Articles by Sudha Narasimhachar

Anything in plenty loses its value. Anything–even human life! That’s why when we read of treacherous genocide of thousands of innocent people somewhere away from our vicinity, the intensity of the sorrow that we feel is short-lived—we are able to carry on with our lives quite normally. We know, as individuals we can do jolly little to change anything on this planet.  Is that wholly true? I went to Calgary in Canada recently to spend time with my son and daughter-in-law. The wonderful roads, neat and even footpaths and walking trails and the marvelous traffic sense of the drivers of…

  ‘Development’! This term sends chills down my spine these days! I want to just run away from this once beautiful city of Bengaluru which is being ransacked from all sides.  As I drive past any highway, it is nauseating to see huge hoardings of various builders – 3 BHK, 4 BHK apartments/villas with all modern facilities such as gyms, parks, swimming pools, clubs, malls and what not for sale starting from Rs.1 crore!   ‘Crore’ was a figure which I saw only in a bank’s day book when I worked for a Bank!  But today all Tom, Dick and…

Yelahanka Satellite Town was once a very peaceful little town. But the boom in the land prices due to the opening of the International Airport is turning this town into another messy metropolis centre.  Every other road is being converted into a commercial road and every vacant site is being filled with huge complexes at jet speed.  What is hurting is that the Karnataka Housing Board, which designed this beautiful township, themselves are causing this sudden spurt of construction activities.  A huge piece of land with nearly 70-80 trees is now being turned into a concrete structure of some commercial…

Garbage is creating a lot of noise in Bangalore these days. It is the biggest nuisance that development causes in all urban centres. Drive to an interior village (other than the village where your city dumps the garbage, of course) and you will find it pretty clean, as compared to your own neighbourhood, where mounds of plastic garbage lie strewn beside every posh apartment complex or housing locality! Even in villages, the garbage that you spot mostly contains plastic bags which have entered the lives of the rural folk too. Other than that, most of the garbage collected in a…

BBMP has said that cluster housing societies (apartments or villas) have to manage their own garbage. These housing complexes do not even have the public water supply system. However, the residents of these clusters are not exempt from any tax or cess to be paid to the BBMP, including the so-called development expenses. How fair is this? Who has to supervise whether these clusters really segregate wet and dry waste and dispose them in the right manner? With uncontrolled growth, city authorities are not able to provide the infrastructural support. Pic Sudha Narasimhachar Wet waste management may be supervised by…

Gandhinagar locality is one of the oldest localities of Bangalore and is the centre of trade, commerce, entertainment and tourism. All the old business streets like Chickpet, Balepet, New Tharagupet, Avenue Road, Cottonpet, Raja Market and so many other hubs are in this locality. It separates Bangalore North and West from Bangalore South and East and hence acts as the main link between these zones. Despite so many important factors, this locality became popular mainly due to a record number of cinema houses that were located on the main road, as well as the surrounding roads. In fact Gandhinagar was…

It is common to see familiar faces at Indian classical music concerts. But it was not familiarity that made me take note of this elderly gentleman. It was clear he was no ordinary rasika. He always sat at the first row with two other familiar faces. He would request specific ragas as is expected of any rasika. But what was unique, was that he was able to recall when that particular raga was sung previously, by which particular artist, at which sabha or when it was sung for the first time by the particular artist. This is what sets apart…

Back in the early 1980s, against the advice of our friends and relatives in Bangalore, we moved to Yelahanka Satellite Town in the hope of living in peace, fed up of Bangalore's pollution. We compromised a lot for this, putting up with the poor construction quality of KHB, lack of some basic facilities, and distance from city's old airport and culture hubs. Many trees were cut down to accommodate this BBMP office in Yelahanka Satellite Town 1st phase Pic: Sudha Narasimhachar But we were happy the way our layout was planned with lovely parks, and amenities like bus stands, shopping…

"I am 80 years old. I have spent 76 years in theatre", when I heard the senior citizen on the stage say this, I thought he must have got mixed up. But I was wrong. He joined the Chamundeshwari Karnataka Nataka Sabha, which was then run by Nandi Basappa for the Mysore Palace authorities, at the age of four because of abject poverty. "My father was an archaka (priest) in a small temple. His income was not sufficient to feed our family of seven", says R Paramasivan. He can can sing 1260 Ranga Geethegalu (songs from the plays) from his…

Old-timers of Malleshwaram area cannot ‘not know' this simple library, on Sampige Road, Malleshwaram (between 2nd and 3rd Cross). It has been there since 1951.  69-year-old G R J Gupta, has part of this library since he was nine-years-old. Though it started as a small store selling grocery, vegetables, fruits, milk, badam milk and condiments, newspapers, magazines and books, it was later converted into a full fledged library. "My father, who was a very well-known goldsmith and called the Gold King of Chennai, suddenly relocated to Bangalore in 1951.  I was just 9 years old then.  I do not know…