Blogs

BBMP South officials and Health department officials raided 6 bars, restaurants, canteens and chaat shops in Chickpet area and confiscated about 1 lakh worth of Tobacco leaves and Ganja used in smoking pipes (Hookah). Seized Hookahs. Pic: BBMP These outlets had obtained licenses to run food business but were selling these illegalproducts in the same premises. The vicinity is dotted with a lot of schools and colleges. Some residents had complained to the authorities on seeing few students visiting these joints.⊕

 A memorable meeting... On the 6th of November,2011, I was privileged to be at a gathering of some of eminent birdwatchers of Bangalore. The gracious host was none other than the doyen of birdwatching in Bangalore, Zafar Futehally who has been instrumental in popularizing birding as a hobby in our city; ironically, the hobbby seems to be catching on in ever-increasing numbers as the number of species of birds in the City's shrinking parks and vanishing lakes are steadily decreasing.Here's Zafar Sahib, whose long years of service to ornithology cannot be understated: Several other eminent ornithologists and scientists, all of whom share…

 A very nice walk.... I've been interested in, and involved with, Magic Puddles a daycare and children's activity centre, for a while now, since I did a project with the children about trees. And having done the Puttenahalli Lake Walk a little while ago, I wanted to take the children there, too; so this morning, Viji and I rounded up some children and off we went!We started at the Brigade Millenium arch entrance:And as we went, I pointed out various interesting things to them. Here they are, keenly observing a grasshopper! The children were full of curiosity...their sentences always seem to…

 When I heard about an audition for actors in the field of corporate training, I was intrigued, and decided to try my luck and see if I would be chosen for the audition, even though I lacked the theatre experience that was asked for in the email sent by Steps Drama Learning Development.I quickly got a response from Mohan Mudgalkar, the Senior Associate of Steps in India, asking me to choose whether I wanted the morning or the afternoon stint, on the 8th of October, 2011. I chose the afternoon, and went there to find several others also arriving. Charumathi…

"Other Voices" 1 Madhav Bagh, a Ranga Shankara "Other Voices" presentation, featuringRevathy, returns this week-end. The play is written by Chetan Datar,translated by Shanta Gokhale, and directed by Mariam Jetpurwala. Theshows are at 9:45 pm on Sat, Nov 19 and 9:30 PM on Sun, Nov 20. Theduration of the play is 40 mins.Tickets are available at Ranga Shankara and indianstage.in. Given theintimate space of an "Other Voices" performance, the number of seatsis very limited."Other Voices" is a unique theatre experience at Ranga Shankara. It istheatre performed in an intimate space, after the show in the mainauditorium, in an informal setting (for…

One building...On my way to and from the Bangalore International Airport, one building often catches my eye:I have long known the custom of the Parsi community to dispose of their dead by exposing the bodies to the elements and to the sun. I vaguely remember being shown a "Tower of Silence" in Mumbai, many decades ago.I googled for "Tower of Silence", and got this link about Dakhma, transliterated as "Tower of Silence" I was not sure if the Tower of Silence in Bangalore is being used now...but a little digging produced this link to an article in the Hindu ...which…

The Nature Walk on Sunday, 13th November. went off very well with participants mostly from South Bangalore and one enthusiast who came from Malleswaram. The 40 odd participants including children and adults came early to see the sun rise and light up the lake and its inhabitants. They were amply rewarded - sighting several species of birds, insects and even a couple of water snakes. They had a whale of a time and, with Deepa Mohan as their guide, got a very good introduction to the beautiful flora and fauna at our lake.  Observation drawings by Ria(8)-top row, Nishka (5)-bottom…

 It was a great way to celebrate Children's Day.... When Usha Rajagopalan asked me to take several people around the 1km perimeter of Puttenahalli Lake, I was very happy indeed to conduct the nature trail.We all assembled there at 6am:The sun also decided to come up and join us: There were about 50 people altogether, including old friends like Shashi and Shalini.Obviously, I wasn't able to take too many photographs, but with Poornima and Srini along, we sighted quite a few interesting things, such as thisSPOTTED OWLETon top of a dead palm trunk:and thisPURPLE HERONwhich seems to be a regular resident:It was…

A short but satisfying trip to Nandi Hills....As usual, by consensus, Nandi Hills was agreed upon as the destination for Saturday's birding trip, and 7 of us....Kannan,Nandan, Naveen,Poornima, Santosh,Sumeet, and I...left very early in the morning, so as to catch the sunrise at Nandi Hills.As it happened, we caught the beautiful "moon set" instead. The moon was just a day past full, and still looked quite gorgeous as it sank down in the west, behind the bettA (hill) that is Nandi. By the time we'd queued up for our tickets, and got into the road, and gone up the hill…

Out of sight, out of mind...that's what usually happens to the garbage that we throw out of our homes. I've been trying all yesterday, and up to now, to load some photos to Photobucket, so I can write about the Trash Trail I went on yesterday...but I think the internet connection is terrible, so I'll write about it and you can see the photos (with the narrative) at my Facebook account, here I'm sorry, but you need a Facebook account to be able to see the photos.I'm adding the few photos I was able to post...starting with this one...illustrative of the…