It was one week but one hell of a week. The rugged terrain, hot desert sun and disorienting night stages brought plenty of challenges and frustrations. There were engine seizures and blow-ups, loss of petrol tank lids, 3:30 am flag-offs, typhoid symptoms and going into a ditch. But at the end of 3,500km of hard driving and unimaginable endurance, W+K Racing won 8 trophies – 4 bike and 4 car trophies! Congratulations to the team. Don’t miss the video above – it shows one of the W+K Racing cars turning into a submarine (no one was injured):

Many have whined and continue to whine about how Delhi society is very insular. This handy W+K insider guide will enable you to infiltrate the capital’s social scene by sounding like a punjabi playa.

1. Establish your buying power
Assuming you can get invited to a party or gatecrash one, elbow into the large groups of prosperous-looking men propping up the bar. They’re likely to be talking about buying a new car or property. Ask them how much it costs, and then snap your fingers and shout ‘Just pikkidup, yaar!‘. Then cut down to a simple ‘Pikkidup!’ whenever someone mentions expensive things. This never fails to impress.

2. Order drinks with authority
When you’ve sucked your whisky dry, don’t simper at the bartender for a refill. Yell ‘Chief!‘ at the nearest waiter, and then tell him to bring you a large one. Don’t ever thank the waiter, but pat his back once in a while in a condescending sort of way and ask him why he’s being miserly with the booze. Fussing over the type/quality of alcohol is considered ungracious and weak. Sticking your pinkie straight out when you hold your glass impresses some people. Slurring is definitely good form.

3. Ask people how much they earn
Seriously. People like it. If they ask you how much you earn: exaggerate if you get paid a modest amount; downplay if you earn shitloads.

4. Ask people where they live
‘Where do you put up?’ is as important as ‘How much do you earn?’. Remember that you will be quizzed on the value of your property or how much rent you pay.

5. Spend all your money on a flash car
Sell everything if necessary. Call your Mercedes a ‘Merc’ or a ‘Sitara’ (star), and for Audis/BMWs, use model numbers only e.g. Q7, X5, A6, etc. If you have an X6, you will be respected. If you drive a Panamera or similar exotica, you can behave like a total arse and everyone will still love you.

6. Get the details right
No matter how posh or rich you are, you need to pronounce certain words incorrectly in order to fit in:

‘Declare’ is ‘DeClayer‘
‘Farm’ is ‘Form‘
‘America’ is ‘Amarrica‘
If you’re a true playa, Rs 200,000 is not ‘2 Lakhs’, it’s ‘Two bucks’
Usage: ‘I pikkedup a first class seat on Emirates for two bucks, buddy.’

In corporate society, it’s considered cool to roll your R’s. For example, ‘Numberrs‘, or the slightly scary ‘Rrestoraantey’. Avoid corporate people if possible. It’s not worth it.

7. Bad language
Hindi curse words are mandatory in casual conversation, so feel free (sadly this blog’s editorial policy does not permit us to list vulgarities).

8. Dress code
All-black works every time, everywhere. Expensive shoes, handbag and watch are mandatory. Buff physique is optional.

Finally someone came out and said it.
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/kabhi-here-kabhi-there

And now for some beautiful-but-gratuitous bike porn.

The brand new Classic 350/500. Order yours today (because it takes 6 weeks to deliver).

W+K Exp curator-at-large Alice Ciccolini with Peter Nagy of Nature Morte.

India’s top fashionistas graced the occasion…

There were some unwanted side-effects.

Beers were courtesy of Stella Artois – now available at your local Theka.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again and W+K Racing’s five rally cars and five bikes will take on 3,500 kms of rugged terrain – sandy dunes, mud, rocks – in the 2010 Desert Storm. It’s an off-road endurance race with equally tough-sounding competitive section names like Bad Max, Nuclear Zone, Ground Zero and Quake Zone. So, best of luck to the team. Follow the team on twitter and Facebook as they roll out of Camp Tropic of Cancer at 0430 hrs and drive their way into Leg 4 of the race.

Here’s also the video of W+K Racing in action at the Raid de Himalaya 2009.

For those who missed the late eighties in South Delhi, here’s a quick recap of life in GK-1 (Greater Kailash, part one), a neighbourhood that was once the stronghold of prosperous punjabi society. Dinner parties happened in big, plush drawing rooms. The food was inevitably heavy, but outstanding. It was considered good form to shout ‘Verry Good Yaar‘ if you liked the tikkas, and it was considered crap form to eat dinner before guzzling six large whisky-sodas and puffing your way through half a pack of marlboro lights  (thankfully, nobody went ‘gymming’ in those days). The conversation centred around property/business/cars/the opposite sex, in that order. After dinner, the younger crowd would abandon the uncles and aunties and head to one of the few ‘discs’ to work off some testosterone. Ghungroo was the most famous ‘disc’ of all (people called it Ghungroo’s, just as they call Olive Olive’s today), and a good night out usually ended in a drunken brawl. Today, G.K.1’s residents have deserted their drawing rooms for wood-and-chrome lounges and Mediterranean resto-bars. But, if you’re lucky, a favourite aunt or old college friend might still invite you for a winter barbeque in GK-1, or GK-2 even. Make damn sure you go – but don’t forget the Alka Seltzer.

Sevain (vermicelli milk pudding to our foreign friends), served cold – fantastic.

The common or garden GK-1 ‘Pomarian’. Slowly being replaced by Pugs and Apsos.

Mandatory Johnny Black – with lots of soda and ice, chief!

The lads step out for a smoke and show each other their novelty lighters (but not in front of the elders).

Tikkas on the fire. Very good, yaar.

28°33_18_n, 77°14_14_e on an Ovi map.

Typographica is the first exhibition of the design journal of the same name. Groundbreaking when first published in 1949 and now considered legendary, Typographica showcased the very best in worldwide visual arts. The journal was founded by a 25 year-old Herbert Spencer, who went on to become one of the most influential British communication designers and typographers. The exhibition is curated by Rick Poynor, founder of Eye magazine and author of the book Typographica, published in 2002 by Princeton University Press. The exhibition launched at London’s Kemistry Gallery as part of September’s London Design Festival and has been brought to India by W+K Exp.

Alongside Typographica, W+K Exp celebrates India’s own groundbreaking testament to the power of the word, Seminar magazine. Celebrated over its 50 years for bringing “opposing viewpoints within the covers of a single magazine”, this exhibition focuses on the magazine’s unequivocal support of typography. Unheard of in the publishing world, Seminar has appeared every month since its inception with a purely typographic cover. Curated by its current designer, Akila Seshasayee, and owner editor Malvika Singh, the exhibition will present the best covers from 50 years of the magazine.

Prints from both exhibitions will be on sale.

An exhibition of installation art by contemporary Pakistani artists at the excellent Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon www.deviartfoundation.org. When it comes to Pakistan, people’s reactions vary from scotch-fuelled, armchair aggression to weepy, smoked-salmon liberalism. This exhibition should help sort that out. These beautiful installations make you feel what the folks across the border feel, and it hurts. There’s a particularly cool piece of work on the first floor – dismantled machine gun parts, suspended alongside surgical instruments. You don’t need to be an intellectual to get the point.

Great design is one of the interesting side-effects of massive social change. When people start rediscovering their identities or defining new ones, they need symbols. That is exactly what’s happening in India, and we are happy to be contributing our One Rupee’s worth to the effort. Here are some of the symbols we’ve designed recently for various projects. Some of them are available in sticker form at our gallery www.wkexp.com. If you have any new Indian symbols of your own, mail us some and we’ll display them here (only if they’re nice, of course).

New take on the Azad Hind Fauj’s ‘Jai Hind’ symbol.

Leopards still roam the hill state of Uttarakhand. Grrr.

Badging that we created for the A1 Team India Grand Prix car.

‘Thambi’, designed by us for HCL technologies. The ancient Indian symbol of enlightenment, combined with the symbol for everyman. Represents the transformation of Indian IT from commodity trader to enlightened enterprise (apologies for the pretentious rationale, couldn’t help it).