n the early 1930’s, a little boy named Pheeko would wait for a traveling fakir to stop by his home village of Kotla Sultan Singh and follow him on his rounds, imitating his chants as they went along. Later, living in the cultural and film hub of Lahore, Pheeko hummed songs during work at a relative’s barber shop. Customers noticed his talent – as did his brother, who arranged for Pheeko to train under Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan in the face of immense opposition from their father.

Pheeko grew up to be Mohammed Rafi, the king of playback singing in India. Pheeko has nearly five thousand songs to his credit across a range of genres (including romantic ballads, rock and roll, and classical music) and languages (including Hindi, English, Arabic, Persian, Sinhalese, Creole, and Dutch).

The dreamy romance of ‘Chaudhvi ka Chand’ won Rafi his first Filmfare award in 1960, to be followed by five more. In 1977 he was awarded the National Award for ‘Kya Hua Tera Wada.’ He was feted by the Indian government with the Padma Shri in 1967.

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Born on this day in 1944 to a family of musicians, Lachhu Maharaj (born as Lakshmi Narayan Singh), was one of the most celebrated tabla players of his time. Maharaj trained under his father,

Vasudev Maharaj, and started performing at an early age. As a child, his gifts caught the attention oflegendary tabla player Ahmed Jaan Thirakwa, who was deeply impressed by Maharaj’s performance at just eight years old.

Lachhu Maharaj was best known for his inherent sense of rhythm which was best exemplified in his solo performances. Even though he played alongside nearly all the greatest tabla players of his time,

his solo performance are the most remembered. Girija Devi, whom he often collaborated with, claimed that “he would play for hours without repeating himself, new gats, tukras and

parans, leaving his audiences awestruck.”

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I recently volunteered to take a tour around Dharavi, One of the largest slum in the world and portray the small scale industries around in a positive light and also explain how Reality Gives helps as an NGO to empower people in the area with better educational facilities and employment schemes. For an initiative called india starts with I. 
Reality Gives is the sister organisation of ethically run tour company, Reality Tours & Travel. Reality Tours was created in 2005 by Krishna Pujari and Chris Way, with the main objective to show the positive side of slums and to break down negative stereotypes about its residents, and Dharavi in particular. 
After discussing the community's needs with its residents, in 2007 Reality Tours set up a Community Centre in Dharavi to provide English and computer classes, using tour revenues and as Reality Tours grew, the founders decided to expand on their social work. In August 2009, the NGO Reality Gives was born. 
Reality Gives was formed with the view of getting involved in education, a focus driven through consultation with residents of Dharavi, who felt this was the area where they most needed help. The vision and mission statement hence evolved from that as well as from our experiences meeting people and organisations in the education sector.

Since it's inception Reality has worked close with established and esteemed organisations to ensure the opportunities it provides are of the highest standard, which has seen educational non-profit Muktangan and organisational development consultant ATMA providing vital support.

Brick gym is one of the leading fitness chains in the US of A, BBDO NY comissioned us to create a

series of fitness matryoshka dolls that we designed  by hand to bring to life the essence of the campaign.

It received rave reviews and when the campaign ended we were awarded with a Clio nestled inside.

Agency: BBDO New York

Client: BRICK

Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars

Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn

Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Bianca Guimaraes

Senior Copywriter: Rodrigo Linhares

Senior Art Director: Florian Marquardt

Director of Integrated Production: David Rolfe

Executive Producer: Neely Lisk

Lead Integrated Producer: Courtney Fallow

Photographer: Billy Siegrist / Koji Yahagi

Physical Designer/3D Model: Jeian Jeong

Type Designer: Marcelo Righini

Digital Production Company: Visorama Diversões Eletrônicas

Account Manager: Samanta Martins

Stop Motion Artist: Luciano do Amaral

2D Digital Animator: José Bessa

3D Modeling Artist: Elisa Branco

Illustrator: Sajid wajid shaikh

fitnestingdoll.com

adidas Originals Gazelle : The Concept

Being relevant is what sparks the need to be creative. Gazelle, another iconic sneaker from the house of adidas Originals will make some serious noise this fall-winter. Having been stood the test of time by being constantly re-appropriated, Gazelle celebrates the truth that creativity rarely occurs in a vacuum, but often ends up borrowing and adapting itself to a pre-existing something.

Re-Appropriation Art : What's that?

Re-Appropriation is using an already available palette, an already existing piece of art perhaps, that is dated - and to take that piece, and play with it visually and conceptually, in order to 're-appropriate' it to a contemporary context. Popularly confused with stealing - our idea is to change the purpose of the artwork, and in that process, creating something relevant to today. 

For Gazelle, we got a few young connoisseurs together and shot them in iconic clothing from past decades starting from the 1960's to 2000's. However, they will be sporting the Gazelle sneakers. These photographs are then used by 5 artists in each city to re-appropriate and re-use in their own style (Digitally or by hand). All artworks will be displayed at adidas Originals stores in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore

for the launch of Gazelle

Creative Director : Kunel Gaur

Agency : Animal

Illustrate a set of 24 stickers for use across Google products including their new messaging app, Allo.

P.S This set is currently the most used in global top 5 (Google Statistics)

Assigned Theme: Prem Pyare. This poet-lover is a man of many emotions, but he expresses them in a special andaaz of his own.

Art Direction : Sanket Avlani (A good feeling)

Animation : Rajeev Maurya (Kreative Garage)

Animal collaborated with 6 artists to design 6 stunning surfboards for adidas Originals to

launch their new Pharrell Williams ‪#‎PinkBeach‬ collection in India.

Creative Director : Kunel Gaur

Agency : Animal

Elle Magazine India Approached me to design there Annual Horoscope 2016

The Trees seeks to offer its residents a commercially vibrant, aesthetically attractive, and pedestrian-friendly place to live, work, and play. Once completed, The Trees will house premium office space, residential towers, high-street retail and five star hospitality - all centered around a large four acre landscaped park.

Credits

Agency - TAG Vinnatti.

Art Direction - Mahesh Salgaonkar