City: Bengaluru

This centuries-old, elegant but small, temple in Begur is a place where Lord Shiva is worshipped. Begur temple is about 3.6 kms down Begur Road from the Bommanahalli junction on Hosur Road. People visit the temple to perform pujas or just a weekly ritual. I visited the place as part of a heritage walk organised by INTACH, Bangalore and the Bangalore City Project, on a bright Sunday morning, last month. Begur Temple Begur Temple from the side. Pic: Meera K. The domes of the twin temple are built in typical Dravidian style. The floor is raised slightly higher than the…

Most of us dutifully place the garbage bag outside the front door every morning or night and rush back in to line the dustbin with a fresh plastic bag. With this, we think we have done our job with waste disposal and the rest is a headache better dealt by the local municipality. Later in the day, when we see overflowing bins, garbage strewn all over the roads and pavements, we criticise the corrupt bureaucracy without losing an instant. It doesn’t even cross our minds that we too are to be blamed for the sordid state of affairs. Digest this:…

A walk to campaign against corruption on a Sunday morning may not seem very enticing. But members of Karnataka’s Lok Satta (the Andhra Pradesh-based political party founded by Hyderabad-based Jayaprakash Narayan) came out to do just that. The morning of December 13th 2009 saw around 70-80 people come together for a ‘Walk to Empower Lokayukta’. This was the start of the party’s campaign to get signatures from at least one lakh people (from all over Karnataka) for the petition to empower the Lokayukta.  Marking the anti-corruption month, the party launched the campaign on December 9th at a press conference. The…

Standing outside his house, one feels quite dwarfed*. And that’s purely because of the sheer size of the house. Massive would be an understatement. The name plate in Kannada, bold and big, reads Katta Subramanya Naidu. A policeman and a security guard greet me at the gate, expecting my arrival and lead me right in. As I wait in Naidu’s office, his staff and I exchange pleasantries, as they begin the day’s work. After a cup of coffee, a gentleman informs me that “sahibru” will be down in about 20 minutes. “He came late last night because of work, at…

For Shyam Kumar, a software engineer from Domlur, taking a tour of the Hoysala terrain, was the ideal way to spend the weekend. While most people would associate Belur and Halebeedu (near Hassan) with the Hoysala kingdom, Kumar also got to explore the ancient town of Dwarasamudra spread around Halebeedu, ancient tanks and the lesser explored Hoysala temple at Belavadi. Exploring a Hoysala tank. Pic courtesy: Arun Bhat, Travelwise. The deviation from the usual Hoysala tourist circuit was courtesy Travelwise, a concept travel firm run by media professional and travel enthusiasts Lakshmi Sharath and Arun Bhat, a former IT professional…

How often have we not heard non-vegetarians crib about the lack of variety in the vegetarian cuisine - constantly branding it as "Ghas-poos"? Well, after a meal at the South Indies, even the most intractable of "pure" non-vegetarians would be forced to lick their fingers and then, eat some humble pie.South Indies is a part of a very small club of genuinely authentic restaurants in Bangalore and this is largely due to the entrepreneurial excellence of Managing Director, Vijay Abhimanyu  and the culinary expertise of Master Chef and CEO, Venkatesh Bhat. In fact, barring the beverages and the usual spread…

A Pune school has said ‘no' to processed food at school and has involved parents in choices of food for the children. A number of other private schools, include many in Bengaluru are considering similar positions. The idea of schools intervening in what is traditionally the domain of parents was the topic of a panel discussion recently in Bengaluru. The conference was held to spread awareness about the dangers of processed foods, genetically modified foods, chemical agriculture, factory farming and how our food system impacts climate change. Pic credit: Basavaraj Biradar The discussion was held at a Conference on Food,…

This is my response to Citizen Matters' article on 'Junctions where grade separators are to come up'. The thought of having the prolonged construction of yet another set of grade separators foisted on us is really scary. As everyone knows, the underpass on 24th Main, 15th Cross, J P Nagar is way behind schedule as was the case with Jayadeva circle flyover. When the Jayadeva flyover construction was going on between the years 2003-06, traffic was diverted through Bilekahalli Dollar Layout adjacent to Bannerghatta Road, where I live, for years on end.The decision to divert traffic through our layout, was…

A science exhibition on a 16 coach AC train! Yes, “The Science express”, a science exhibition on a train that is travelling all over the country is now in Bangalore. The exhibits have been developed by the Max Planck Society, Germany, in collaboration with the Department of Science and technology (DST), the Government of India and the Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC).The train is in Bangalore, stationed at the Cantonment station, from the 10th to the 14th of this month. So far the train has visited over 100 cities covering a distance of 32000 kms. An exhibit at…

Past Saturday, December 5th saw a bunch of metal heads from the garden city of Bengaluru become a part of history by default. History because they witnessed India’s first ever international metal festival for climate change; default for the simple reason that there was absolutely no talk about climate change on stage. However, NGO heavyweights like Green Peace, Indian Youth Climate Network and Life did their bit by setting up stalls and signing petitions about climate change. These petitions will eventually be sent to a United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2010. At last count, a total of fifteen hundred…