GENRE: Features

Raadha 2010, an annual dance and collaborative arts festival was organsed by Raadha Kalpa between the 29th of October and 15th November across various venues in the city. Raadha Kalpa, founded by Rukmini Vijayakumar, a Bangalore based classical and modern dancer and choreographer, is an organization dedicated to the promotion of art and culture through performance, teaching and artistic collaboration. The Indian traditional ideals are communicated in Bharatanatyam, maintaining the purity of the classical form, and utilizing innovation within the classical context. Rukmini, one of the most talented artistes of the city holds a degree in Modern dance and Classical…

It's curtains up for the first sequel of David Yates' two-part epic film Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. As in the book, this film has Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) setting out to find the deathly hallows, even as a final battle with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) looms large in the horizon. This film will always have a huge attraction for Harry Potter fans, as it's their last link with an obsession that kept them occupied for a good part of the last decade. Yet while Philosopher's Stone remains my favourite Harry Potter film,…

Granite is the one of the most commonly used stones in Bangalore. You find it everywhere and you walk on it every time you step on to a sidewalk in Bangalore. But beware! There is a ghost lurking in the granite, not only a ghost but a dragon to boot! It's true! Female dragonfly. Vikram Nanjappa. Did you know? The British, as usual, were the first to document this diversity in the famous work - The Fauna of British India - Odonata (1933 - 1936). It runs into three volumes and records a total of 536 species and sub species!…

Zipping across a skating rink on a pair of wheels may only have seemed like a cool hobby to many youngsters until a few years back. But over the last decade, skating has quietly grown as a sport in Bengaluru – from having 5-6 skating clubs a decade ago, the city now has 15 registered clubs. For many kids practicing in these clubs, skating could easily be their future career. Students at BTM Roller Skating Club. Pic: Mayur Chennagere. Faraz A Umar, a seventh standard student at Frank Anthony Public School and member of Force One skating club in Banashankari,…

Sunrise at Bilekal Rangaswamy Betta. Pic: Deepa Mohan. When four friends from varying backgrounds share a love for the outdoors, and decide to do something about it, a good initiative is born. The four friends are Anand Sankar, Lionel Prem Lobo, Srinidhi Raghavendra and Sandeep Komarla, and together, they've created Basic Halli, a tented eco-resort a little beyond Kanakapura, about 70 km. from Bangalore. Anand had organized a bird survey in the area, so I had gone with a group of  fellow naturalists,  to  document the bird (and butterfly) species in the vicinity. "Our location is a great plus," smiles…

Children listen attentively as Aparna shows pictures of characters from popular culture For adults like me, unused to interacting with small children on a regular basis, walking into a primary school classroom is like stepping into another world. A chorus of goodmorningma'am, keen faces, eagerness to listen...in short, enthusiasm unbound. For people like Aparna D and Rajeshwari S however, these reactions are familiar territory. Aparna and Rajeshwari are not teachers in the formal sense. But they are educators. People with a sense of mission, who understand how important it is to get children to think about what they eat. As…

Old-timers of Malleshwaram area cannot ‘not know' this simple library, on Sampige Road, Malleshwaram (between 2nd and 3rd Cross). It has been there since 1951.  69-year-old G R J Gupta, has part of this library since he was nine-years-old. Though it started as a small store selling grocery, vegetables, fruits, milk, badam milk and condiments, newspapers, magazines and books, it was later converted into a full fledged library. "My father, who was a very well-known goldsmith and called the Gold King of Chennai, suddenly relocated to Bangalore in 1951.  I was just 9 years old then.  I do not know…

Among all the animals, snakes fascinate us the most. The very word ‘snake' causes a rush of emotions, unfortunately mostly negative. This is mostly because we do not know much about them and thus misunderstand and fear them. There are over 270 different species of snakes in India most of which are harmless to humans. However four species are venomous and one of them is the Cobra. A resting cobra. Pic: Vikram Nanjappa. The Cobra has made itself at home in Bengaluru. They are usually found in agricultural fields and fallow areas on the periphery of the city but with…

As mentioned earlier in my article Skippers in your garden here the Lantana bush on Cookson Road in Richards Town, Bengaluru attracts a lot of butterflies and one of the most colourful one happens to be the Common Jezebel. The Common Jezebel feeding on the lantana flowers Pic: Vikram Nanjappa. The Common Jezebel Delias eucharis belongs to the family Pierdae which has among its members some of the most familiar of butterflies like Grass Yellows and Emigrants. The name butterfly is derived from members of this family which are predominantly white and yellow and are thus also known as "Whites…

Many in India watched with curiosity as Julia Roberts filmed for Eat, Pray, Love in India. Now, many months later, the film directed by Ryan Murphy and filmed by Brad Pitt is finally here. Eat, Pray, Love, based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Elizabeth Gilbert, tells the story of Elizabeth's (Julia Roberts) journey around the world to find herself after a painful divorce. As the story unfolds on celluloid, the traveler in you can't help responding to moments in the film with a sense of deja vu. For her part, Julia Roberts brings alive the role…