At The Edge

Took these photographs of Jugaad at some place near Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh, India) on my way back from a trip to Rishikesh. These vehicles are quite popular - maybe nothing short of a legend - in rural northern India. A Jugaad can cost around Rs. 40,000 ( that's less than US$1,000) and it can run up to a speed of 40 km/h.  A proud owner. Man and the Machine. Firing up the engine!  The engine is actually a simple water pumpset that runs on diesel. This engine fitted onto a simple chassis and a basic body can average about Rs 25 per liter of diesel. And it can carry a lot of luggage. Notice the awesome front lights. Now, that's a true Jugaad for how to waterproof headlights without glass. Lot of space in there. Can transport men and material and woman. In India, Jugaad is cool colloquial term that translates to "ingenious, out of box thinking, great but-maybe- -temporary fix that will do for now till we find another Jugaad" and much more

A friend of mine suggested this brilliant track called 'Berlin Bombay' by a German (he said it's 'ambient music') band Schiller . I checked it out at Youtube and the music certainly sounds very 'Bombay'. Here's the live version of the track (performed in 2006) from their year 2005 album Tag Und Nacht (Day And Night). Video link You can check out some more of this band's awesome music at: Their official website Their Youtube channel Schiller or Their Myspace page

In which Mickey Mouse drove his steam boat up the Ganges and arrived at the big green gate of Haridwar. After his many splendid adventures (including the oft-told one in which Mickey ji stole the lower jaw of a great demon named A sura and the one, often narrated to young children, in which he carried his injured Indian elephant friend on the back), many years late, good natives, as a mark of respect, inducted his image (taken from a private picnic album) in their great galley of great gods. -0- Didn't I say Haridwar is like Disneyland !

Window and the Sky. Took this photograph towards the end of May. -0- Since last few weeks, there's hardly any cloud in the sky. Sun is melting tar off the roads. It sticks to the sole. Monsoon is late. A bird living nearby has gone mad, everyday, sharp at 2:30 in the sharp afternoon, it starts chirping mad. It's not koel. Delusion. Cuckoo. Not even a cursory dust storm greets it in the evening. I saw an old woman walk straight, face first, into the cold glass wall of a cool mall. Disorientation. It broke her beak. I yay ya suku suku . -0- I am seeing a rise in queries leading to that old rain song: 'Allah Megh De'. Call it summer effect. I am again listening to ' Lapak jhapak tu aa re badarwa ' from Boot Polish (1954). Classic. [ watch] . Yes, it's a funny song. Just wait for the song to end and for the rains to start. It turns tragic. I am looking at photographs of rain clouds and then their video . I am gazing at Bollywood water fairies

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad , Illustrated pocket classic Found this buried in a corner of my old bookshelf. Published in India but the art is definitely not Indian (except maybe the cover).

Emblem of V. Shantaram 's studio 'Rajkamal Kalamandir' that opened in 1943. Sequence is from his famous film 'Do Aankhen Barah Haath' (1957)  video link V. Shantaram left Prabhat Film Company in 1942 and started Rajkamal Studios, where his maiden venture was Shakuntala which was screened at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1947. Read more about the studio and V.Shantaram in an old article from The Hindu

Collage created using Picasa. Jane Russell in a promotional still from The Outlaw (1943) and a poster of Madhubala

Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore , 1905

"Pure, mild LUX- beauty soap of the film stars"

'Mother and Child' (1949) by K K Hebbar (1912-1996) - Again stopped to look at this painting while browsing through June 2000 issue of Gentleman Magazine.

The Sixties belonged to Hindi film heroines, cover girls such as Mala Sinha and Meena Kumari, who smiled demurely from cracker boxes, the very image of the bharatiya nari. In the ’70s, they were replaced by Rekha, Mumtaz, Yogita Bali and popular south Indian actresses. The imagery too changed from the chubby-cheeked kids and goddesses of the ’50s and ’60s. Cracker labels now looked more like film posters. The quality was crude, mostly hand-drawn and the packaging was poor in quality. The ’80s and ’90s brought bikini-clad Westernised heroines to Hindi cinema. Thus, we see Zeenat Aman and Mandakini on cracker boxes of “atom bombs”, pun entirely intended. The “bomb” had clear sexual overtones. One marked distinction remained. The phooljhari packet labels which are mostly used by younger kids still carry images of the mother and child or an angelic girl. Other crackers like rockets and bullet-bombs, which are of fairly high intensity have “sex bomb” images of these popular heroines draped

'Light of India, A Conflagration of Indian Matchbox Art' by Warren Dotz (2007), has more than 300 vintage matchbox labels from India, some of them dating back to the turn of the century. I was browsing through a preview of this colorful book at Google book and here are some of the images that I liked: I was particularly fascinated by this image of 'Flying Rani'. The book lists it as  Kamdhenu or the divine 'Wish fulfilling  Cow'. I was fascinated because the iconography of this seemingly Hindu image is quite similar to the South-Asian iconography of Burraq , celestial horse-like creature of Muslim lore that carried Prophet Muhammad to paradise. While one has the body of a flying cow and other has the body of a flying horse, both have the face of a beautiful woman. Image of Burraq(right) via: alif-india.com About the image used in the cover of the book: the scene probably depicts the Vaishnav tale about the tug of war between elephant Gajendra an

June 2009 Estd.1920 Rikhi Ram Musical Instruments MFG.Co The famous music shop at Connaught Place, New Delhi. I had mentioned this shop in my post about George Harrison's Kashmir visit. In July 1966, The Beatles arrived at Delhi, it was The Fab Four's first, albeit brief, visit to India. During this trip George Harrison famously bought a Sitar from the Rikhi Ram music store at Cannaught Place. On the wall of this fine shop can still be found some great B&W photographs of 'When The Beatles visited the shop'. Interestingly, the British started constructing Cannaught Place only in 1929 (name comes from the title of third son of Queen Victoria ) and the work was completed in 1933; but the shop sign say's ' Established 1920'.  In 1920, a music shop was set up in Lahore by Pandit Rikhi Ram and after partition, in 1948, he moved this very shop to Cannaught Place Delhi.

Hang in there Brahma  ji! O, you have a white swan! My friend here has a black Thunderbird. On weekends you can't easily get out of Rishikesh. The Traffic is terrible. The Jam starts just as one leaves Rishikesh and you are out of it only when driving well past Haridwar. That means eat fumes for five hours. Once we were inside the city, to avoid the traffic, my friend drove the bike down the by-lanes of the city. Took these photographs using his fancy Sony Ericsson Mobile while we got stuck on a road right next to a fancy temple that can offer to send the devotee back to the stony great Sat Yug .  Blow Horn Please!  O yes! Also always remember to buy those long lasting Alkaline batteries well before you even pick the travel destination because once there, the destination will always sell you genuine, same priced 'Made-in-China' stuff that won't even power up a fancy 'Made-in-China' pocket radio. That makes me feel really good about myself.   Grea

Image: Google remembering Tetris Sputnik burned up in the atmosphere, Berlin is now one city, but 25 years later, the Soviet-designed Tetris remains one of the most popular and ubiquitous video games ever created. It has sold over 125 million copies, been released for nearly every video-game platform of the past two decades and even been played on the side of a skyscraper. Yet creator Alexey Pajitnov almost never saw a ruble for his creation. Check the complete story at Time And I remember my Little Master (2) 8 bit game console from Media on which I played Tetris for hours and weeks. Tetris was one of the games that came in with 500-in-1 game cartridge, a complimentary cartridge   that actually had only 5 games, other games included were Mario (what good game cartridge would come without a version of the mad hopping plumber who loves mushrooms and a princess), Duck Hunt ( to play you needed to have that stupid gun not included free in the game console pack), Battle Tank and Galaxy

A local god from Jammu region of the state Jammu & Kashmir.

Photograph: Roadside vendor selling water. June 5, 2009 I was around 16 years old when I first visited Delhi. I was a tourist, even took that guided tour bus ride that takes you to all the best spots (as listed on the brochure) in 5 hours flat, lunch excluded. It was during this trip that, for the first time, I saw a man working that mini-hand pump, drawing water from an invisible tank, and filling a glass. I learnt Delhi has roadside vendors who sell water for 50p/Rs.1 a glass. I was amused. -0- A couple of years ago, after moving to the Capital region, one late night, I injured my fingers, broke some nails, got a sore thumb, all while tying to open the air tight seal of my first ever can of bubble top 'Bisleri'. There is no looking back. I could have fared better at the finger numbing task, but I was distracted, I kept remembering the line ' Your maternal great grandmother was born in a house that had a small brook flowing right in the front yard.' If that wasn&

Atlas Bicycles Vintage Bicycle Poster (1971)  Artist: Shree Des Raj Found it at the Vintage poster galley at sellwoodcycle.com Do check out their awesome galley having vintage posters of bicycle brands from around the world. The posters are from the book "100 Years of Bicycle Posters" by Jack Rennert (1973).

"A man in my village got made a talaab that cost him two Crore rupiya. " And a dark man, mid-thirties, with pencil thin mustache, cycled right next to the cycle-rickshaw I was being driven in. "2 Crore!" It was a terribly hot dusty day and the time was well past four. Sometimes people just want to talk. He was talking to me. I thought he said something about taala . A lock that costs two Crore! "Why?" The man put his arm on the iron side-rest of the rickshaw and told me about the rich man of his village who order made a lake completed at the cost of Rs. 2 Crore and *** Lakh. Once complete, the rich man then donated the talaab to the villagers. "You see he was doing it all for his son who had no children. And lo! A year later his son got two boys! Blessing of all the villages worked for him. One must give. It's important. Money it goes around. Even one rupee. May be I have something to do with that one rupee." "Yes, it goes ar

An old cartoon by Mario Miranda on the world of ad Jingle makers from 'Playback and Fast Forward' Magazine, November 1987 [Dug this up from Internet Archive: Wayback Machine ]

Billoo Badshah Presents Dard-e-Dil Shayari SMS Published by Diamond Pocket Books (P) Ltd. Found this masterpiece via Google Books A quick search revealed that they have also published similar other illustrious works like Mazedar Shayari SMS, Mahakati Shayari SMS and Shamiley SMS. Sample these lines (and illustration) from the book: