Articles by Deepa Mohan

Ganesh Chaturthi falls on the fourth day of the waxing phase of the moon (shukla paksha) of the Bhadrapada month....’bhadrapada maasena chaturthyam/brahamanaadi poojitam’, as the great Carnatic music composer Muthuswami Dikshitar sings. In Bangalore, preparations for the puja start quite early.Here is the Lord in different shapes and sizes, all packaged and ready to be picked up by the devout and religious. (All pictures by the author.) Packed Ganeshas at RV Road.Posters in various localities announce the forthcoming puja and the puja karta (one who is conducting it) too. Ganesha pooja poster at Malleswaram.I met Shakuntala Jain, an artist who…

It was an initiative that was long overdue; Nandi Hills, a scenic spot, was slowly being overrun by plastic trash thrown carelessly by visitors. Several civic-minded citizens got together and decided that instead of just complaining about the plastic litter, they would take positive action to clean up the trash, and more importantly, try to raise the awareness among tourists about the importance of keeping this beautiful place clean. Clean and Green Nandi Hills Campaign sign (Pic: Deepa Mohan)Yahoo, the sponsor for the event, has an internal team called ‘Purple Green’ 6 7 mths... (‘purple’ being the Yahoo corporate colour,…

Surely BBMP, which seems, sometimes, to go out of its way to cut down full-grown trees, can take a leaf out of the book of these people, who own a shop in Vyalikaval. Messrs. P Mohanlal Bhanwarlal, who run a jewellery and pawnbroker's shop near Chowdiah Memorial Hall, decided that, as devout Jains, they could not offer "himsa" to the living tree; therefore, they actually built their shop around it.Doesn't the presence of the tree hinder the customers? "Actually," say the owners, "Our customers are happy to see this, and the way you saw it and came in, it is…

Last week, some "columns" made of plastic (of terracotta look, complete with fake "burnt" patches, with rectangular frames on top for advertisements, suddenly made their appearance on M G Road. All the newspapers picked up on this uglification of the scene, and also remarked on how these ugly things were supposed to be beautifying Bangalore but were actually put there to fetch further revenue for BBMP (which seems to have developed a bottomless thirst for raising cash) through ads in the rectangles. The columns were impeding traffic and Deccan Herald pointed out how one pedestrian had been injured by a…

In late July, the Red Ribbon Express rolled into Karnataka, and into Bangalore, with much fanfare. It was going to be the average citizen's eye-opener to the world of HIV and AIDS, and hopefully, the train was also going to raise some funds for the cause. I was at the Cantonment railway station at 7pm on 25 July. The journey of the Red Ribbon Express was inaugurated from New Delhi on 1st Dec 2007. The train's mission is to spread awareness of AIDS throughout the country. I had seen the train at Nagpur, on 21st December 2007, but I could…

Ranga Shankara has a very laudable project called "Other Voices" where smaller, more intimate plays are sought to be staged to a much smaller audience. One example of this was "1, Madhav Baug", enacted by Revathi which was staged in a small upper room in Ranga Shankara to just 25 viewers at at time.Tickets for these 9.30pm shows go on sale, however, ONLY at 9pm at Ranga Shankara. And this is proving to be a problem. In fact, if you see this photograph of the announcement of the play, you can see that it says, "tickets will go on sale…

Urban Changes photo exhibition, 19th August 2008. Pic: Deepa Mohan.If any city can claim to have changed drastically in the past few years, it will surely be Bangalore. The city’s constantly changing skyline speaks volumes for the social and economic changes that have seen Bangalore morph from a pensioner’s paradise to India’s IT capital. It was thus fascinating to see the photographs at the ‘Urban Changes’ exhibition which captured the spirit of a redefined city, among others. Organised by Max Mueller Bhavan at IndiraNagar, at the culmination of the Bangalore Walks programmes of Bangalore City Project, the exhibition highlighted the…

The BBMP is intent, it appears, on cutting down pavements wherever it can widen the roads for the ever-increasing motorized vehicle traffic of this city...but our pavements are areas where a lot of vibrant life exists. Instead of thinking of our footpath users (apart from pedestrians, who are, anyway, an endangered species), perhaps we should appreciate the way life is led along these urban spaces.Here are two young women that I photographed in Indira Nagar.The first is a bangle seller, vending the lac-and-mirror bangles that are so famous in Rajasthan.The second one is selling an assortment of bead necklaces:They both…

Using a car on Bangalore roads? Then,when you fill up petrol (at the petrol pumps in the city, you are generally given the "perk" of "Free Air"...that is, the car tyre pressure is checked and filled by an attendant, and it is supposed to be a service free of cost.However, over the years, the habit has been established, of tipping the attendant a couple of rupees. Quick to notice this, petrol pumps pay their attendants a little less, the rationale being that they will pick up the tips from motorists! So the attendants are keen that no one go away…

I get up in the morning and slip my feet into my house slippers, and the first twinge starts. If this is real rubber, is it OK? If it is synthetic rubber, is the manufacture of these slippers causing some harm to the environment?I switch on the geyser. Oh, am I consuming scarce electricity? Should I heat up water on the gas stove? But that will use up scarce LPG....Should I heat up the milk for my coffee on the gas stove or the microwave? And should I have the whole kitchen lighted up for this or just switch on…