Society

I was at RV Dental College at JP Nagar, looking for Maltesh Badiger, a theatre director and set desginer. Badiger had offered to loan me whatever I needed from his vast collection of theatre sets, for a play I was helping out with. Badiger, a small simple man walked in. I explained what I needed and he opened up a small room in the basement. It was full of set pieces - doors, thrones, backdrops and more. He told me to choose, and I was lost. He had a solution to create any set I wanted!. When he learnt that…

Butter and Mashed Banana has completed 33 shows, both at theatre festivals as well as public shows. It is the only play from Bangalore in recent times that has been invited to the prestigous Prithvi Theatre Festival, the Kala Ghoda Festival and the Open Space Festival - Himmat. Butter and Mashed Banana has performed across the country. Butter and Mashed Banana  is presented by Harami Theatre. Written in 2005 and performed from the following year, Butter and Mashed Banana has won both critical and mass acclaim over the last five years.SynopsisButter and Mashed Banana is a hilariously funny take on…

Business Mango festival from April 15 Lalbagh is busy organising festivals these days. After grapes and brinjals, it is now the mango festival, to start from 15th April. Organised by horticulture department, the festival signals the arrival of the mango season. Untimely rains during November and December last year had a negative impact on the mango crop. However, the second one was a bumper crop, and mangoes are already available in the Bangalore market. The festival will continue till June end. (Vijaya Karnataka, Tuesday, April 7) Crime 2000 faces in city Rowdies Gallery Now it is official. There are more…

Mixed use of our roads has long been both a plus and a minus in Bengaluru, especially in ‘shopping’ areas like Commercial Street and Brigade Road. Recently, some children from Poorna Learning Centre, a school in north Bengaluru decided to address the issue by conducting a survey and presenting a report.  Khyati Shah (right) talking to a shopper (pic: T Deepan) Anyone who has gone to Commercial Street, especially on weekends, cannot be oblivious to the difficulties that pedestrians face, due to the traffic on that narrow street. G V Dasarathi (aka Das) and his daughter Amala saw a woman…

It is always a challenge to reach out to people of our own community. I have been blogging for a couple of years now and I have learned that many of my articles can be much more tuned to reach an even larger audience. Discussion in progress at the Center for Internet and Society (pic courtesy: Omshivaprakash H L )I attended a discussion on 29th March at the Center for Internet and Society at Cunningam Road. The session organized by some of us from the Sampada Technical Group in association with the Center for Internet and Society to learn more…

Business A 24/7 office sans doors in Namma Bengaluru! RMS (Railway Mail Service) works as a chain between people who use the postal service. Every office has a working schedule which entails shutting down for a certain period in 24 hours. But the RMS office at the central railway station in Majestic remains open 24/7. Interestingly this office does not have doors at all. Employees of RMS work round the clock. The lights of the office goes off only during power cuts. Mail distribution workers take care of the office in shifts. (Prajavani, Monday, Mar 30) Flower market fragrant with…

My grandparents first came to Bangalore sometime in the early nineteen hundreds from their home village in Tumkur district. Chamarajapete was among the earliest planned extensions of Bangalore city located close to the old inner city areas like Dodda Pete, Chikka Pete, Arale Pete (Cotton Pete) and Bale Pete. It was a popular residential area for many of the upwardly mobile new settlers of Bangalore city.Grandmother, a strong, intelligent, home educated woman, settled into one of the old houses there and began her new life in the city. Bangalore was still a small town and soon she had many friends…

Our Theatre presents its debut production, Beyond the Land of Hattamala, a play written by Badal Sircar. Founded by Sandeep Shikar, an actor, writer and director and Vivek Vijayakumaran, a theatre artist, Our Theatre was originally born out of a need to have a banner for Beyond the Land of Hattamala . However, the connection between Vivek and Sandeep and their belief about theatre ran deeper and so Our Theatre has become more a way of working, a way of doing theatre. "For me, Our Theatre is our thought, our belief, our language, our culture, our complexity, our simplicity, our…

Years ago, Cooke Town was full of old bungalows built during the "burra sahib" days. Lots of garden space, verandahs with trellis panels, spacious bedrooms, high ceilings, four-blade punkahs, windows with framed-glass shutters... I could go on and on and on.But things are fast changing out here, with large bungalows making way for apartment blocks. Inevitable, with elderly couples living alone and their children settled abroad. But unlike elsewhere in the city, apartments here try and retain the old world charm associated with local British colonies - especially Cooke Town, Richards Town, Cox Town and Frazer Town.The picture you see…