GENRE: Features

This year's Bird Race, organised by the India Bird Races, was held on 15th January. Sunjoy Monga headed this year's race. Registrations were opened up in early January and 44 teams had registered in all. The race was sponsored, as always, by Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Corporation (HSBC).This was a good number of participants, considering the fact that it was Sankranti day.The rules, as always, were that people could form teams, and check off the various species of birds that they found in a 60 km radius around Bangalore. In this radius Nandi Hills is included, as it continues to…

"Every morning in Africa, when a Gazelle wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up, it knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."We've heard this quoted every time when talk veers about running. For humans though, running is not a means for survival, but it certainly is a means for healthy living.I am a resident of Chaithanya Samarpan, a…

Meet Rajeshwari aka Raji, age who has been selling vegetables for 30 years now. She has made a thriving family business out of it. Sometimes, one woman's enterprise brings the entire family to progress and some level of prosperity. pic caption pending pic: Deepa Mohan 43-year-old Raji hails from a village near Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. She moved to Bangalore at a young age, after her marriage. She and her husband got into the vegetable vending business. They used to push a wheeled cart of vegetables through the streets of the city.Around 1995, a new apartment building, called Casa Ansal, came…

Tomatina, is a newly opened multi cuisine vegetarian restaurant at HSR Layout. As the name suggests, red predominates the colour scheme of the interiors and ‘tomato' is used in almost every delicacy. The ambience has a touch of countryside charm and there is terrace seating too. Tomato dhaniya shorba, tomatina. Pic: Nagashree Gururaj "The restaurant specialises in Jain food, Tandoor and continental food", says Shivaram Nataraju, 31, Assistant manager. He also adds that the chefs are from the Maldives.The menu offers sizzlers (Rs 200-400), continental food, north Indian food and salads; it also has soups served chilled - like tomato…

850 students from various schools in the state, participated in the state level Abacus competition held on Sunday, 8, January, 2012. Aloha, an organisation that runs advanced abacus and mental arithmetic programme, conducted the competition at Shri Krishna Kalyana Mantapa, Rajaji Nagar. Vaibhav Prakash, attempting the questions in the state level competition. Pic: Deepti Sarma Arithmetic through abacus is a Chinese tool that helps develop the part of brain which controls creativity and integration of information.Each student sported an Aloha Tshirt and was armed with the beaded abacus to solve 60 complex arithmetic Qs in 5 mins! Sounds unattainable? It…

The literary works of illustrious playwright and poet, Thyagaraja Paramasiva Kailasam or TPK, are, without doubt, the best among the modern day writings in Kannada to date - a captivating mix of humour, poignancy & relevance. His works have an essential realism and meaning that are valid to this day.He remains the soul of Kannada theatre and resides in the heart of every connoisseur of Kannada theatre and poetry. Thyagaraja paramasiva kailasam-hailed as a great humourist and one of the doyens of kannada literature A peek into Kailasam's life:The saga of T P Kailasam (1884 to 1946), begins in southern…

The 4th edition of the Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFES) concluded on December 22, 2011. Like with previous events, BIFFES brought the best of international world cinema to the city. But unlike in the past, this year it routinely ran to full houses, with venues like Lido Mall even accommodating audience members on the floor because seats were all full. With screening venues spread out from Bangalore East to Bangalore South, the fourth BIFFES was more inclusive than past editions. Movie: When We Leave Pic:Wikipedia Using a combination of traditional media and social networking sites, the organisers generated the right…

Do you wish for an adrenaline filled adventure this weekend? Then head out for a day's trek at Savandurga. Savandurga located 50 kilometers from Bangalore is a 2 hour drive from Bangalore towards Magadi road. Savandurga is one of the largest monolithic rock structures in world scaling 1226 m above sea level and is a delight to any trekker, seasoned or otherwise. Savandurga comprises of two hills BiliBetta (white hill) and KariBetta (Black hill). Manchanbele reservoir. Pic: Usha Hariprasad. Savandurga has a rich history behind it. It was an important landmark during Hoysala period. It was then under many rulers…

Alliance Francaise hosted Kaleidoscape 2011 an exhibition of paintings, photographs and sculptures by seven eclectic artists on 10th and 11th December. Philippe Gasparini the Director of Alliance Francaise inaugurated the event. Pic: Suja Sukumaran Ramesh Nambiar, Pooja Surana and Adithi Sarovar presented their paintings while Chandrashekar Naik, Yatiraj M and Hemavathi S L exhibited their sculptures. The group of seven diverse thinkers with their medium and tools captured the imagination of the viewers in the gallery making it an enjoyable evening.Pooja Suvarna a student of Chitrakala Parishath (CKP), gold medalist and rank holder in Arts was thrilled with the prospect…

As a young girl growing up in Chennai (then Madras), I always enjoyed school excursions and day trips with friends and family to Mahabalipuram also referred to as Mamallapuram. En route to this seat of splendid ancient heritage of the Pallava dynasty that ruled parts of southern India, is the well known Cholamandal Artists' Village. It is believed to be the largest artists' commune in this country, I remember it as a place filled with artists, craftspersons and visitors. Although Cholamandal always attracted my attention, I never got an opportunity to spend too much time there. So, meeting with and…