Category Bangalore South
Making Space For Freedom-Sites of Significance
The most significant moment for us as Indians is being celebrated today. As flags get hoisted around the country, I sit here in Bengaluru thinking about the significance of freedom and the various things it means to us, including the ability to make choices for ourselves and the opening of minds to new possibilities. The […]
Love is Everywhere
February has always been my favourite month of the year. It’s when the stardust from New Year celebrations and resolutions makes way for spring flowers. Birds speed date in Bengaluru parks and the bees are equally busy. Trees prepare to bloom, the weather is perfect.High above the city, the sky blushes coral pink at sunset. […]
Where There’s a Will-BK Mariappa’s Hostel
Nobody, not even those connected to his legacy really know what prompted a young man named BK Mariappa residing in Nagarthapete to suddenly write his will and testament at the age of 35. The document was completed around the 4th-5th of March, 1914 and the codicil was annexed on 8th March of the same year. Instructions were […]
Written on the Wall-Prakash Cafe
I sometimes think that the history of India was influenced not just by battles and boundary extensions but also banquets. Vintage albums of India in the making contain innumerable images of dignitaries exchanging pleasantries or negotiating the future of their people while seated at formal dining arrangements. But in those photographs dominated by star personalities were other men […]
Ladies special- The MN Krishna Rao Park
Just when we thought our mild winter was over, once again, there’s a lovely chill in the air. It’s a good enough reason for us Bengalureans to unpack our earmuffs and monkey caps and sun ourselves in our garden (if we have one). Those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to have natural frontage, head […]
Home and Heart
The vintage Ansonia clock in MR Narendra’s Basavanagudi home reminds me that time and tide wait for none. But inside these compound walls, time stands still. The house is preserved as carefully as it was built and the clock, made by the Ansonia Clock Company in 1871, is still ticking. “It was built entirely out of mortar and is […]
Spring cycles in Vasantapura
High up on a hillock off Uttarahalli Main Road, an old stone shrine huddles in the shadow of the more well known Vasantha Vallabharaya Temple. Once upon a time, its priests would have looked out at a horizon dotted with five sacred lakes or tirthas- Devatirtha, Shankatirtha, Chakratirtha, Plavatirtha and Vasanthatirtha where, according to Suryaprakash, […]
Placing Bengaluru 