Deepa's Jottings

Tat Tvam is a young Bangalore theatre group; and "God", by Woody Allen, was their first production. They are a group of amateur artistes; many of them are IT professionals, but a few of them are students, too. For a first production, "God" was a fairly ambitious project to choose, and they did manage to do a good job of the production."God" is a half-absurd,half-metaphysical play, and the locale and the characters change with bewildering rapidity between ancient Greece and Manhattan!In the words of Miracle Entertainment, the group that had earlier staged this play:"Set in an empty Greek amphitheater, this…

The seats decidedThat rather than be dividedThey too, would get togetherAnd sit in conclave,Debate on pleasure and pain:They, too, would discuss the weatherTalk of the bold and the brave...They would gossip and chatLike the people who satOn them. Will they return to their places again?Or will they remain,Forever united,Conversational partners in the park,By the light of the day, and in the dark? ⊕

I was coming back from the Central Business District, and waiting for a friend to pickme up at the junction of Richmond Road, where Brigage Road starts calling itself Hosur Road. Right next to Thom's Hotel, I looked in the cool greenery of All Saints' Church, and on an impulse, walked inside.What an oasis of peace it is! True, the roar of the traffic is unrelenting...but the beautiful, low-set church, and the huge trees (there is one huge Millingtonia, or Sausage Tree, in full bloom and fruit just now) and the birds in them give the effect of stepping into…

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I have been posting about my less-than-ideal experience with getting my Voter ID (EPIC). When a friend posted a "how-to" process on the Hasiru Usiru egroup, I posted my responses on it, too.Kathyaynin Chamaraj posted it on the CIVIC group, too, and forwarded it to several people. This resulted in two positive things:Someone from Jaagore did email me and listened to what I had to say, and has promised to look into the Jaaagore form and make it work. Hopefully, this will make things easier for other people, even if the process didn't work for me.Mr Elisha Andrew from the…

S.Karthikeyan, Chief Naturalist, Jungle Lodges and Resorts Ltd, is a keen observer of all things in Nature, and he has been alerting many of us, each year, to the arrival of glow-worms in the park adjoining the beautiful, and we-don't-know-how-long-it-will-last, parks adjoining Nanda Road (the correct name for this road is Rashtriya Vidyalaya Road, but it is more generally known as Nanda Road, or Rose Garden Road...there once was a real rose garden here!)They usually make an appearance around Sivaratri time (mid-February), but this year, we received Karthik's alert only last week, and some of us trooped off to take…

Here's an email that came in with tips, on how to register for Voter ID, on the Hasiru Usiru egroup, and my responses, comments and suggestions are in blue:The 15th Lok Sabha election is round the corner and it is our duty to go out and vote. The polling will be held on 23rd April in Bangalore. If you have not registered to vote yet, please do so now. I totally agree with this. I had an Election Commissioner Voter ID card from 1992. I could not find the card number on the net or on physical lists anywhere. And…

I am not sure which BBMP office I should collect my form from, or which one I should submit it at. (Naturally, they are both not the same place...that would make it voter-friendly.)So I decided to register online at www.jaagore.comEverything went fine until I tried to fill in the form; I was unable to fill in the Assembly Constituency Number (the form would not take any entry.) So I was..and still am...unable to fill up the formAlso, the link given on the Jaagore form to find out the Assembly Constituency Number does not work; I had to go to the BBMP…

  I have my old Election Identity card, but it was issued a long time back, and I cannot find any trace of it online at all. So I went.yesterday (Monday) to the BBMP office in J P Nagar 2nd Phase, showed the card, and asked the guy there what to do. He smiled (felt rather strangely) and said, "You have to go to Jayanagar 4th Block and get this card deleted and bring us back a stamped certificate to that effect."  This was quite irritating. Why cannot the system do the change without making me run around from one office to…

A group of us had gone birding to Bannerghatta on Saturday, the 14th of March...and what better way to wind up a most enjoyable morning than to go to Brahmins' Coffee Bar, that practically-heritage fast-good-food joint, in Basavanagudi?BCB is an outstanding eatery. That is, one has to stand outside to eat, because it's a tiny little joint, which produces its speciality traditional Kannada breakfasts, with the Chutney Master having been doling out chutney for several years....Since there were 9 of us, we had quite an agglomeration of plates, and wanted to eat togther...so we were thrilled when we saw the…