Let’s talk about people

Starting today, we have a new weekly column ‘MetroPeople’, featuring individual achievers from a variety of fields.

Pop videos on Kannada culture

Puneeth BA, founder of Poster Boy Art Studios, is presenting a series of pop culture videos in Kannada to show the life of peri-urban Bengaluru middle-class families. Poster Boy Art Studios is known for its unique digital experiments like Minimal Posters Kannada, The Kathe Project, Ideeria, Celebrating Ramesh Aravind, #WeLikeIt, #14DaysOfLove and so on.

The series has one-take selfie videos that come out every Sunday. The solo lead character is played by Puneeth himself; it is a middle-aged man fondly being called as ‘uncle’.

He talks about his family, his experiences and life. The series has received acclaim for its relatability and the detailing for each character.

Most of the jokes in these videos are adapted from conversations with close friends and the observation of middle-aged men and women. The series has received 61000+ views collectively.

Husband-wife duo sets up porcelain online boutique

Bengaluru-based artist couple Roshni Merchant and Pritpal Singh have come up with ‘Midori Collective’, an online boutique that sells handcrafted porcelain items. After having completed their Fine Arts degree at Chitrakala Parishath and having worked at a couple of design studios, designer/illustrator Roshni Merchant and sculptor/illustrator Pritpal Singh decided to combine their areas of expertise and come up with their own design firm, which is located in Weavers Colony in Bannerghatta Road.

Roshni says they chose porcelain for their business as they feel it can be used as well as a white canvas. She adds that this particular form of porcelain art has not been explored much in India; the couple spent around two and a half years to learn and master this art.

Their items, with a price range between Rs 900 and Rs 5000, also incorporate Swarovski crystals and 24-carat gold. Midori Collective’s products can be bought on midoricollective.com and the founders’ work can be viewed on their Instagram pages.

Platform for real-life stories

Franklin Templeton Investments has launched a six-video series campaign titled ‘Reach for Better’, in partnership with The Better India. It focuses on bringing forward real-life inspirational stories and their fight against-all-odds. The campaign aims to bring alive the concept of the theme through a ‘beyond just investments, larger than life’ approach.

The first episode showcases the story of Kajal Brahmavar, the first transgender radio jockey from Mangaluru. From begging on the streets to becoming Karnataka’s first transgender RJ on Radio Sarang 107.8 FM, Kajal’s journey has been nothing short of inspiring. Even though she faced a number of challenges in life and went through multiple highs and lows, she chose to stay resilient.

The second episode is about Shankar Chandrashekar from Bengaluru, who is visually and physically challenged. He empowered others like him by creating YouTube tutorials on how they can overcome challenges on a daily basis. The channel is called ‘Tech accessibility tutorials’. He is also operating a website called tech accessibility.in and he aspires to get a job in National Informatics Centre.

B’luru entrepreneur wins women leader award

Bengaluru entrepreneur Gitanjali Rajamani, co-founder of Farmizen, won the Goldman Sachs and Fortune Global Women Leader’s Award recently.

The award is given each year to two outstanding women from around the world, who are working to empower others in their communities and countries.

David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, honoured Gitanjali Rajamani for her contribution to the field of agriculture through her startup Farmizen.

‘Farmizen’ is building a food system that is better for consumers, better for farmers and the planet. Through the Farmizen app, customers can rent out a 600 sq ft plot and grow organic vegetables of their choice with help from the farmers. The vegetables get home delivered to them every week.

Gitanjali and her Farmizen team is helping almost 1000 farmers get training on sustainable and regenerative ways of agriculture and giving 100,000 people access to safe and chemical-free food.