Spotted in India: Recycled Upholstery

While I didn't encounter a lot of evidence of recycling India I did spot these beach loungers in Goa that had been reupholstered with old advertising banners. I'm not sure if this was a very common practice as they were the only chairs that I saw like that out of the hundreds I passed by on the beach.

Spotted in India: Paper not Plastic

Based solely on my observations there India does not seem to have a strong infrastructure for dealing with trash or recycling, but it was nice to see at least that an effort is being made to reduce the use of disposable plastic bags (as evidenced by this sign spotted in Mumbai). Several stores offered inexpensive cloth bags as alternatives and one place even had these nifty bags made from recycled newspaper with a hand stenciled logo on them. Each one was unique and surprisingly sturdy.

Spotted in India: Indo-Pak Peace Project

I arrived in India on New Year's Day and was pleasantly surprised to learn about Aman Ki Asha, a new Indian Pakistani peace project initiated by The Times of India and the Jang Group. I spotted these giant signs in Mumbai and saw this entertaining ad on the local TV...

Spotted in India: Point Blank School Zone

A good majority of the street signs I encountered in India had accompanying advertising.

I found this one in Hampi particularly creepy since the juxtaposition of language and image made me think of school shootings (perhaps something that is not as common in India as it is here).

There were also a series of signs across bridges in Goa reminded people to wear helmets, not drink and drive, go the speed limit, and not use cell phones while driving, which appropriately enough were sponsored by a phone company.

Spotted in India: Beyond Billboards

I recently spent two weeks in India, specifically parts of Goa, Hampi, and Mumbai. The majority of the areas I stayed in though were smaller villages and towns and one of the first things I noticed was that the only places that were recently painted were buildings (often small businesses) that were entirely covered in advertising. Considering how rundown the majority of the buildings were, I could see the appeal in a free paint job, even though in most cases the ad overwhelmed any other signage for what the building contained (and was usually completely unrelated). Interestingly when the ads were no longer under contract in many cases the words and logos were just obscured enough to make them illegible, but the main components of the design remained (sorry I didn't manage to photograph any of theses, they were actually quite visually intriguing).