JP Nagar

In J P Nagar today, BSNL was conducting a Telephone Mela, with both new connections, mobile phones and internet connections being offered at a considerable discount.Here's the sign:Another view of the shamiana:The place was abuzz with people, and the staff were extremely courteous and helpful.Here are some of them, including Ms. Nagarathnamma (fittingly, speaking on the telephone), whom I have personally found very capable and helpful on several occasions:What a difference from the days when one had to make huge deposits, and wait several years for a telephone connection! It is good to see Government agencies being so proactive. I…

I had been to Barcamp7 at IIM-B, and participated in a freewheeling discussion on finding accomodation in Bangalore, along with Meera. On the way out, simultaneous sunshine and showers brought out this beautiful double rainbow against the African Tulips and the Sampige trees.I was moved to pen these lines:You're feeling down and out.You feel old.There's a storm about.You feel cold.The storm clouds mass;the showers come to pass.Suddenly, in the shrouds of grey rainclouds--A rainbow in the sky! No...there are two!Science can tell you why....but whoWants to know why? Do you?A rainbow is like life:Full of both happiness and strife.When there…

Arundhati Nag - someone whom I have associated with theatre in Bangalore, and theatre in Kannada, for a long time. And whom I have associated with other things worth emulating: grit, the never-say-die spirit, the persistence and the determination to achieve a stated goal, and more. So a meeting with her was something that I was looking forward to, even if I had to wait from 4 PM to 5.20 PM- I got my chance to talk to this icon of theatre. "Let's go from the basics," I tell her as I sit opposite her at the lovely cafe at…

When we start incorporating ancient concepts in a modern idiom, sometimes, not a new idiom, but a new idiocy, is born...A prime example is trying to incorporate the concepts of "Vastu" in modern buildings; this results in weird architecture like this: Instead of having that water tank set four-square on the building, it looks like some tacked-on piece of architecture...an architect told me that often, owners of buildings are very keen that however strange the building looks, it must conform to what their "vastu" experts say. The building just has to be built in such ways, then! But it does…

It's a challenge to "work on an adaptation of an English translation of a Russian play", as the brochure given by Centre for Film and Drama (CFD) said, and the Bangalore angle intrigued me sufficiently to walk down to Ranga Shankara to see the production at its first showing on the 4th of this month. I was not disappointed. City of Gardens - Play (Pic: Deepa Mohan)‘City of Gardens' is an adaptation of Anton Chekov's ‘The Cherry Orchard’, and has been converted into an allegory for Bangalore by Abhishek Majumdar and Jisha Menon, with inputs from Arshia Sattar, Gautam Raja,…

Here's the image of Ganesha which was installed and worshipped in our apartment building today:As I photographed the homa being conducted, I fancied that I could see the image of Ganesha in the flames:With a little imagination, one can see Ganesha, facing left, his fan-ear on the right-hand side, his head, single tusk and rounded belly on the left-hand side....!I hope Vinayaka Chaturthi brings peace and plenty to the land, and to the homes of the devotees!⊕

Last week, some "columns" made of plastic (of terracotta look, complete with fake "burnt" patches, with rectangular frames on top for advertisements, suddenly made their appearance on M G Road. All the newspapers picked up on this uglification of the scene, and also remarked on how these ugly things were supposed to be beautifying Bangalore but were actually put there to fetch further revenue for BBMP (which seems to have developed a bottomless thirst for raising cash) through ads in the rectangles. The columns were impeding traffic and Deccan Herald pointed out how one pedestrian had been injured by a…

Ranga Shankara has a very laudable project called "Other Voices" where smaller, more intimate plays are sought to be staged to a much smaller audience. One example of this was "1, Madhav Baug", enacted by Revathi which was staged in a small upper room in Ranga Shankara to just 25 viewers at at time.Tickets for these 9.30pm shows go on sale, however, ONLY at 9pm at Ranga Shankara. And this is proving to be a problem. In fact, if you see this photograph of the announcement of the play, you can see that it says, "tickets will go on sale…

Using a car on Bangalore roads? Then,when you fill up petrol (at the petrol pumps in the city, you are generally given the "perk" of "Free Air"...that is, the car tyre pressure is checked and filled by an attendant, and it is supposed to be a service free of cost.However, over the years, the habit has been established, of tipping the attendant a couple of rupees. Quick to notice this, petrol pumps pay their attendants a little less, the rationale being that they will pick up the tips from motorists! So the attendants are keen that no one go away…

Some years ago, all of us had to bear with the roads, and sidewalks too, getting dug up for various reasons; one of them was OFC. "OFC"! said the little concrete signposts said, that came up later on the spot. OFC stood for Optic Fibre Cable; this was going to be the cable that would make Bangalore the city of the future, with internet connectivity everywhere.Then there were reports in the newspaper that there were only the pipes laid down; the actual optic fibre cable itself was missing. "Ah!" we breathed; it was nothing new to Bangalore to have something…