Graphic Reflections

Breaking traffic rules is an ‘offense‘, a breach of law or an illegal act, how many drivers realise this? Traffic rules have been designed to bring order on roads and to facilitate safe and smooth movement of vehicles, but with largely poor quality education and training for learner drivers, low literacy amongst many drivers, shamefully low fines for traffic rules violations (as low as $3), corruption, poor policing and absence of any mechanism to imprison repeat offenders, the roads of India have become a haven for traffic offenders. The people of India need to be made aware that breaking traffic rules is an offense and those caught need to be treated sternly (like offenders), fined heavily and even jailed at least for a few days if not weeks (for offenses like driving on the wrong side of road). One way to look at India’s alarming road safety situation (the country has the worst rate of road accident mortality in the world, more than 1,00,000 people die on India’s roads every year) is that such a scenario exists because thousands of traffic ‘offenders’ roam around freely on India’s roads with little or no fear of the law.

Rampant corruption, like the kind that exists in a developing country like India, takes away from every aspect of the development process. To illustrate this point, in the typographical graphic above, one letter has been taken away from each set of words related to development and used to compose the word ‘corruption’ below. Though efforts are made to hide corruption by those who indulge in it, it does show up eventually, often through incomplete or less effective or shoddy development that results from corruption (as shown in the graphic).

Corruption, that puts interests of the self (or the corrupt) before the larger interests of the nation, in myriad ways big or small, ends up breaking the fabric of the nation.

For sometime now, during my day-to-day conversations, I have been taking note of things some people (myself included) hate. This graphic celebrates all that hatred.

This typographical graphic seeks to portray the irony of water, the clear liquid that is essential for sustenance of all known forms of life, that constitutes 60% weight of the human body and covers approximately 71% area of our planet. Availability of water as we know it or fresh water, seems to be getting scarce by the day for myriad reasons!

This graphic tries to portray the weight or pressure that India’s billion strong (and growing) population exerts on the development process of the country. To develop the country or to ‘uplift’ such a huge population, India’s development process will have to be that much stronger, weightier and tougher.

This typographical graphic attempts to portray the negative impact corruption has on the growth of a country. Instances of rampant corruption hampering developmental projects / economic growth / progress / business plans / ambitions are far too many in India and even today, corruption here remains largely unchecked.

This typographical composition tries to portray the loss to Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. With the Twin Towers gone, a change in the skyline of the world financial capital perhaps also symbolised a change in the way the world was to look at terrorism and security. This graphic was originally created on September 13, 2001.