Women of the Tigala community looking their best during the Karaga festival at the Dharmarayaswamy Temple.
The Tigalas, also referred to as Vanhikula Kshatriyas, are by tradition, gardeners and flower traders whose contribution in nurturing many of the city’s parks including Lalbagh is widely acknowledged. They believe that are the descendants of Veerakumaras –‘hero-sons’, a warrior clan that the mythological princess Draupadi put together to fight the demon Timarasura. A section of the Pete (old Bangalore) area is called Tigalarapete, recognising the predominance of the community in the region. They celebrate what is arguably Bengaluru’s biggest and most well-known festival, the Karaga that draws lakhs of people to the Dharmarayaswamy Temple each year.
About this column
Curated by Vivek Muthuramalingam, a well-known documentary photographer, Intense-city will showcase photographs mostly from non-professionals which will make you pause a while, reflect, and explore myriad perspectives of urban life. Vivek shall encourage the creator to articulate, and present imagery that engages the viewer not just on the visual plane but also on its substance and context.
Bengaluru is a city of admirable history and architectural heritage, neighbourhoods that still pleasantly reek of tradition, and festivals that celebrate the diversity and cohabitation of its population. And yet, it makes space for glass-clad edifices that nurture technological minds competing to be amongst the best in the world. Hidden between the curious interdependence and recurrent friction between these two worlds, are many shades of the metropolis that paints a realistic, more palatable picture of its temperament.
This, has often been the subject of the new breed of digital photographers who exercise their right to ‘capture’ everything that they observe and fancy under the alibi of documentary and street photography. While it is unreasonable to expect them to weave every visual into a context while sharing it, there could be a process to encourage them to make it more conducive to dialogues and interpretations. Citizen Matter’s new photo booth encourages such photographers who treat the city as their canvas to submit images that shows a side of Bengaluru that isn’t seen and experienced often.