HOME AND GARDEN

Many apartment complexes and layouts in Bengaluru have large gardens with flowering plants and trees. A lot of yellowing or dry leaves fall to ground everyday in such gardens, and these are swept away regularly. Hedges are also routinely pruned to maintain aesthetic appeal. This generates significant amounts of garden waste. Many complexes dispose off garden waste to tractor operators, who pick it up, assuring it would be dumped in approved sites. Though these operators charge stiff prices, no one knows where they ultimately deposit the waste. I would like to highlight a better, responsible way of handling garden waste, based on…

Across Bengaluru, apartments have been popping up like mushrooms over the years. This poses several challenges to the city, including waste management. Though BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) has introduced many rules that require apartments to manage their own waste, not all apartments follow these. Some apartments face practical difficulties such as lack of space or the heavy investment needed to install a composting unit. The poor management of waste affects not just apartment residents, but all citizens. But the solution could be quite simple. Back in the olden days, people used to segregate and compost their wet waste - mainly…

The 208th Lal Bagh Flower Show has started in the city to commemorate the 72nd Independence Day. The show is being jointly organised by the Department of Horticulture and Mysore Horticulture Society. With the theme ‘Sevege Gaurvarpane’, the biannual event pays homage to the Armed Forces this time. The chief attraction is the model of Amar Jawan Jyothi, the memorial to the fallen soldiers of the country at India Gate, with the flags of the three branches- Army, Navy and Airforce. Behind it, as an impressive background is a replica of the Siachen Glacier with the models of Indian soldiers…

Everyone agrees that Metro is an excellent mode of public transport. It improves connectivity and is good for the city. It is environmental-friendly. However, we have lost quite a number of trees at the time of Metro construction and we need to take some steps to regain the lost greenery. Most of Namma Metro is not underground. Bare metro pillars and beams have become an eyesore of our so-called Garden City. There have been news reports of BMRCL planning some vertical gardens, in which a huge metal frame holds a large number of small containers in which a variety of…

Many of us have small gardens or even potted plants at home, to add a touch of greenery and, as we hope, to purify the city air.  Houseplants play several beneficial roles in our home environment. They provide visual interest to the home, purify the air, and may be edible or medicinal. What many of us may not know, however, is that some of these plants can be poisonous! Toxic plants can be a hazard to children and pets, as well as to elderly persons with dementia. Though  it would be better  to keep all plants out of the reach…

The whole of last month, this member of the cactus family (Hylocereus) has been delighting people across our city. I clicked the photos below in front of my bank at J P Nagar 5th Phase. This flower/cactus is not native to India; it comes from Central and South America. But we certainly seem to have adopted it; locally, it’s called “Brahmakamalam” (though the actual Brahmakamalam is another plant altogether!) and the edible fruit is called “Dragon fruit”, thanks to its shape and colour. You can see the fruit if you click on the link here. The flowers bloom at night,…

After the disappointing 7 Khoon Maaf, Vishal Bharadwaj makes amends with Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola. With this film, Vishal Bharadwaj lives up to his previous cinematic work that includes Ishqiya, Kaminey, Omkara, Blue Umbrella, Maqbool and Makdee. But the subtle humour that we saw in earlier work like Ishqiya and Kaminey now moves into a fullblown political sattire. It's a new genre for Bharadwaj, and he makes the transition gracefully. When Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola works, it does so because it is a film that runs at many levels. At a most basic analysis, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka…

Merrily Tobin visited Jalvayu Vihar (JVV - where I have lived since retiring from the Indian Navy) for the first time in 1993. JVV was then just three years old. She recalls, "There were hardly any birds out here. The trees were just about picking up and the campus had a dry, barren look about it JVV site, circa 1987. Courtesy: Wg.Cdr.KJ Batt Jalvayu Vihar: Under Construction – 1989 – Barren Main Road & water tower. Pic: Wg.Cdr.KJ Batt In the next few years, JVV grew greener; the birds began to take notice and slowly moved in and so did…