City: Bengaluru

“It’s the only place in the city where you are served excellent chai at 2 AM”, swears Pradeep Andrews, Director of a bar entertainment consultancy firm, ‘Shaken N Stirred’. He is a long time resident of Infantry Road and knows Shivajinagar like the back of his palm. He further states that it is the safest place for a lady at any time of the day or night. There are die-hard fans of this area and there are others who know just the bus stand. Located between MG Road area and the Cantonment, Shivajinagar is a major commercial area and an…

An interesting photographic exhibition is on from 3rd October to 15th November at Café Fresco’s on Cunningham Road. Titled ‘Stone Theater’, the exhibition displays photographs of a different kind by Magali Couffon de Trevros. These beautiful images not retouched or reframed, but just printed on aluminum sheets. It is hard to believe that these are photographs of stones, sand and water bodies around them and the aluminum sheets add to the earthy effect of the theme.Magali is French by origin, and has been in Bangalore for about 6 years and in India for 15 years. Trained as a graphic designer,…

Sunita (assumed name *) was in the hospital for a long time. Diagnosed with cancer, she had undergone multiple rounds of chemotherapy. As a result, her immune system was severely stressed. A few weeks later, she developed an open chest wound that had to be operated upon. Soon after, her doctor noticed a stubborn bacterial infection that just would not go away, no matter what antibiotics they prescribed. The doctor conducted a few tests and found that Sunita was infected with Methycillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, a fatal drug-resistant bacterium that thrives in hospital wards all over the world (www.mayoclinic.com/health/mrsa/DS00735).…

Hongasandra area of the Bommanhalli constituency’s woes doesn’t seem to end. Year after year the rains wreak havoc in the lives of close to 2 lakh people. On 24th October rain has flooded the homes of the people living in around Hongasandra. The breach in the Begur lake was cited as the reason. The real reason is not just overflowing of the lake, but the encroachment of Rajakaluve, the main storm water drain. More than 2.5 km stretch of this drain has shrunk over the past years, say the locals. People walking through floods. Pic: Padmalatha Ravi.On 25th morning when…

Let me at the outset say that I am as against noise pollution as other concerned souls like Huda Masood and Bala Venkata. Heck, I don't even listen to loud music. But on the roads, it's another story. I have been riding/driving on the roads for many many years. Traffic has obviously increased. And conversely road sense has decreased. A while back, I was driving at a sedate pace . A man was closing a conversation with his friend and walking away. He continued walking right into my path, still looking back at his friend. I hadn't honked since I…

All of us know how difficult it is to keep in touch with the fine arts while managing a household or a profession; imagine how much tougher it can be to do so if one wanted to travel the world as well. But one extraordinary individual who has managed to all this, and managed to both teach and learn music in other countries, is Anasuya Kulakarni. Anasuya, who is in her fifties now, had a lovely voice as a young girl, and, after her training under Ganakala Ratna R R Keshava Murthy, was often asked to sing everywhere, though her…

Rock On is quite unlike any other movie that the Bollywood factory has churned out. It is the first Hindi movie that deals with rock music as its central theme, and is refreshingly different from most of the standard fare that we, as cinema-goers, have been subjected to. While the public in general seems to have been greatly appreciative of the movie, as box-office records would illustrate, I had mixed feelings about it once I walked out of the multiplex and walked back into reality, where rock bands were struggling to make it big, despite the odds being stacked heavily…

In a boost to the Right To Information (RTI) movement in the country, the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in February this year, upheld the levy of penalty by the Haryana State Information Commission, on the State Public Information Officer (SPIO) for delay in furnishing information to an RTI applicant. The Commission had levied a fine of Rs.19250, at the rate of Rs.250 per day for a 77-day delay caused by the SPIO in servicing the RTI application. Cartoon: Narasimha VedalaIt is only recently that RTI users in Bangalore stumbled upon this case, and clearly, they are pleased. They pointed…

"There is no conflict in the city," was the opening statement by M Narasimha, one of the panelists in a discussion on ‘Conflict and the Future of Bangalore’ organised by Meta-Culture Dialogics (MCD is an organisation working on conflict resolution through dialogue) and hosted by Citizen Matters on 19th October, at Alliance Franchise de Bangalore, in Vasant Nagar. (16th October was World Conflict Resolution day and MCD has organised a week-long film festival on the topic during Oct 13-19. Preceding the discussion was the Anand Patwardhan film ‘Bombay, our city’ and following it was ‘Fishers of men’ by Ranjan Kamath.)Fortunately…

Day three at the recently concluded Bangalore test. The setting was perfect, the day promised a lot for India and Sachin fans. Bhajji and Zaheer started the revival of India towards the end of the day, hopefully the revival for the series.Sachin gets going in the first innings, his first boundary, joy was shortlived though as he was dismissed for 13More than the cricketers patrolling the boundaryShock and Awe tactics by the crowdEcstasy for Watson , despair for Dravid as the dreaded finger goes upWho uses the Drinks Trolley anymore ?They have the best view and the stamina‹ › $(document).ready(function(){…