DIARY

This is a son’s tribute to a great lady who would have been 100 years old this year- a well known social worker of Bangalore in the last century. Jayalakshamma was born in Hassan 100 years ago, the youngest in a family of four. She was pretty, dark and short. At the age of 12, she was married off to an idealistic youth, P R Ramiaya who had run away from Mysore to Benares when he was in school. He was about to complete his Master’s in Chemistry when the pied piper from Porbandar called upon the youth of the…

Being involved in a community project in colleges through which we try to empower students to make an informed decision of whether to start their own company after they pass out of college, a thought struck my mind a couple of months ago. Students can do this only if they know the ground realities of being an entrepreneur - which is best achieved by talking to one. Part 1 of "Startup Savvy" People say a picture is worth thousand words, I thought, so why not make a documentary film on the life of entrepreneurs? A movie that will not only…

When I went to college to study Computer Science at BITS, Pilani, located in a remote village of Rajasthan, I never expected the remoteness of the place to exceed the extent of not having a cinema hall. How could we sustain an existence of 4 years without the staple Indian diet of bollywood movies? Thankfully BITS fostered a strong sense of multi-cultural living, in addition to of-course studying computer science. So enough and more emphasis was laid on participating in variety of activities like college fests, theatre, photography, dance, music etc. through the form of various clubs. Inherit the Wind…

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon on 6th July when I was surfing through my scrap book on my Orkut profile and saw it. ‘International Yezdi / Jawa Day- 13th July 2008. Interested people may meet at 7.00 AM in Cubbon Park, for a joint ride to Café Cofee Day at Channapattna on Mysore Road’.It may sound silly but in reality, for the next six nights, I frequently dreamt of the ride. I saw myself on Mysore road riding my bike on various turns and different speeds. Every morning, I woke up with disbelief regarding my own subconscious excitement about…

The French revolution talked about 'Education for all, Work for all'. The free software movement is taking this further with 'Computer education for all'.This was amply demonstrated by students and teachers at the opening ceremony of Ambedkar Community Computer Center at Sudarshan Layout (behind the IBM office at Bannerghata road). The centre, a volunteer effort from AID (Association for India's Development, Bangalore chapter) and Stree Jagruthi Samithi, was launched to provide free computer training to children in the area. Cutting the ribbon (pic: Sejal Parikh) There are many reasons why this event is path breaking, but the centre's efforts in…

The morning of Sunday, 22 June, saw a motley bunch of people assemble at the entrance to Bangalore Fort. Architects, housewives, techies, photographers, writers and scientists, among others, gathered to learn more about Bangalore's heritage and its past from one of the city's leading historians, Dr S K Aruni. The event was organised by the Bangalore chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) as part of its Parichay (meaning ‘introduction') programme, an initiative aimed at raising awareness of Bangalore's heritage among its citizens. Participants in the INTACH Parichay event at the Bangalore Fort. Pic: MB…

Bangalore in the fifties was a relaxed, laid back town with little aspiration to cosmopolitanism. There was a rarely articulated divide, between the westernized cantonment area and the city areas with their predominantly old Mysorean culture. Double road (K H Road) was the dividing line as is still suggested by the crematorium on its eastern side. The cultural divide was quite stark, Veena and Carnatic music, long skirts and long hair, kho kho and tenniquoit in the schools on the south side and piano and western classical music, basket ball and hockey, knee length skirts and god forbid, shorts! on…

On Sunday, the 27 April, 2008 at 8 AM, a group of eleven people met up in front of the Apsara theatre at K R market and embarked upon what could well be called Bangalore's first ever PhotoWalk. As the name suggests, a PhotoWalk is all about people walking and taking pictures of whatever they find interesting along the way. They walk along as a group and click photographs, while sharing their information related to photography, to the buildings they pass by, or about anything else they find relevant. This concept as first mooted and implemented in Chennai by blogger…

The Bannerghata Nature Camp is ideal for a short break, especially if you don't want to drive out too far from the city. The pond in front of the Bannerghata Nature Camp Long time Bangalore residents may remember this road past IIM Bangalore as a pot-holed drive into a fairly verdant area. Now it is a concrete mess right up-to the zoo. The resort is situated a few kilometres beyond the zoo, and we parked the car near the Jungle Lodges' new restaurant and were driven inside in the camp's vehicles.The resort itself consists of a half a dozen tents,…

Every year, as summer rolls in and the mercury rises, I head for the swimming pool (well, poolette, actually!) in our apartment building, and my mind goes back a few years... One of the advantages of living in residential apartments in Bangalore is the fact that one gets to enjoy some common amenities: a gym, a swimming pool, a common green area, and so on. And one summer, I realized that there was someone willing to teach the ladies in the complex, how to swim. Learning to swim was not something new to me. Like the man who said, "Giving…