Blogs

Tat Tvam is a young Bangalore theatre group; and "God", by Woody Allen, was their first production. They are a group of amateur artistes; many of them are IT professionals, but a few of them are students, too. For a first production, "God" was a fairly ambitious project to choose, and they did manage to do a good job of the production."God" is a half-absurd,half-metaphysical play, and the locale and the characters change with bewildering rapidity between ancient Greece and Manhattan!In the words of Miracle Entertainment, the group that had earlier staged this play:"Set in an empty Greek amphitheater, this…

The seats decidedThat rather than be dividedThey too, would get togetherAnd sit in conclave,Debate on pleasure and pain:They, too, would discuss the weatherTalk of the bold and the brave...They would gossip and chatLike the people who satOn them. Will they return to their places again?Or will they remain,Forever united,Conversational partners in the park,By the light of the day, and in the dark? ⊕

I went all prepared. Ear phones for my phone radio, comfortable clothes and footwear, a light bag, though I did forget the bottle of glucose. No, I didn't go to an adventure camp. I was getting set to go to the Voter Facilitation Centre. As election fever is running at an all-time high in the city, I wasn't left far behind. The bug caught on to me too. And here I am, joining the bandwagon of those who have been ranting about their journey to get the 'impossible' - the Voter ID card. I am proud to say that I…

A few months back, the road leading to our area was given a makeover. Once pot-holed with moon craters, it is now a smooth ride. But without any pavements, the pedestrians, cars, dogs, dump trucks, buses etc all share the shiny road. There has been a lot of complaints & rants in Citizen Matters, on the usage of pavements as extended shops and garages. But all that does not answer my question - When will all roads in our city get pavements? Good pavements that are user friendly - no teetering granite slabs, no overgrown trees without concrete borders that…

I was coming back from the Central Business District, and waiting for a friend to pickme up at the junction of Richmond Road, where Brigage Road starts calling itself Hosur Road. Right next to Thom's Hotel, I looked in the cool greenery of All Saints' Church, and on an impulse, walked inside.What an oasis of peace it is! True, the roar of the traffic is unrelenting...but the beautiful, low-set church, and the huge trees (there is one huge Millingtonia, or Sausage Tree, in full bloom and fruit just now) and the birds in them give the effect of stepping into…

Years ago, Cooke Town was full of old bungalows built during the "burra sahib" days. Lots of garden space, verandahs with trellis panels, spacious bedrooms, high ceilings, four-blade punkahs, windows with framed-glass shutters... I could go on and on and on.But things are fast changing out here, with large bungalows making way for apartment blocks. Inevitable, with elderly couples living alone and their children settled abroad. But unlike elsewhere in the city, apartments here try and retain the old world charm associated with local British colonies - especially Cooke Town, Richards Town, Cox Town and Frazer Town.The picture you see…

Citizen Matters Magazine - Vol 1 Issue 5Dear Readers, Happy Ugadi to you all! Elections are around. Well they’ve always been around you might say. After all our democracy is over 60-years-old now. What’s different this time? No, not really, it’s not the politics. It’s not the policy promises either. It’s the interest in voting amongst the middle and upper classes -- the groups who are usually scorned by politicians and NGOs as too aloof to dirty their hands with ‘running to file a form’ or ‘going to the booth to stand in line to vote’. Scores of hitherto non-voters…

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I have been posting about my less-than-ideal experience with getting my Voter ID (EPIC). When a friend posted a "how-to" process on the Hasiru Usiru egroup, I posted my responses on it, too.Kathyaynin Chamaraj posted it on the CIVIC group, too, and forwarded it to several people. This resulted in two positive things:Someone from Jaagore did email me and listened to what I had to say, and has promised to look into the Jaaagore form and make it work. Hopefully, this will make things easier for other people, even if the process didn't work for me.Mr Elisha Andrew from the…

S.Karthikeyan, Chief Naturalist, Jungle Lodges and Resorts Ltd, is a keen observer of all things in Nature, and he has been alerting many of us, each year, to the arrival of glow-worms in the park adjoining the beautiful, and we-don't-know-how-long-it-will-last, parks adjoining Nanda Road (the correct name for this road is Rashtriya Vidyalaya Road, but it is more generally known as Nanda Road, or Rose Garden Road...there once was a real rose garden here!)They usually make an appearance around Sivaratri time (mid-February), but this year, we received Karthik's alert only last week, and some of us trooped off to take…