Articles by Deepa Mohan

I spent a very pleasant morning at Lalbagh today....I started at the Glass House, where the floral exhibits for Independence Day are taking shape, and this Anthurium exhibit was stunning....As I walked around, both cultivated and "grow-on-the=tree" flowers caught my eye.Here's an insect pollinating one flower:The Seeta Ashoka tree still has some flowers, though it's strictly not the season:The water lilies on the lake are breathtakingly beautiful...The spider lilies, aptly named for their shape, bloom along the shores of the water bodies:But I couldn't identify this tree, which had such beautiful flowers:I walked past the old pavilion; what tales it…

At the outskirts of Bangalore, many small-scale vendors try to beat the middlemen by selling direct-to-consumer....First one sees one basket of custard apples...Then a few..Then a few more...And if one takes the larger view, one can see that it is definitely custard apple season now, all down the road!I wonder..when the baskets are arrayed in serried ranks like that...is there a cartel that dictates the minimum price? How can the sellers hope to get a reasonable margin on their fruit? And an interesting point about those baskets is, they seem to be made from lantana twigs...surely a good use of…

Some years ago, all of us had to bear with the roads, and sidewalks too, getting dug up for various reasons; one of them was OFC. "OFC"! said the little concrete signposts said, that came up later on the spot. OFC stood for Optic Fibre Cable; this was going to be the cable that would make Bangalore the city of the future, with internet connectivity everywhere.Then there were reports in the newspaper that there were only the pipes laid down; the actual optic fibre cable itself was missing. "Ah!" we breathed; it was nothing new to Bangalore to have something…

Though Independence Day is only on August 15th, the preparations for one of the two annual flower shows that this City has, has already begun.I went to Lalbagh early this morning, and the Glass House area was agog with activity. Several vans and lorries had been parked close by and flowering plants were being "downloaded"....Flowering Plants downloaded from Lorry (Pic: Deepa Mohan)Some of the tables required were also being brought in.Officials were busy discussing how to put up the displays:Officials discussing about the Displays (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The staff were busy with the work:Staff busy with Flower Show work arrangements (Pic:…

I was walking along the "80 ft Ring Road" (I still don't know the name of this road, that goes from the Silk Board along Ragigudda up to Kanakapura Road!), when I saw how this tree had been revered, and a small shrine built to it: Trees (Pic: Deepa Mohan)It was good to see that some trees are still held in such reverence; but in these days of road-widening and tree-felling, I could not help wishing that the BBMP adopted the same attitude towards the beautiful living beings that give us shade, oxygen, shelter, beauty, and a home to several…

If you have a little time to spare, do visit Bannerghatta National Park...and the Butterfly Park there. Admission is Rs.10, which is really worth it. Here's the Butterfly Park signboard:Bannerghatta National Park - Butterfly Park signboard (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The dome of the Park itself is a beautiful construction, with the lush greenery inside:Dome of the Butterfly Park (Pic: Deepa Mohan)And here are a few butterflies that I snapped inside:The COMMON MORMON MALE:Common Mormon Male Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The PIERROT:Pierrot Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The COMMON COASTER :Common Coaster Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)The BLUE MORMON:Blue Mormon Butterfly (Pic: Deepa Mohan)However, I feel…

Every classical music artiste faces, I think, the same dilemma after having finished the "AlApanai" of the rAgam. Will the audience be in a mood to listen carefully to the structure and lyrics of a new keertanam? New kritis need to be introduced every now and then; the Trinity, though they are the pillars of Carnatic music, need to give way, occasionally, to the dozens of other talented composers who are creating beautiful songs of their own. But new songs have to be introduced to the listening public now and then; only then do the many talented composers who create…

All autos in Bangalore have things written on them; names of family members, loved ones, cinema idols, or at least the names of various cars that the auto-drivers hope their vehicles are like!So I was rather surprised to see a national AND parochial message on this auto:Though it is in Kannada script, it says, phonetically, "I love India...I like Mandya"!Good to know that as well as being a patriotic Indian, he likes the sugar belt of Karnataka, too, and finds enough sweetness in the fact to have it painted on his auto....Though this particular auto whizzed past too fast for…

In our country, it is not a common occurrence to find someone changing the direction of their career completely, and strike out in a totally different direction. In the course of the past few years, I have been privileged, though, to come into contact with a few such individuals, and their stories interested me greatly.When I first met B N Ramesh (who now spells his name as Ramessh, thanks to numerology) he was an executive in the corporate world...his last job was as the all-India Sales Manager of K G Denims. He did his M.Sc in Physics and Electronics, and…

Many people have dreams that they would like to convert into reality, but more often, as reality meets imagination, it's reality that triumphs. And when someone has gone to all the trouble to study Computer Science at a prestigious university in Boulder, Colorado, USA, and followed that up with a degree from IIM Ahmedabad, one may be forgiven for thinking that here's a young man who will follow the usual corporate path and make a big success out of it. But if Sreeram Vaidyanathan is the young man one is thinking of, one would be quite wrong. "I have always…