The philosophy of nonsense. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] ‘Rich Fucks.’ The Delhi Walla saw this calligraphy by an unknown Bhasarian artist in Archbishop Makarios Marg, a road in central Delhi named after the first President of the Republic of Cyprus. It is depicted on the boundary wall of Delhi Golf Club. The wall faces the bungalows of Golf Links, one of the city’s richest neighbourhoods. This is the fourth instance that I have come face-to-face with De Bhasar movement in Delhi. (Click here to view the first exhibit.) According to Wikipedia, De Bhasar or Bhasarism is a cultural movement that began in Nantes, France, during the post 9/11 Gulf War, reaching a tipping point between 2007 to 2009. The movement involves graphic

The philosophy of nonsense. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Three heart-shaped outlines. The Delhi Walla saw these drawings in the Oberoi Hotel flyover. They are depicted on the pillars adjacent to Lodhi Road, which runs through the underside of the flyover. This is the third instance that I have come face-to-face with De Bhasar movement in Delhi. (Click here to view the first exhibit.) According to Wikipedia, De Bhasar or Bhasarism is a cultural movement that began in Nantes, France, during the post 9/11 Gulf War, reaching a tipping point between 2007 to 2009. The movement involves graphic designs and literature, which concentrates its anti-sentimental politics by rejecting aesthetic birth-control measures through anti-catholic works. De Bhasar might be regarded as pro-Berlusconi in nature. “Heart,

The philosophy of nonsense. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] 'Fuckass.' The Delhi Walla saw this calligraphy in the middle circle of N-Block, Connaught Place, Delhi’s colonial-era commercial district. It is depicted on a white paan-stained wall, whose paint is peeling. Immediately below is the anatomical sketch of a woman. This is the second instance that I have come face-to-face with De Bhasar movement in Delhi. (Click here to view the first exhibit.) According to Wikipedia, De Bhasar or Bhasarism is a cultural movement that began in Nantes, France, during the post 9/11 Gulf War, reaching a tipping point between 2007 to 2009. The movement involves graphic designs and literature, which concentrates its anti-sentimental politics by rejecting aesthetic birth-control measures through anti-catholic

The philosophy of nonsense. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] ‘Sangita, I fuck you.’ ‘Your mother’s cunt’. ‘Book a cock.’ The Delhi Walla saw this calligraphy in Connaught Place, Delhi’s colonial-era commercial district. They are depicted in the dusty glass panelled sky roofs of Palika Bazaar parking. The glass pyramids jut out into the park above that is frequented by the jobless, the lovers and the homosexuals. Some panels have sketches of uncircumcised penises, alongside what appeared to be mobile numbers. “So De Bhasar has arrived in Delhi too,” says Peter Schjeldahl, art critic of The New Yorker magazine, by e-mail. According to Wikipedia (if Wikipedia can be accorded to), De Bhasar or Bhasarism is a cultural movement that began in Nantes, France, during the

Signs of our times. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] News flash on a website: 2G:BJP demands probe against PM, PC. The meaning of the cuss word Chutium Sulphate, explained in an online dictionary: “Complete moron, as in, That chutium sulphate can’t drive two feet without blowing his horn.” Slutwalk’s Indianised avatar that took place in Delhi: “Slutwalk athhart Besharmi Morcha.” This is the 21st century sound of Delhi. In the capital of a republic of 122 languages with more than 10,000 speakers (2001 census), we have entered into a new kind of multilingual anarchy, where a colon-dash-bracket on the keypad has become shorthand for a smile. Our conversational language has disintegrated into a mess of jargon, idiom, acronyms, abbreviations, cuss words and symbols. When

Hips and hops. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Twisting the hip. Spinning on the floor. Standing on the head. Freezing into a pose. Legs leaping up. Suddenly, the entire body falling flat with a thud. "Yo, yo." One late monsoon evening The Delhi Walla saw a gang of boys who were B-boying at the underground pedestrian subway in Connaught Place, Delhi’s Colonial-era commercial district. Home to beggars and dope addicts, the subway connecting Wimpy’s to KFC was transformed into a setting straight out of New York, the metropolis where B-boying originated. A part of the hip-hop genre, it’s a street dance that evolved among the New York City’s Afro-American and Latino boys in the 1970s. According to urbandictionary.com, the ‘b’ in the

The artist as ideologue. [Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi] Artist Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1915-78), whose retrospective opened in Delhi on July 11th 2011 was most memorably the illustrator of the Bengal Famine of 1943 in which more than three million people died. But even if he had not wandered with his sketchbook in that starving countryside, occasionally on foot from one village to another, Bhattacharya’s collected drawings, prints and paintings would still be full of feeling. Chitta, as his friends called him, was born in Naihati, West Bengal; his father, a government officer, was an amateur pianist, and his mother a poet. Having spent most of his productive years in Mumbai, his work is diverse and some of it is borne out

An exhibition. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] Flags, according to a Delhi-based novelist, are bits of coloured cloth that governments use to first shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. In an exhibition at the American Center (2 to 30 July, 2011), flags are bits of coloured plastic that corporations use to first seal-wrap people’s junk food and then as trash to be recycled in countries such as India and China. Delhi-based American artist Zachary Becker has married Land O’Lake’s butter with Stars and Stripes, and Parle-G biscuits with the tricolour. In his first exhibition, the 23-year-old artist has used discarded packets of branded tobacco, biscuits, tea, burgers, bacon, nuts and popcorn to make 11 flags. All the represented nations