When the weather is dreary and my mood matches it, bright colours are the first thing I turn to, to cheer me up. Mumbai is normally sunny (barring those dull monsoon months) but the last few days have been a weird canvas of colourless insipidity. You can’t get too bright on a day like this.

I met Reena a.k.a. Spitphyre in a writers’ discussion and told her she was quite lovely. Of course, that day she was dressed like the pretty girl that she is. But her sense of colour blew me away during the Wall Project. Move over street artists, bright walls and graffitiers, Reena’s outfit puts everyone to shame.

Even on that already bright day, amidst a street awash with colour, Reena’s yellow tie-dye dungarees teamed with a postbox red tee-shirt were what stood out. If you’re thinking it was just a matter of tossing together some randomly colourful outfits, do check out her footwear – sexy, strappy flat sandals in the same shade of red.

Yellow and red painter girl

Reena doesn’t have a loud voice or an imposing outline; she doesn’t have to! Her outfit itself was one brilliant exclamation point and she so made it work! Check out the matching sunglasses (in a Posh Beckham shows a smile pose).

As I keep saying, it isn’t just the colour or the fit, it’s cattitude that makes I Style! work. Here she is in a ‘don’t I look preggie’ pose. That’s on account of the red (matching again!) wallet tucked into the kangaroo style pocket in the front.

That's my fat wallet, not tummy, you dummy!

Finally, here’s the lady doing a Bangles number on the sidewalk. Need any more proof that she’s I Style!‘s latest star?

Walking like an Egyptian

About two months back, I wrote about the exciting experience of being part of The Wall Project in Mumbai. A BMC initiative, a number of citizens turned out to beautify and place their own mark on the wall running along Tulsi Pipe Road, between Mahim and Matunga Road.

Yesterday, we commenced on Phase II of the drive, this time taking the street art concept to Lower Parel, opposite Phoenix Mills and simultaneously pulling off the cause of education-through-art with The Alphabet Project at the Mahim end of the same road. I was waiting to collate all the photographs that are still appearing across the net, to write the post about it.

Then earlier this evening, we discovered that a different sort of vandalism had happened. Movie posters of Aladin, Canvas and Gair have turned up, pasted over the paintings, less than 24 hours later. I’m rusty on the legalities of these movie advertisements that appear all over the city. All I can say is that Wall Project was a BMC initiative and certainly not meant to be a backdrop for the marketing of Bollywood.

As outrage spreads across Twitter, even as I write, Ritesh Deshmukh and Sujoy Ghosh have been notified and have both issued apologies. But an apology I say, is not enough. It is enough of effort getting past the apathy of citizens to drive forward something like The Wall Project. Asking people to come out of their houses on a Sunday and spend a searingly hot day painting a rough wall for free is not an easy task. So much for the so-called indifference of this city, the numbers of people that turned out are testimony to the fact that Mumbaikers do indeed care. But after such an episode, would a citizen want to take the initiative?

My guess is that this will boil down to #wallproject becoming a popular Twitter topic for a few days; there will be a few media mentions about the outrage of social media users after a citizen drive and a clean-up PR effort with apologies by the people in the limelight. At some level, I expect some poor poster-paster will get yelled at or even lose his job. Is the onus of this to be laid on him? No, I say, the onus of this must be borne by the people who well understand the power of advertising and publicity, the people with the moolah, the people who have the most to gain from publicity, of any sort. Blaming the poster company or the person who put up the posters is not enough; the responsibility lies with the people who gain from the effort of the publicity. I say turn that idea around and make sure that the negative publicity hurts right where it should. Every person who stands to gain from the movies’ good collections holds responsibility for the end result and hence must bear the consequences of such an action.

See the before and after pictures courtesy @wanderblah

ALADIN

CANVAS

GAIR

LONDON DREAMS

If this is our city and its state is our concern, we have the right to stay outraged. I say, boycott the movies Aladin, Canvas, Gair and London Dreams, whose posters vandalize a community drive. Commissioning those posters not only hurts the sentiments of those whose painted walls have been covered, it cocks-a-snook at the Mumbaiker while saying,

To hell with your sensibilities. Advertising my movie is more important. I don’t care if a citizen effort that managed to raise such civic consciousness so successfully, is scuttled.

If you participated in The Wall Project or know someone who did, add value to that effort by passing this message on. If you are a blogger or a Twitter user, re-tweet this, blog about it, link to other posts about this. If you are reading this at all, you probably have access to the internet and a mobile phone. Use them to pass on the message. Spread the outrage, it needs to be felt.

100_2382, originally uploaded by Bombay Addict.

BMC should take this project all over the city to add more color to our wonderful city.
Pic courtesy Bombay Addict.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bombayaddict/sets/72157622534882307/

http://twtpoll.com/97yh4o

http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/none/worlds-greatest-city-50-reasons-why-mumbai-no-1-809212

One of the best compilations, cheers to Kanika Parab and Mansi Poddar who did this for CNN GO.

Barcamp Mumbai 6, originally uploaded by Bombayite.

Where : SP Jain (Andheri W)

When : 11th Oct, Sunday (9.00 am onwards)

Registeration Details & Maps : http://barcampmumbai.org/

Twitter Handle : Barcampmumbai

Celebrating the Spirit of the City, originally uploaded by Bombayite.

Red Bull Racing will create first-ever Formula One experience in Mumbai,

Ace Formula One Driver David Coulthard to drive Red Bull’s Formula One Car on Mumbai’s Bandra-Worli Sea-Link

Where & When : October 11th, 2 pm – Red Bull Speed Link Show Run – Paddock, Before Toll Plaza of Bandra – Worli Sealink, Bandra, Mumbai

Damages: None, Open to all, Free entry, No passes or Registration required.

Just to show up at Bandra Reclamation at 2 PM on Sunday October, 11.

Landmark is having their annual sale! Of course you knew that if you are a book-lover in this city. But did you know that they don’t just have their regular (great!) books on sale but also a load of cool stuff as well? Check out what I picked up for the princely sum of Rs.199. That’s the lovely Dipali who showed me the bag and agreed to model it for I Style! as well.

EcoFrendz is a brand that has retailed bags from Landmark before but I’ve never seen some of these designs on display before. The bag I bought is khaki coloured cloth with a black cloth strap. Now normally, I’d pass off this stuff as being too stereotypical social worker stuff. But look at what’s on the side. It says ‘Let’s go places’ and it even has a real compass hanging down the side! I can see myself carrying this with jeans, salwar-kameezes as well as a skirt!

Now I’m a sucker for toys like that, it’s kitschy, it’s cool without being flamboyant. How’s that for I Style!?!

This is culled from various sources and received via email. Makes interesting reading.

Bandra was a tiny fishing village inhabited by the Koli fishermen. There were also farmers.

It was acquired by the British East India Company even while the rest of Bombay belonged to the Portuguese.

There was a 18 hole golf course in Bandra and it was called Danda Green with an English style Club House on the top of the hill, surrounded by trees. Membership was only for the British who lived in Pali Hill. Each cottage had a stable for horses.

Bandra consisted of villages Sherly, Malla, Rajan, Kantwady, Waroda, Ranwar, Boran and Pali besides Chuim. Ranwar also had a tennis court and the famous Ranwar Club famous for Christmas and New Year eve dances.

Most of the elder of Bandra worked for the East India Company and hence called East Indians. In the Bandra of the forties and before, large cottages with large gardens were available for rent at Rs 30/- a month. Marriages were held with an 8 day celebration from Thursday to Thursday for a Sunday wedding and the whole village was invited.

Read more

Racing ace David Coulthard is going to race down the Mumbai’s most famous landmark, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link on 11th October, 2009 at 2 PM!

Guys from Windchimes are behind the project called ‘Red Bull Speed Link’ where Bombay will be put on the global F1 map.

I’m sure many would want to know whether it will be a real F1 car, It it would be , Do checkout http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLZzevO_oS4 where a similar Red Bull event was held in Peru.

Also. they are organising meetup for F1 Enthusiasts and bloggers on 15th September 2009 to share more details of the event.

Venue: Carter Road Amphitheatre (Opp. Cafe Coffee Day),Bandra.

Time: 7:00 PM

Date: 15th September, 2009. For more dope contact : saahil@windchimes.co.in or 98208 35273

P.s Not sure whether booze or snacks will be served, So please call and speak to Saahil :)

I spotted Neil Dantas at The Wall Project and I just had to stop him to tell him just how I Style! he was!

i am the BEST

Isn’t his tee-shirt absolutely fab? It’s Bambaiyya in a way that nothing else starts to match.For the uninitiated, BEST, an acronym for Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport, runs the Mumbai bus system. Every bus carries the BEST logo in Hindi, in white inside an oval white patch, painted on the side of the bright red bus. It’s one of Mumbai’s most recognizable logos.

The BEST man's tee-shirt

The good news is that Neil is himself a designer and retails his creations from his website. Do drop into his place if you’d like to carry forward his style. Or as I’d like to call it, Neil’s I Style!

Update: The full form of BEST has been corrected (thank you, Peter!). Much apologies for the error; I can only blame it on the 4a.m. posting.

You’ve no doubt by now noticed that the sites got a bit of a re-design and some things got changed around last week. We wanted to highlight two changes to make sure everyone knows what changed.

The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

Love,
The folks at MBHQ

Lalbaugcha Raja 2009, originally uploaded by Bombayite.

Got this via Email Fwd.
Would like to thank the guy who took this pic.

Ganpati Bappa Moraya!!