JabrWoky - Following the white rabbit since...

Incredible India - A Big Psychedelic Mess of Color

The cacophony of India. That feeling of intense chaos that hits your every sense when you land in India. As an Indian (having grown up in India, but living abroad now) this is an old feeling that is elevated to new levels the moment you land back home. The colors explode at you in new ways that you had not seen or experienced before. There is a sense of newness each time. When I was living in the US, I used to tell my friends there that this is what I missed about my homeland.

Recently, reading Kiran Desai's book 'The Inheritance of Loss', this paragraph summed up that feeling in ways which I possibly could not have expressed with my limited writing skills.

It also captures that feeling of 'coming home'. When the vision is unblurred and we all can see clearly.

India Dreamin'

Everybody and anybody out there seems to be set to get their fortunes made on the (not-so-new)dream called India. According to this New York Times article.

On a recent visit to India I had clicked this snap while stuck in traffic on a monsoon day in Kozhikode, Kerala. Somehow the private passenger bus had the words 'dreams' on it. Typically the private operated public buses have their own real names (usually the name of the children of the owner of the bus). This one though was called 'Dreams'. And reading through the NY Times article, adman Suhel Seth's comment seem to fit in well with the image and the sentiment of the times:

"India is like the 'proverbial bus' in today's business world. No one knows where it is going, no one knows whether there is space on it for them - but no one wants to miss that bus."

Black & White

black & white, originally uploaded by dreamilluzion.

White is the color of mourning in India; whereas black is the one in USA.

Mall Count

[Source: Monocle magazine, March 2007]
Library Card via Library Card Generator

Stat Counter: Indian Television Households

There are roughly 105 million homes with televisions in India, up from 88 million in 2000. The current number of television households is about the same as in the United States, though for India that amounts to only about half of the country’s households, compared with 98 percent in the United States.

[Source: The New York Times, Feb 11, 2007]

Stat Counter: 1:8

There is just one cellphone for every eight people in India, compared with more than one for every man, woman and child in Western Europe.

[Source: The New York Times, Feb 13, 2007]

india poised

This is a stunning piece of advertising. When the demise of the TV commercial is much talked about everywhere in the media and advertising marketplace, this 90 seconds commercial is one of the best I've seen from India and captures the state of the nation succinctly. And with Amitabh Bachchan as the narrator it's a short ad masterpiece.

metaphorically speaking

Here's Edward Luce of FT:

Happy Birthday!

On a decaying wall on Albert Street in the Richmond Town neighborhood of Bangalore, India, somebody's taken the extra effort to wish every passer-by a happy birthday.

DYFI

DYFI (Democratic Youth Federation of India) is a student offshoot of the CPI(M) political party in India. Its activists or members are more associated with protests and their anti-liberalization stance.

These were shot in the city of Bangalore in Karnataka, India.