The Bicycle Project | Old Books & Beer

Another Cool Event for a cause organized by The Bombay Elektrik Projekt - India's leading alternative nightlife entertainment solutions company.

[See Below for Details]

Cafe Goa

Agnelo House, Off St John Baptist Road, Near Mount Mary Steps, Bandra (West)

Mumbai (Bombay), India

Old Books want New Readers.

You have a stockpile of them at home.

They are falling off the shelf. Begging to be read.

Now do something about them.

We give you a cause, you bring your books. We display them, so others who love books will buy them. Then we all have beer.
...
The Cause: Proceeds from the sales go to charity.

THE BICYCLE PROJECT - Let your old bicycle help a poor village kid get to school

A brief about The Bicycle Project

Known by the very simple and easy to recall name of The Bicycle Project, this charity initiative took birth just outside Mumbai city, the financial metropolitan capital of India. The brainchild of three individuals: businessman Hemant Chhabra, his ex-teacher wife Sangeeta and their journalist friend Simona Terron; the project addresses rural neglect with the approach of recycling urban waste.

We have started off with refurbishing bicycles that are unused and lie rusting in the city and giving them to school-going tribal children who need to traverse long distances to get to school from their remote villages.
The project eventually aims at expanding to old computers, disused books and other items in the future.

Through a blog (www.thebicycleproject.blogspot.com), an upcoming website (www.thebicycleproject.in) and networking sites like Facebook (http://goo.gl/GfdQ), Orkut (http://goo.gl/o3Wg) and cyclists.in, the project has managed to appoint collection centres where the bikes can be dropped off, and regularly organises quirky events to garner awareness about how this simple act of giving away something you don’t want, can change lives of people who don’t want much but need all the help they can get.

Please drop your books off with us by Friday the 27th, 2010 latest so we can catalog them and share the list on Facebook. Pick the address most convenient for you or mail us at obb@bombayelektrik.com with your details and when we can come and pick up your books.


Churchgate-Bandra :
Sudeip Nair - 98209 98790

Andheri - Borivili :
Sushil Cherian - 96198 04020
Kenneth Lobo - 98197 03271


Mulund :
Pramod Sippy - 9819871676

Central suburbs:
Rajeesh Marar - 9987945957

PUBLIC NOTICE 3 | Jitish Kallat at ARTIC

'PUBLIC NOTICE 3'
ON THE ART INSTITUTE’S GRAND STAIRCASE
September 11, 2010 through January 2, 2011


Public Notice 3, a site-specific installation, brings together two key historical moments: the first Parliament of the World’s Religions, opening on September 11, 1893, in what is now the museum’s Fullerton Hall, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 108 years later, on that very date.

In 1893, during the World's Columbian Exposition, the museum's building served as the site of one of the most important gatherings in the history of modern religion, the first World’s Parliament of Religions. One of the opening speakers was a young Hindu monk from India, Swami Vivekananda, who stunned and enthralled the audience of 7,000 with an address that opened one of the first dialogues between Eastern and Western traditions and, importantly, argued passionately for universalism and religious tolerance. Exactly 108 years before the attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, Swami Vivekananda called for an end to all “bigotry and fanaticism” and pleaded for brotherhood across all faiths, a speech that was met with a standing ovation and was heralded by journalists as one of the pivotal moments of the Exposition. (Even today, the stretch of Michigan Avenue in front of the Art Institute is the honorary “Swami Vivekananda Way.”)

Kallat has chosen this historical event as the basis and site for his monumental installation. For Public Notice 3, Kallat will convert the complete text of Vivekananda’s inspiring speech into LED displays on each of the 118 risers of the museum’s Woman’s Board Grand Staircase, which is itself adjacent to what is now Fullerton Hall, where Vivekananda made his original presentation. Drawing attention to the great chasm between this plea for tolerance of 1893 and the very different events of September 11, 2001, the text of the speech will be displayed in the five colors of the United States’ Department of Homeland Security alert system—red, orange, yellow, blue, and green.

This historical coincidence—and the fact that the speech was delivered at the earliest attempt to create a global dialogue of faiths—heightens the potency of Vivekananda’s persuasive words. The resulting work, Public Notice 3, creates a trenchant commentary on the evolution, or devolution, of religious tolerance across the 20th and 21st centuries. The installation will serve not as a passive commemorative act but rather as an actively contemplative space.

Shaa'ir + Func | Indian Electronica Band

Arguably the most commercially successful indie bands in India right now, Shaa’ir + func are certainly on their way to being the most prolific. Formed officially in 2007, Shaa’ir + func, commonly known as S+F, have already garnered recognition as VH1’s top emerging artists of 2007, best independent artists of 2008 (VH1), nominations from the AVIMA foundation as Best Dance Act in South-East Asia in 2009, and recognition from the Jack Daniel Rock Awards for best female front-woman of a band.

In three years, whilst actively touring throughout India, the UK, and the East coast of the US, S+F wrote and released two commercially successful albums, New Day: The Love Album, and Light Tribe, and are currently in the final mixing stages of their third record, Mantis due to release this March. Their music includes a heavy dose of experimentation within the popular and cutting edge genres of dance/electronic/and rock music, while retaining a world pop accessibility.

Photographing in Rawalpindi | Ferenc Berko

The photo as it appeared in Life magazine, Mar 22, 1954

the text:
“While passing through the bazaar at Rawalpindi, last stop on his trip from Bombay to Kashmir, India, Photographer Ferenc Berko glimpsed the shop front window shown above. Since all perceptive photographers cut their eyeteeth on the unusual, Berko risked missing his bus to rush back for a second look. He discovered the huge red-and-white grins were not gigantic elephant traps but merely papier-mache blow-ups put there to lure bazaar customers into buying normal-sized dental plates within. Photographer Berko snapped the store teeth, got back to the bus station just by the skin of his own.

Renukaji in Delhi's taps | Documentary

Director: Kurush Canteenwala
Duration: 32 minutes

Kurush Canteenwalla’s documentary made as part of the Infochange Media Fellowship 2009 starts in thirsty Delhi and travels to the lush, green Renuka valley in Himachal Pradesh where families in 17 panchayats will be thrown off their fertile picture-postcard land to make way for the Renuka dam that will supply water to Delhi. Those living in the area –mostly farmers - point to the many crops they grow and from which they make a decent living, and ask what they can do and where they can go when their land is taken away. The documentary highlights the powerlessness of ordinary people in a democracy and skewed city development that has destroyed Delhi’s own water resources and causes it to prey on the resources of people 300 miles away.

Lingam | Amarnath Holy Caves

MASI's real masi (aunty) recently went traveling up North in India - JAMMU & KASHMIR for a pilgrimage trip to Amarnath and she is back with some beautiful memories of her travel experience with: the gigantic snow clad mountains, tents, nature, & Lord Shiva.

Situated in a narrow gorge at the farther end of the Lidder Valley, Amarnath Holy Cave stands at 3,888 mtrs. and is 363 kms.

Lingam from Abhinit Khanna on Vimeo.

The Amarnath caves (अमरनाथ गुफा) are one of the most famous shrines in Hinduism, dedicated to the god Shiva, located in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The shrine is claimed to be over 5,000 years old and forms an important part of Hindu mythology. The cave where Shiva explained the secret of life and eternity to his divine consort Parvati

Inside the main Amarnath cave lies an ice stalagmite resembling the Shiva Linga, which waxes during May to August and gradually wanes thereafter.