Graffiti isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of art forms in India, and true to that assumption what we had been seeing so far in our travels came in more traditional forms and content – lots of sculptures and pictures depicting gods, history and legends.
It was pretty awesome when we also started to stumble upon less traditional subject matter and techniques as well as re-interpretations of key icons.
In Agra, Dan decided to be lazy and while the other guys walked back to the hotel he decided he would catch a lift on an auto rickshaw. An striking piece caught his eye so Dan asked the driver to stop so he could take a picture.
Impressed with Dan’s enthusiasm, the driver then mentioned that he knew where more walls were and would be happy to take Dan there. Rupees were handed over and off they went! 
The driver said that a man from Europe came one day and started randomly spraypainting the walls. The local people didn’t know what to think…but now there are some pieces scattered around the Taj Mahal area of Agra which actually seem to blend in with the rather scruffy looking town surroundings. 
Pretty cool really. Another great bonus for Dan on his birthday!
A couple of days later we were in Varanasi. Low and behold the banks of The Ganges were covered with graffiti.
Street art really is an international language!
Lovely…reminds me of the street art in Penang, Malaysia. They are huge murals. Yes, art like music is a Universal Language 🙂
We found some amazing street art in Kuala Lumpur – I think we did about three or four blogs just on those because there were so many beautiful pieces. We haven’t made it to Penang yet but having fallen in love with Malaysia during our short visit there in October, we’ll definitely be back 🙂
Please do let me know when you do decide to come back to Malaysia. Now, I will go through your old blogs to see those on Malaysia’s street art 🙂
Definitely! Its always much better to have some ‘inside help’ when you travel!
very interesting, thanks for posting great photos! I don’t remember seeing this, I must not have looked in the right places
The majority of the Varanasi stuff was just along the banks of the river. The Agra pieces were a little more hidden but provided real blobs of colour and interest among a fairly dreary city (major monuments aside, of course!)
i painted the Agra pieces.
Thanks for commenting! Your work is amazing 🙂 Looking forward to visiting again sometime.
This is just mind blowing, beautiful and amazingly creative. I love it! you are just awesome and thanks for sharing this.
Our pleasure 🙂
Wow — some of those are seriously amazing! I love the rhinoceros one.
Isn’t it cool?! Our absolute favourite one is the picture we’ve used in the header – if you can’t figure it out initially (and we’re not assuming you’re thick, it just took us a while to see it ourselves!), turn the image sideways….sooooo cool!
Stunning! I love that Dan got his own private tour of awesome street art. And that the diver got as excited by it as he did! One of those pieces reminded me very much of Bansky’s style, with luck one of those walls might be worth a cool mil one day for the bricks!
The rickshaw drivers, on the whole, seemed pretty happy to bend over backwards and take us to places off the beaten track. We firmly stand by this mode of transport as the best way to explore the cities of India – you’re at ground level, its crazy busy, fun and you see little alleys that other forms of transport can’t (or won’t) fit down. Amazing.
Pretty cool stuff!
Indeed!
Like the rhino.
He’s epic, right!
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