GENRE: Features

It's a tale of a boy who started a dance school at the age of just 17. Anil Iyer now a 21-year-old is the proud owner of a classical Tanjore style, Bharathanatyam dance institute in Jayanagar 9th Block, ‘Shivoham School of Performing Arts. Shiva's aananda tandava Iyer says he does not want to add more than 40 students, as he believes in quality and flawless teaching. "I teach to propagate this art form, I love teaching. I wish to give some artists back to the divine field of art, " he explains.Iyer's dance journey started when he was just 10,…

It's been my long cherished motherhood dream. A good sized drawer to hold all those fancy stuff that can turn you into the queen of craft in minutes, making short work of last minute projects that involve felt, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, glitter and anything slightly more complicated and hard to find than colourful markers. At this point the dream or rather the drawer, expands into a cupboard which also holds gifts for various genders and ages between two to ten, bought at half price during off -season sales. This is precisely the moment that I give myself a jolt…

"Koramangala was a no man's land then," says, Professor N S Ramaswamy, 86, the man behind the Indian Heritage Academy (IHA.) Prof Ramaswamy, Chairman, Director, IHA, believes that a place can be made liveable only through its culture and its ethics. Pic: Deepthi M S Built in the early 80's, the academy's sole purpose was to foster the growth of Indian culture. Situated amidst the a busy area, it has a retained its old charm. The academy, a non-profit making organisation, spread over 30,000sq feet, it has around 500 varieties of plants. With temples, open yards and trees, it takes…

‘Varna Mythri - Centenary Retrospective 2011' was launched in December 2011 to commemorate the birth centennial of artist Rumale Chennabasaviah. The retrospective is being held by National Gallery of Modern Art NGMA, Benglauru. Play of light, High Court, c 1960 - oil on canvas. Pic courtesy: NGMA The programme was to end on 31 January but the date has been now extended. "By popular demand, the last date for viewing has been extended until 19 February 2012", shared Shoba Nambisan, the director of NGMA.The programme included insightful weekly discussions by artists and art historians on Rumale's paintings, landscape art and…

The Bengaluru Habba featured the staging of Robert Bolt's A Man for all Seasons. For those of us not familiar with Bolt's name, he was an Oscar-winning screenplay writer and playwright, who wrote the screenplays for Dr Zhivago (one of his Oscar efforts) and the legendary Lawrence of Arabia.His other Oscar came from the screenplay adaptation of this play, A Man for all Seasons. The play for the Habba was stage directed by Arjun Sajnani, who is of course known for the high quality of his productions that include Fire and Rain and Tughlaq. This play was no different in…

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…