I know what you mean. I felt exactly the same way about Gurgaon. Sorry, that should be present tense. I feel exactly the same way about Gurgaon. Even though I now live in it. But here's my take on it. The urban sprawl, the gross architecture, the hilarious town planning were the first, some would say, inevitable effects of the 'village in a hurry'. The first step, that first dab of lipstick before the behenji turned mod. She's a long way from mod yet I tell you, but since I've been looking into the property market lately, I've noticed that some of the newer developments aren't as bad as the initial corniness of Hamilton Court and 'Ship building'. Have you seen those? Oh, you must. They have a string of these exclusive apartment complexes - badly planned with a lot of Roman plinths and Greek columns with cheesy Western names like Laburnum Gardens, Oakwood Residency, Hamilton Court and Galleria Shopping Arcade. The Kalkaji mindset, given money and a free hand had gone berserk expressing themselves. It made one sick. But now, after the crude lot have done the hard work of turning it into a metropolis, certain pockets have shown a little restraint. My prediction is that certain cornerstones of Gurgaon - like the Bristol and the Ship Building will fade away into decreptitude while a newer, sleeker township takes over. It's happened all over. You can see it in London in some of the old 70's style shopping malls that nobody goes to. In the States, where they've come to house the more unfashionable brands and in Singapore, which I know better. I can't tell you how often I've come across some sad, flashy building that was once a famous hub around Orchard Road but now hosts houses of ill-repute and Giordano and Bossini outlets.
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Please do not use images from this blog without permission, or, without credit.
D&AD
Patrick Baglee of Navy Blue Design at a D&AD talk, speaking about the Midland books I designed. In another talk they were hailed as some of the finest pieces of design writing.
Midland Books online. More than 150,000 hits.
The Midland books went online a year back. It's now over 150k hits and counting.
Latest Work
Done for the International Coalition of Justice for Bhopal. Click on the image to see the project in detail. This is the launch poster, which has postcards attached to it. You can pick a postcard, if you agree with the message, and post it to the PM. The postcard project will go to schools and colleges and get students to design the postcards. We'll print and sell these postcards to raise funds for the Sambhavna Trust. And get people to post these cards to the PM as well.
Fresh from the press
The latest issue of Outlook covers the Bhopal Project (mentioned above). Click on the logo to read the story in press.
Latest work
Godrej LED Advertising Campaign
Latest work
The Great Indian Clearance Sale is an ideology-free art project. It's an adventure in information. We look at sources of information like Down to Earth, indiatogether.org, infochangeindia.org, Tehelka amongst others, and try to visualize the information in interesting ways.
The Great Indian Clearance Sale on Treehugger
My art project covered in the site I respect the most.
My work in Creative Review.
Click on the logo to see the work.
Work in progress: Think about It. European Blogging Competition.
My illustration portfolio. 2008-2009. Click on the image to view fullscreen.
I am a writer, illustrator, designer. If you have an interesting job for me, please write to munna@munnaontherun.com
Munna on the run on NOTCOT
Munna on the Run on the India Environment Portal
Thoughts on climate change
From Sep 09 - Feb 2009, I blogged about climate change in European Journalism Centre's blogging competition. These are my posts. There was a handsome prize in the first round for me, and then some. But the most amazing thing about the blogging were the debates. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
DIGG environment here.
Join Wildlife SOS India here.
Google Guerrillas
You know you want to become one. So why don't you?
Life according to birds
Unbelievable
Click on the melting glacier to see something that will blow your mind.
RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING LIGHT
House sparrows
The sparrows are dying. They are a measure of the health of our cities. Let's do something to revive the bird's population, and our cities will become better places to live in. All you have to do is feed them. Click on the picture to get inspired.
Birds around us
Anything above 350 is bad
The 2009 Calendar
You can use it, as long as you don't reproduce it. All rights reserved.
1 comments:
I know what you mean. I felt exactly the same way about Gurgaon. Sorry, that should be present tense. I feel exactly the same way about Gurgaon. Even though I now live in it. But here's my take on it. The urban sprawl, the gross architecture, the hilarious town planning were the first, some would say, inevitable effects of the 'village in a hurry'. The first step, that first dab of lipstick before the behenji turned mod. She's a long way from mod yet I tell you, but since I've been looking into the property market lately, I've noticed that some of the newer developments aren't as bad as the initial corniness of Hamilton Court and 'Ship building'. Have you seen those? Oh, you must. They have a string of these exclusive apartment complexes - badly planned with a lot of Roman plinths and Greek columns with cheesy Western names like Laburnum Gardens, Oakwood Residency, Hamilton Court and Galleria Shopping Arcade. The Kalkaji mindset, given money and a free hand had gone berserk expressing themselves. It made one sick. But now, after the crude lot have done the hard work of turning it into a metropolis, certain pockets have shown a little restraint. My prediction is that certain cornerstones of Gurgaon - like the Bristol and the Ship Building will fade away into decreptitude while a newer, sleeker township takes over. It's happened all over. You can see it in London in some of the old 70's style shopping malls that nobody goes to. In the States, where they've come to house the more unfashionable brands and in Singapore, which I know better. I can't tell you how often I've come across some sad, flashy building that was once a famous hub around Orchard Road but now hosts houses of ill-repute and Giordano and Bossini outlets.
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