art focus – curated bandra street art walk – st+art mumbai

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Rama Arya

If Bandra’s charm could be codified, I guess this would be it. Cats and silver leaves—collaborative mural by Anpu Varkey (India) and Tika (Switzerland).

So what happens when 20 internationally renowned street artists from all over the world, and two passionate people from Delhi get together and decide to bring the power of art as a medium of creative expression to the streets of India, free and accessible to all? St+art happens.

From the 7th to the 30th, this November, over 30 murals in Mumbai transformed, otherwise drab edifices, into vibrant thought-provoking compositions. Luckily for me, a bulk of them were painted in Bandra, my home in this city. 🙂 Continue reading →

art focus – music and goddess – ranjit makkuni (sacred world)

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Rama Arya

Chants, ragas, notes and sweet melodies from wind, percussion and string instruments play almost simultaneously inside the vast interiors of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. But it is not cacophonic. Rather there is harmony in the eclectic mix. It is more the unusual for me, for it is an effortless amalgamation of technology, music and art, and of the traditional, modern and spiritual, to create a seamless expanse of personal experience. Continue reading →

exploring south bombay’s fort district

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Rama Arya

From behind the everyday commuter traffic swarming through the business district of Fort in South Bombay, peeps out an earlier historical Fort, albeit shyly. I have often been part of that sea of humanity, stealing a hungry glance around me every now and then, to revert back to the trudge forward. And then one day, today, I delved deeper and met the old Fort. 🙂 Continue reading →

art focus – fish in a dead landscape – hema upadhyay

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Rama Arya

As I push open the massive doors of Chemould Prescott Road, a colossal installation titled ‘Moderniznation’ depicting an aerial view of Bombay greets me. Pieces of car-scrap, aluminum sheets and found objects – materials used in the real built elements – spill over the gallery’s walls and floors. Miniaturized green mosque minarets, white church steeples and orange temple sikharas poke their way out of the sea of trampoline and tin squares. I look a little carefully and a cut out of the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar peeps out. Continue reading →

global travel shot: five girls and five emotions in yazd

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One of my favorite travel images. Taken in Yazd, Central Iran in October 2007.

I was at the Ateshkadeh (Zoroastrian fire temple) in the new city when a group of five young girls placed themselves in front of me. Five girls, with five different personalities. Five different emotions. At the same place, same time, same age, validating the richness of human expression and thought.

Clockwise: The imp, the assured, the serious, the shy, the open laughter.

art focus – samiksha (commentary) – shahed pasha

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Rama Arya

Fairies taking away the Books

The fantasy-tical world of Shahed Pasha.

It is a world where millennia old Hindu mythological stories are portrayed in modern contexts in miniature painting style, by a born and bred Muslim, across mammoth canvases. Continue reading →

global travel shot: baobab tree in namibian village

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A centuries old baobab tree in a Namibian village on the banks of the River Chobe, at the confluence of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia.

Africa. It is only those who have traveled to it, who can feel its call.

south bombay’s most beautiful church

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Rama Arya

When I think of churches, I invariably think of Italy and England. Bombay aka Mumbai? Nope. Not at least until I moved to this city.

Bombay has some of the most beautiful churches I have come across. Some grand, others unassuming and humble. And the most beautiful of all I chanced to walk into this weekend – the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Name in Colaba, South Bombay. Continue reading →

why i became a volunteer at daan utsav

Posted on August 19, 2014 by Rama Arya

Last month I became a volunteer at Daan Utsav Mumbai Chapter. Many asked, why? Why not any other NGO? I think it’s because, in an intrinsic way Daan Utsav reflects a core part of me, and in fact of everyone.

I like giving. The material stuff, yes. But more than material things I like giving my time, my effort, my attention, to friends and strangers alike. And that’s what I like receiving the most too. Like everyone else again, I believe. Continue reading →

art focus – selfie – nilesh vede

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Rama Arya

“Nilesh Vede has an incredible ability to translate his thoughts on[to] paper or canvas.”

~ Salman Khan, Bollywood actor

I first saw Nilesh Vede‘s work a month ago at the Jehangir Art Gallery itself, as part of a group showing. And I fell in love with it, instantaneously. During our conversation on vipassana meditation and its translation to art, he invited me to his upcoming solo exhibition ‘Selfie’. It was an invitation I had every intention of accepting. 🙂 Continue reading →