This image was taken in an anonymous warehouse that you had to enter through a backdoor…

The ‘loot’ comes from everywhere, each store has its own network spread across the country and outside (you would find stuff from Sri Lanka, parts of Africa…)…

Obviously, photography is not allowed. However, a few gentle words helped break into their world.

As I started digging into the history of the place, I found that the Wikipedia entry about the place itself had been hijacked! An excerpt below :-

Chor Bazaar is an area in South Mumbai famous for its second-hand goods. Although the name Chor means “thief” in Hindi. This area can be considered one of the tourist attractions of Mumbai (Bombay). It is a basically an “organized” flea market, where one has to rumage through junk and hopefully find treasures. The reason it is know as “thief’s market”, is because it assumed that goods sold there are stolen. Chor Bazaar if off the beaten path, but everyone knows about it.

In addition, the name Chor Bazaar was adopted by an Indie Indian Fused tshirt label based out of Brooklyn, NY with roots in, India. link title

Our designs are meant not just to be “cool” but to evoke memories of experiencing India, the India that our parents were raised in and the one that exists today. Both are far different but both are still very Indian.

Our mission is to expand the Indian-fusion art form to another realm. Most have experienced this, “fusion”, in music and literature but have hardly seen this transpire into urban apparel. We utilize the medium of our graphic t-shirts to assist in creating an identity that stems farther than mainstream’s portrayal of Indian culture.

Dang!

The dream moved through time, space, and his life. Somehow I always knew the age. It was as if I was viewing his life through a camera’s viewfinder, instead of the aperture and shutter speed, I saw his age and other parameters overlaid on the happenings. In one of the pieces, there was the fragile looking disgruntled seventy year old man wirelessly hooked to the cloud, sitting on the roof of a house in Goa. His internal biological processes closely monitored by an anonymous call center employee, one whose job is to alert Des, his family and the doctors about any fluctuations in his internals.

That piece of puzzle was an exact fit with a particular event from when he was sixteen, a fateful day when he found himself fascinated by the supernatural tolerance of the himalayan yogis and the naga babas, who would completely dip themselves butt-naked every morning in the freezing water of the Ganges, and yet remain untouched by any malaise. That puzzlement sat adjacent to the piece of time later when he would practice the act on his own body through a freezing cold winter, eventually falling terribly sick and sowing seeds for years of corticosteroid dependence that would slowly eat through his body, causing him to be easily infected by any random germ floating through the wind. In this specific instance, the canvas even revealed how the flu virus traveled through the burritos cooked by his girlfriend, make their way into his blood stream, and then make him suffer and moan in pain at their will, through two largely sleepless nights of delirium, juxtaposed perfectly with the day when he’s supposed to move, for maximum effect.

I could also see him listening intently to the tales narrated by his grandfather about strange exotic lands, the seven year old child trying to piece together a scene through fragments of his tales and an atlas, the very places he would visit later in life, make acqaintances and absorb influences that would make him shift careers multiple times.

The yellow canvas was full of interconnected shapes — photography causing massive dents in his pockets in his late thirties, an expensive hobby acquired purely due to provocative images of women on photography magazines; three failed film projects which could have been something had he finished them in time, second phase of vagabondish wanderings that would deeply influence his tummy. Everything was in there, or so I felt at that time. And, of what I knew of Des, it all made sense. He tried to be everything, and thus ended up being nothing, an irony that would make him laugh on his deathbed.

I have forgotten most of the details by now, but I do remember how it all came together, a blank canvas with images and words popping up; all I need to do is to get a chart large enough, write out all the parameters that have come to define his existence, and then extrapolate. Life’s not that hard to figure out actually… once you get a flu.

The city already functions like a living breathing organism here, its individual cells in a constant biological exchange through squeezed local train commutes, its sweat and blood flowing through water, food and everything else. When the world population would have doubled in the next fifty years, more than 75% of the planet would probably be living in one for of slum or another, clustered together in highly optimal rectangular or hexagonal spaces, constantly involved in an ongoing battle for real estate against the corporates and the elite. It would then be the perfect breeding ground for newer and more evolved forms of parasites, spreading unchecked from one human-body-test-tube to another.

The fact is, its immaterial however many hours of research and innovation medical world puts in, we are simply outnumbered. The human intellect cannot win this battle against the microbes; its statistically impossible. That we are doomed to a sick fate (yes, pun intended), is of no doubt in my mind. All we can do, is to wait for the explosion and count our days.

The only hope, of course, is space. If we can simply ‘eject’ out of this ship called Planet Earth, jettison out into the cleaner space, I feel there might be hope for survival. Perhaps the space-race would yield some results in another twenty years; and if that happens, I would be the first one to take up the job of a bartender in the Virgin Galactic’s space hotel, just to escape this battle for earth conquest between the humans and the germs.

Amen.

Yet the most cliched question comes to mind - what would the city look like in fifty or hundred years. Would it be the future glam-town sketched by the candy-bar film Love Story 2050 (I haven’t seen the film, the trailer was sufficient)? Or a true-to-life depiction of bleak futures painted by many a sci-fi storyteller (such as Asimov in his ‘The Caves of Steel’, or even Bladerunner), a marked (walled) division is seen between ever growing ’slum communities’ and China-like SEZs (Special Economic Zones - such as Schenzen) with access-denied written everywhere?

A year ago, I saw a remarkable exhibition in Tate Modern (London) called Global Cities:

Global Cities looks at the changing faces of ten dynamic international cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Exploring each city through five thematic lenses – speed, size, density, diversity and form – the exhibition draws on data originally assembled for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2006 Venice Biennale. This unique show presents existing films, videos and photographs by more than 20 artists and architects to offer subjective and intimate interpretations of urban conditions in all ten cities.

One of the art installations was 3D stalagmite-like sculptures that mapped the wealth distribution in each of the above cities. Of all, Mumbai had a few spikes that towered above and beyond any of the others, making the vast difference in wealth distribution even more apparent.

But is the ‘flatness’ desirable? I wonder. In his rapidly growing photo portfolio, my photographer friend Matti tries to capture what a friend called, the ‘post-apocalyptic Mumbai series’. Through a combination of retouched HDR photography done through in duotones, he captures the essence of its madness, the chaos that is impossible in economically ‘flat’ zones.

More on his flickr page here. Ok, time for a stroll.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Sharp new images received Saturday from the Phoenix lander largely convinced scientists that the spacecraft’s thrusters had uncovered a large patch of ice just below the Martian surface, team members said.

That bodes well for the mission’s main goal of digging for ice that can be tested for evidence of organic compounds that are the chemical building blocks of life.

More here…

However, apart from the outstanding narrative, the film had some superb techniques that helped recreate the drama and intensity of a war-torn nation with minimal depiction of battle sequences.

Claustrophobic setting: through complete lack of natural light, extreme use of ‘white’ light, contrast and shadows, it creates a feeling of suffocating claustrophobia in the viewer’s mind. The long shots go only as far as a section of a bunker would allow, and the camera shake that follows shells dropping overground (almost like an earthquake), create an atmosphere of captivity, where every single and rare outdoor shot almost comes as a relief. Seen through the POV of the characters, the bunker is safe, and the outside dangerous (due to constant shells dropping from an invisible aggressor). Yet, the moment a character steps outside the bunker door, it gives a fleeting sense of relief from the oppressive interiors, but one that can only last a few seconds due to the constant danger of sudden death from a bullet or a shell.

Switching from Handheld to Steady: there are moments in the film where a soldier, running through dangers of battlefield, steps into the safety of the bunker from outside, after having escaped an attack. One can see how well crafted the camera work is, when one observes the transition from a jittery handheld shot with sudden shakes, to a more stable frame. This transition is carried through several cuts without any sudden jump. Psychologically, the timing of this transition is perfect and highly believable, thus effectively enhancing the reality of the film.

Hidden enemy: not once is the enemy shown in the film (until at the very end). From the POV of those inside the bunker, that’s exactly how it must have felt, and so the technique works really well. Even when the characters commit suicide, it is unknown to them whether a world without ‘National Socialism’ is worth living in. ‘The Führer’ who emphasizes his hatred for the decadent ‘Western Democracy’ reaffirms their faith in the idealistic portrait of Germany they had painted in their head, thus enhancing the sense of tragic irony throughout the film.

Juxtaposition: even as the camera moves from a closeup of Hitler’s constantly trembling left hand (he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease) to the sudden bursts of anger at the inefficiency and betrayal of his troops and generals, the constant state of unpredictability is maintained throughout the film. There are some superb juxtapositions in the film, specially around the time when Hitler decides to commit suicide. The film moves from shots of his Generals guarding the door as he makes preparations to swallow poison and shoot himself immediately after (along with Eva Braun), to those of kids who feel a sense of safety inside the bunker, to those of careless soldiers awaiting an inevitable end, drunk and merry, to those of his close associates who feel that their commander deserted them at the time of need. These juxtapositions are seen throughout the film, always creating multiple opposing voices in the narrative.

Minimal debate & dialogue: a film that’s based on a period of defeat has much possibility to depict the sense of constant doubt and irony in the minds of its characters. Yet there is minimal usage of dialogue throughout the film, subtly depicting the doubt through sudden outbursts when the characters are forced to make a decision, or take an action. Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge constantly shuffles from a sense of internal doubt about the entire movement and her faith on the leader is repeatedly tested. Yet, it is through her final conversation with Eva Braun that her doubt is actually revealed (’…yet he says such brutal things sometimes’). Rest of the time, it is through superb acting that the viewer understands the complex nature of her allegience to Hitler.

Apart from the above, the characterization of its nearly all characters is superb, easily distinguishing them from each other and giving them their independent opinion through some very key dialogues.

Highly recommended (with repeat viewing… if possible).

The following is one of the many incredible images displayed on his site, all of which are an absolute must-see. What you see below is not an oil painting. It depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

See more of his work here.