I like this shot because it reminds me of Jeff Beck‘s “You Had It Coming” album cover :)
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The man in white, a master sign-wallah named Chinnappa, has been painting oversize movie theatre signs and cutouts for a lifetime. The movie industry’s need for these objects is being gradually replaced by cheaper, easily printed vinyl signage, and so his business is slowly going away. Our friend Alex has decided to help him stay afloat by starting a business with him: Bespoke Bollywood.
At Bespoke Bollywood, you can have your likeness inserted into any Hollywood or Bollywood movie poster, and rendered in oilpaint on canvas. Or you can have him render any source material onto canvas in his unique, Bollywood style. We have just taken delivery of our first order, an 8×4 canvas based on the Slumdog Millionaire movie poster. We’ll post photos soon. These are huge, impressive, and very affordable, so if you want to do the same, contact Alex. !
Design Fridays is a design-centric event held every two months, at a moveable location somewhere in Bangalore. Created and propelled by the people at Ray+Keshavan | The Brand Union, the event is a welcome opportunity for creative professionals in Bangalore to meet, mingle, and at least in my case, to feel a lot less isolated :)
Each Design Friday features a presentation by a prominent design professional from a given area: branding, typography, painting, industrial design, and so on. The presentation is followed by Q&A, then dinner and mingle time.
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This particular evening, the location was the beautiful Park Hotel downtown, and the presenting guest was Gautam Rajadhyaksha, probably India’s best known celebrity photographer. He was a delight to listen to, generously sharing behind the scenes stories and technical insights. He was also really delightful in personal conversation afterward; he still shoots film mostly, and was quite curious about my 5D Mark II, and about Lightroom. We promised to deliver a copy to him in Mumbai with a personal demo sometime soon :)
The other, equally luminous, stars of the show were the attendees: every conversation we had afterwards was engaging and fun. The guests included architects, business people, entrepreneurs, designers, musicians and more. In fact, I think we may have made a few future friends.
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For me, one of the most memorable meetings of the evening was with this gentleman, Mr. Nandan Nilekani. Among his many achievements, he has been the Chairman and CEO of Infosys, one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2009, the author of a very successful forward-thinking book, Imagining India, and a guest on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show; and this is just the tip of the iceberg. The buzz around Nandan Nilekani now is about his recent Cabinet appointment: India’s Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, hand-picked Mr. Nilekani for a very interesting Cabinet post, only a couple of weeks ago.
I am sure Mr. Nilekani thought me a bit of a dope, as I was fairly starstruck. It’s never fame that impresses me, it’s competence, and I am rendered even more stupid than usual in the presence of someone with such accomplishment and ability. I do hope if Mr. Nilekani ever reads this, he will accept my apologies for any goofy behavior. I am now kicking myself for squandering the opportunity to ask him a couple of more meaningful questions… ah well :)
Thanks indeed to my friend Jaydeep Dutta for encouraging us to attend and making us feel so welcome.
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Every so often we hear this crazy whining jazzy music in the mornings, moving from one end of the neighborhood to the next and then vanishing. One or both of us will mutter, “What the hell IS that?” and either go back to sleep or run to chase it, inevitably being too late.
Well, today we finally caught the guy and cow you see above, playing a crazy tune for our neighbor across the street. The neighbor gave the gent a bit of money for himself and some food for the highly decorated cow. We called the guy, horn and cow over for some of the same treatment, and did as the neighbor did.
It’s always something here…
