Local Train Signage

Crudely painted stenciled signage from the relatively new Mumbai local trains. The 'Alarm' sign inside the compartment is pretty legible, but do the same in Marathi, and suddenly it is more difficult to read especially because it's partly scratched off.

I can figure out the first and last word, it says apatkaleen (something) uplabdh. Then the arrow points to the footboard of the compartment door. A real puzzle, typical of the Indian government or should I say Railway authorities. I can guess it means 'In case of emergency (aapatkaleen) use this (uplabdh)' then the arrow pointing to the footboard. God only knows what it's supposed to point to.

It's an excellent example of the typical contradictions you face everyday in Bombay. The new trains have this cool new speaker system which announces the nearest station in three languages, and at the same time the emergency help services and signage are at this level.

Stray Factory

Check out the logo I've designed for Stray Factory. They're an entertainment collective, who're into a lot of awesome projects, a majority of which are contemporary theater experiments in Chennai.

Want to see more? Check out this poster for a play called Dystopia

Update: Stray Factory and Indiblogger are hosting The Great Indian Blogologues to take blogs onto the theater stage for the first time ever. Any post of yours, be it a rant or a rave will be converted into a performance if you win! > Stray Factory is also in the press here.

Signage from China

It's been a while since my China trip, but I felt these pictures were worthy of a post:

Found in a cave, this either means 'caution slippery' or 'tilting ground beware' :P

If it's on fire, please not to use elevator:

Mind your head (Clear Version):

Mind your Head (weird version):

Found Art: Entrance/Door

There are a lot of old Tamil and French houses in Pondicherry. Some of the houses have an interesting fusion of Tamil and french architecture. For example, one house I had lived in for about two weeks when I first landed up in Pondy has a ground floor in Tamil style, with a large central courtyard et al, and the first floor in French style with a ballroom to entertain French guests. It was owned by an Indian beurocrat in the days when Pondy was a French Colony. A lot of these houses are in the prime areas right next to the beach. They are taken up and redone as guesthouses and cafe's and restaurants, and they flourish because of all the tourists coming in, or at least, I think they flourish. Anyway, this is a photograph of one such place. This beautiful house has been bought up by a kitchen company!

It was weird, we were walking by and from the outside, we thought it was probably a cafe so we walked in. Instead, its been converted into a store to sell kitchen appliances. It was strange and uncomfortable for some reason, the mismatch between the old house and the commercial kitchen company.

Detail: A beautiful door knob at the entrance -