Making toilets

Nothing but class from Flares 24/7. Again, we visit a small Indian factory. This one is making both Western style (above) and Asian style (below) toilets. The work is still dirty and laborious, but at least it is not as dangerous as most of these places generally look.

 

Making shovels

We visit a small factory in SW Asia (I think it is in Pakistan, but it might be in India) where they are making shovels. As is always with these types of videos, the work is dirty, laborious and slightly dangerous looking.

 

Making refreshing summer drinks

This post topic may seem out of sequence considering the fact that is currently the winter. However, it is my duty to as well provide content for my regulars from the southern hemisphere where it is now summer. Of course, that assumes I have any regulars from the southern hemisphere, but that's a subject we don't need to delve into too deeply.

 

Roller coaster ice cream

The above video is of a cart somewhere in India that sells roller coaster ice cream. It is made by filling a drum with ice and salt and then, as the drum is rotated, covering the outer surface with milk, fruit juices and bits of fresh fruit. Toppings can be added. It is not the most hygienic looking operation, but I imagine the ice cream it produces is a tasty treat. 

These types of carts seem to be popular throughout southwest Asia. Many are motorized, but some, like the one in the video, are hand cranked. My hat is off to the guy who spends all day cranking that thing.  

  

A motorcycle ride in India

Rather than my usual Walking in Cities video, this is a clip of a fellow riding a motorcycle in Bhubaneshwar, India. The traffic is insane, who knows what the rules of the road are, but I gather the road's lanes are more theoretical than something strictly adhered to. The guy is also riding his bike pretty fast, I would be terrified to be on the back of it. I wonder how many traffic accidents a day happen in that place.

Speaking of accidents (have you ever seen such a subtle segue?) I once read a Slashdot post where a fellow from Bangladesh said that, if you were ever driving on a rural road and accidentally whacked into a pedestrian, your best move was to step on the gas and get away as fast as possible. The other posters in the thread were horrified by what a callous monster he was. He defended himself by pointing out that if you did stop the locals would demand an outrageously high compensation after first beating you to a pulp or worse. He had a point I suppose, but still...

    

Making gypsum false ceiling boards

With this video we return to India to see one of its small enterprises. They're making gypsum ceiling boards. It is a very dirty and labor intensive process. I did like how the fellow color coordinated his t-shirt and pants -- one can be a fashionista anywhere.

As long as we're speaking about gypsum below is a video, Gypsum - The Miracle Mineral, put out by the Gypsum Association. It shows a more automated process of making gypsum board and discusses gypsum's unique properties.

Printing Kalamkari patterns on fabric

Kalamkari is a method of dying patterns onto fabrics. In its original form the patterns were hand painted on using natural dyes. However, the patterns can also be added, as demonstrated in the above video, by block printing. In the video it was impressive how quickly the stencils were aligned to apply the two different dyes to the pattern.

Utsavpedia's article Kalamkari explains the history and steps needed to create the fabric artwork. If you want to buy some of the fabric, you can search Duckduckgo and find many suppliers. Below are some examples of earlier and more elaborate Kalamkari pieces.

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Coconut and sesame oil presses

When I do these small factory videos for some reason I often end up in India or Bangladesh. I look for nicely filmed videos with ambient sound rather than cheesy elevator music and/or sales pitches. For some reason that sparseness is the style for a lot of videos out of southeast Asia. 

These two videos show small factories that have presses that produce coconut and sesame oil for cooking (although that's a guess on my part, perhaps the oils have different uses). Neither looks even remotely hygienic to me.

Desi Old Black engine at work

Villagers fire up a Desi Old Black engine and connect a belt driven contraption (I have no idea what it is doing) to it. The young boy in the beginning seems to be delighted that he is being filmed helping.

The Meenakshi Amman Temple

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From Atlas Obscura's post Meenakshi Amman Temple:

[T]he temple was built by Tamil Hindus native to southeastern India, and it first appeared in recorded history in the 600s AD. In the 1300s, the sacred structure was ransacked and destroyed by the Muslim general Malik Kafur in a successful attempt to spread Islam to Madurai. It wasn’t until nearly 250 years later, in 1559, that the structure was rebuilt by the first Nayak king of Madurai.

The Meenakshi Amman Temple remains standing today, the tallest tower reaching 170 feet high.

It is amazing how intricate and colorful the statues and decorations are. Actually, a lot of buildings in antiquity were similarly colorful, their pigments have just been lost over time due to neglect.

These pictures, and those after the jump, are gather from here and there on the web. Enjoy.

Making tater chips in India

Jaymukh, the father of the Village Food Factory YouTuber, makes a batch of potato chips. After frying them, he seasons them with chile powder and salt. Then they package them and they hand them out for the villagers to enjoy. At the link are many other videos of Jaymukh cooking various dishes.

You can read more about the father and son pair making the videos at the New Yorker article, The Indian Filmmaker Who Made His Dad’s Village Cooking a YouTube Sensation. From the article:

Like the other addictive food videos ... the videos on Village Food Factory have their own formula for viral appeal, built on Jaymukh’s quiet, matter-of-fact way of preparing large quantities of food with the scantest equipment. Jaymukh hacks down shrubs with a machete to make space for himself to cook, and lugs huge branches from nearby trees to build his fires. He makes homemade coconut oil by methodically cracking open a hundred coconuts, and scrambles hundreds of eggs in a kiddie-pool-size pot. In the channel’s most popular video, he drops two hundred pieces of chicken into a deep vat of oil for a K.F.C.-style preparation.

At a roadside cafe on the way to Jaipur

5 days in a Mumbai slum

In the above video an incredibly cheerful Lithuanian fellow spends 5 days visiting and living in a Mumbai slum. It is a bit odd of a video to put it mildly. He pretty much ignores the slummy aspect of the slum in a slightly goofy euphoria over the people who live there. At least his heart is in the right place.

By the way, the comments to the video are interesting. Not all are so rosy as our Lithuanian friend and so they add a different perspective to what the video shows.

The Back Streets of Delhi

Long-time regulars will know I have a fascination for videos of people just walking down streets. In this video an Australian (I think) fellow films some back streets in Delhi, India. It is interesting how many people say hello to him on his little jaunt.
 

Once Upon a Time in India

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A few posts ago we viewed Paige Jiyoung Moon's paintings of everyday life. These are pictures of everyday life from 19th century India. While Moon's paintings evoked a feeling of familiarity, these earlier pictures of the mundane are far enough removed in time as to be exotic to us.

They are taken from the New York Library's Digital Collection. There are more after the jump, and of course many more at the link.

Grandma's Mango Pickles

I love the sound track to this video -- the birds squawking, the random and quiet musical ditty, and the guys mumbling from time to time. Very strange.

The video is titled as a recipe, but none is provided. If you're interested in one, Swasthi's Recipes has a good one that is easy to follow.

In the time of the British Raj

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A shoe box held 178 plate glass negatives taken over 100 years ago in India during the British Raj. These pictures, and the ones after the jump, are from that set.

If you're interested in such photographs the website Old Indian Photos has many more vintage photographs from India as well as samples of Indian artwork from the period. It's a very nice collection.

A small Christian chapel in India

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Asia Obscure has a post, Jesus and Mary in a little Indian boat, about a small concrete block building in India that serves as a Christian chapel. Some of the cultural blending is puzzling, for example Christ and the Virgin Mary pictured in a boat on its roof; while others -- like the clean lines, bright colors and Indian style statuary -- is quite charming. As always, cultural influences swirl around in time and space, transforming and growing as they move through us all.

Mithila art

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Mithila art comes from a region that spreads between northern India and Nepal. Originally it consisted of wall and floor paintings to decorate houses. In the 1960s, in an attempt to alleviate the poverty of the area, the All India Handicraft Board collected samples of their drawings on heavy paper and sold them in New Dehli. They sold well, and since then Mihilia art has been actively collected.

The topics of Mithila art are every day activities, myths and a lot of politics. For example, the image above is captioned "Chief Minister Modi rises as a hero for Hindu fanatics while Gujarat burns and Gandhi is forgotten." They are striking in how detailed the patterns in them are, as well as by what seems to be a mix of both modern and yet very traditional graphic styling.

I've gathered a few more samples of Mithila art, some of which are after the jump. They are all from the Oberlin College Digital Collections. I found that site via 50 Watts.

Sunday Links

Shown: uranium eating bacteria.

Secret Al-Qaida enclaves of the UK.

A triumph of temperament not policy.

Teaching nanoparticles to swim.

Kasparov beseeches Obama.

When things get too dry the government is toast.

A Hard Day's Night is finally solved.

When photoshop goes bad.

The good virus.

The top 10 most irritating phrases.

Individual responsibility and self-reliance are for chumps.

The hotel of the future.

Beware the 5 year old witches.

A man of decency and integrity.

Be the first on your block to get a mini nuclear plant.

The top 10 things to look forward to in Windows 7.

No bittorrent in China.

Chandrayaan enters lunar orbit.