Labour of Love

Delhi has finally got its own tagline “Dildaar Delhi”. Penned by Delhiite Amit Anand, a cashier in a small confectionery shop in Keshavpuram, the tagline was selected out of 12,000 entries of a competition organized by Delhi government and Delhi Tourism department.

Genius? Not quite. Quick primer (for those who don’t know) – Delhi is locally pronounced ‘Dilli’. ‘Dil’ in Hindi is heart. The <3 kind. ‘Dildaar’ translates to ‘full of Dil’. Delhi and its Dil, naturally, have been the focus of many a phrase (e.g., Dilli Dilwalo Ki). What amazes me is that there was only one ‘Dildaar Delhi’ among 12,000 entries.

Another thing that gets my goat is the thoroughly bland graphic scheme behind it all. For all the bureaucratic brouhaha, we’ve been stuck with silhouettes of the Qutub Minar and Lotus Temple defining the graphic language of any Delhi related campaign for decades. Or the odd tacky animal (remember Appu and Shera? No? I don’t blame you).

So I took the noble task of giving Dildaar Dilli a facelift upon myself.

Simple really. All it took was a powercut, when I could not be seduced by the pleasures of internet. A couple of sketches and some photoshopping later, I came up with this.

For the unacquainted, this is Dilli written in Hindi, moulded in the outline of a heart. Simple and clean, modifiable into a colour of your liking, readable by the aam aadmi. 

Obvious? Very. It amazes me that no one (that I know of) had the idea of putting Dilli in a Dil. And that after the blitzkrieg of the I <3 NY campaign.

Nifty, IMO.

Is the sarkar reading this?

Like this? Please spread! But please, if you choose to use these logos, keep in mind creative rights and leave credits (to Prayash Giria, i.e., me). Cheers!

Tomb Raider

Long time no write. Well nothing much done to write about, apart from killing my laptop and a frustrated addiction to A Hundred Years of Solitude. Not that I really like the book (its not my cup of tea), but the saga-like nature keeps me hooked.

Also, managed a visit to Humayun’s Tomb, to take photos I’ve taken for years. Then went back home to play around with mirroring effects and voila – I get my most popular upload on facebook and 500px. For all purist photography, it took a simple filter to up my online popularity several notches. Farce-d.

Shahjahanabad Diaries

Four months and fifteen hundred acres later (don’t even get me started on the kilometre count), my Shahjahanabad stint draws to a close. In the past one-hundred-and-twenty days, I’ve -

1. Been branded a threat to national security.

2. Counselled a security guard about a prospective career as a draftsman.

3. Stepped on the poop of atleast six different species of animals.

4. Ignored the advice of horny youngsters to ‘go click photos of the girls school’.

5. Saved myself and my camera from the onslaught of speedy rickshaws.

6. Tried atleast a dozen varieties of Chhole Bhature.

7. Refused the solicitations of a ‘hundred percent genuine antiques dealer’.

8. Ate vegetarian Paneer Tikka at Karim’s.

9. Acquired a sore throat after spending too much time in a market full of dried chilli.

10. Taken 11.3 GB and eight 35 mm rolls worth of photographs.

And many, many more.

What next? Shameless self-marketing, of course!

Presenting Shahjahanabad Diaries. An image compendium of my vision of the walled city. Through its doors. Through its people. Through its animals. Through its lanes. Through its tangled wires. Through its food. Through its shopping. Through its overwhelming existence.

<Click on image, go to the gallery>

(And while you’re at it, click on the ‘<Back’ button at the top-left corner of the browser window. It’ll lead you to my website-in-progress. Once there, browse around and marvel at my self-constructed-magnificence. )

Rural Randoms

Back from Tamkor! Nothing special though, beyond the usual sleep-a-lot, eat-a-lot routine.

Of course, there were welcome diversions:

1. The Tale of Genji, my latest literary discovery kept me engrossed as I spent a fair amount of time romantically perched on a sandy hill, under the shade of sangri tree, pouring over a vivid description of courtly life in 10th century Japan. All fine and good, until I discovered an ant that would have inspired the lust of Bear Grylls freewheeling across my forearm. A hasty retreat later, reading was resumed in the reassuring confines of a regular bedroom.

The Sangri Spot

Searching for Shade

2. Then there were close encounters with the bovine, with my dad dragging me and my nephew to the village gaushala  and feed twenty kilos of gur to nearly fifty hungry cows. It was a scene straight out of a Priyadarshan comic caper, as a horde of cows chased us through the yard and across a low wall into a sheltered enclosure, from where we waged a lonely battle lunging jaggery pieces yonder to dissipate the army of the hungered.

Generals

From the Bunker

3. Stargazing again, thanks to a newly acquired cable release. Sadly, the clouds (and drunk inquisitive villagers) hate my existence, and I end up with measly versions of the grand plans I had for myself.

Lost

Lomo!

Another cause for celebration (the former being the relative success of my last post – none)

Now that I’m the proud owner of a Lomography Sprocket Rocket, expect posts with panoramic film photography.

Obviously, there were teething troubles, like the genial folk at Mahatta & Co, who did an excellent job developing the film, but promptly cut the panorama into two separate photographs. However, they did make for interesting diptychs.

Bridled with amused disappointment, I was forced to try my hand at self scanning the negatives using a flatbed scanner. It did not work, although it did provide interesting results that my friend compared with the first cut of Alam Ara, one of the countries oldest motion pictures.

Finally, in a farce of sorts, the neighbourhood photo studio guy, after some phone calls, confirmed that he would be able to develop the films on a 4X12 photo paper, at a relatively hefty price.

Needless to say, I’m hooked, although how I’ll manage to tug along and juggle between using a DSLR, an analog SLR and a Sprocket will be anybody’s guess.

Also, like always, these images will find their way to metissage, my flickr set for film photography.

None

Compiled in retrospect, ‘none’ is a set (I won’t call it a series just yet) of images that highlight a curious juxtaposition – the emptiness of built facades. Moving beyond my generic fascination with the old and monumental, this collection stresses on everyday locales in thriving cities. Each frame highlights a habitat in elevation, but curiously lacks any inhabitant, despite small signs of life – like slippers, air conditioning and graffiti. Part urban commentary, part timed street photography, here’s hoping that ‘none’ eventually becomes more than it promises to be.

 

Doodle Shmoodle

Back to the usual. Shahjahanabad. This time around I thought I’d try my hand at graphic-izing my limited explorations. A purple fineliner and a green notepad later, I get something of a cross between a Play Clan graphic and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, although twice as sucky in terms of quality. Anyhow, this is my blog after all, so a little bit of self indulgence won’t hurt. However, I can vouch for the fact that if you decipher my linework, you might just be able to use it for that first jaunt into Chandni Chowk. If my doodle did help you navigate yourself around the walled city, then brilliant! Let me know and I will shed a tear in favour of my prodigous skill and your immense kindness.

Of course, if you’re looking for more imagery, then hop on over to my flickr series – Shahjahanabad Diaries.

POSTSCRIPT

Due to relatively positive feedback for the Chandni Chowk doodle, I went ahead and attempted something more ambitious – Calcutta. Not as engaging a result though. However, I shall shamelessly market the same still.

And of course, the mandatory link to the flickr gallery:

Metissage

A lot has already been expounded on, as far as my last trip to Calcutta is concerned. In this concluding post, I leave you with the latest additions to metissage, and an acknowledgement of immense respect for older photography greats who took such brilliant images with such intensive cameras. Even if I were ten times as quick, I still wouldn’t manage the ingenuity of photographers like Raghu Rai.

Calcutta sightseeing. Metissage style.

Street Epic

Cleanse

Doorman

Transit

Dusk

Benign

High Noon

Placid

Metropole

Solitude

And this also came along with the processed images packet. Thats me, taken by myself, on 35 mm film. Nifty, IMO.

What Calour is this City?

The first ever guest piece on Typefarce! By Saptarshi Sanyal – photographer extraordinaire (if he tries to be modest, do not believe him), and my co-walker in my latest trip to Calcutta. I’ll leave it here, all that follows is his brainchild. And, for the record, the navigator in the last paragraph is yours truly. 

If you’re traveling east, the most sought after commodity in India is colour. Coloured places, people and things in Rajasthan, Kerala, Punjab, Delhi, Bihar, and almost everywhere else will form a quintessential rhetoric in your “durch Indien tourt”, “Tour de l’Inde”, “tur til Indien”, and so on.

To me, Calcutta, however, has primarily been a city in black, white and grey. A chicken and egg situation where I saw it as such, made images of it accordingly, and it continued to be so in my mind. This winter, I decided to challenge a part of my own vision and colour this strange and endearing metropolis a little.

In attempting this, I rewound from being a resident here to a visitor again. I started to see something new. Like some eccentric artists – the city is home to some, have decided to apply a brush here and there. Their strokes were ostensibly tentative, as if they were shying away from altering the bleak walls, streets and people. So, their work remained, like Calcutta itself, incomplete only. Unexpectedly, without my realizing it, my much consumed city was reappearing, in ways that I hadn’t seen before.

I live, work and love in Calcutta, with its many contradictions through every day. But strangely, in the anticipation and exhaustion of drudging along still unfamiliar lanes, there will always remain that latent sense of order. And of a peace that only those who are attached to this place would feel, despite its irrevocable languor, struggles and socio-political strangeness.

My walking companion (and navigator) isn’t culturally native here. When I asked why he comes every year, I received an unspecific reply. We were, and not a rail locomotive, huffing and puffing along the tracks of Chakra Rail trying to get to Jagannath Ghat along the Hooghly. At that moment, it was clear to both of us why he hasn’t tired from visiting his City of Joy, in the twenty something years that he has kept coming back. And so will I, and the others who love Calcutta.

Cop and Crow

Spinners

Coolies

Men at Work

The Hollowed House

Chinese Church

Prayer Time (at Nakhoda Masjid)

Minimum

Morning Snooze

Good Morning

Cargo Cop

Regeneration

Siesta

Star Studded Glass

Worldless

Small Steps

News

Walk On

Afternoon

Winter Sun

Wanderlust

Ride

Daylight

Four Men

Flight

Metropole

Of the urbane. Of the squalid. Of the desperate. Of the cultured. Of the spartan. Of the decadent. Of the cramped. Of the expansive. Of the hopeless. Of the resurgent. Of the bustle. Of the serene. Of the vibrant. Of the satiated. Of the hidden. Of the obvious. Of the exceptional. Of the mundane. Of the heady. 

Of existence.

Of Calcutta.

Presenting Metropole. A continuing series on Calcutta. Neither the best, nor even mildly exhaustive, but its a start. Click through to the flickr gallery.