Flowers

As the Indian winter draws to an end, the right season to be in Delhi, some of the best flower shows one can visit are held at Garden of Five Senses that I wrote about revisiting again, and all over NCR region. Lalbaugh at Bangalore is another must visit flower exhibition destination.

The sheer variety of colorful fresh flowers, plants and the designs created by the imaginative gardeners is something that blissfully draws nature admirers year after year. 

Sharing a few of the flower images one can admire for those who are missing these flower exhibitions this time.

Dear Winter, come back soon.

Welcome summer, be kind, time to look for Indian Summer Drinks

Small things that make you happy

Years after I stopped pursuing photography as a hobby, one of my old photographs was picked up by Critical Mass Bangalore, a city based cycling community for a poster of their upcoming event.

While they thanked me for letting them use my picture, I would like to appreciate their ethical behavior in seeking an explicit permission before using the picture. If they had not written to me, I would have never found out in my life about this usage, specially in its modified form.

Needless to say I am happy...:-)

Explore Bangalore Series XXXII – by lanes around Commercial Street

Once upon a time when I used to visit Bangalore, I was told that Bangalore consists of 2 roads and one street (MG Road, Brigade Road and Commercial Street) and if you know these places well, you more or less have explored Bangalore. Well, anyone who lives in this city for a few years can not escape going to these places, and might carry the impression that he or she knows these places, like I did for all these years. Last couple of months, I had certain requirements for which I was directed to the lanes that run perpendicular to the better known commercial street, and I was amazed to discover a whole new Bangalore that I was never aware of. This is an area which is dominated by skilled workmen or karigars as we call them, and you can get virtually anything done there.

There is a lane called Laxman Mudaliar Street, which is full of tailors, who promise to stitch anything for you within an hour. They all operate from small shops, but do a wonderful job of stitching and that too at the fraction of price, compared to their savvy counterparts in boutiques in up market areas. They more or less stick to the time they give you, more often than not you need no re-work, but there are no facilities for you to do a trial as they do not have any mirrors or even proper space for you to change and try the clothes. You can get all kinds of embroideries done for your attire, just give them the pattern or choose from the patterns that are available with them. There are cloth shops that sell dress materials, plain fabric or just about anything that you may need and at far less price than the street that leads you to this street. You must get some of your clothes stitched here and explore this area.

Then there is Jewelers street, where you get amazing silverware and jewellery. You get almost anything available in silver here. You can get any of your old ones repaired, polished, amended or simply replaced. You can get your jewellary made to order as per your design. Besides this, you also get other silver items like utensils, pens and lot of other interesting things that you can use as gift items. If you go further down the street, after a few crosses, you would get small shops, almost on the roadside, where you can even get your imitation jewellary repaired, and that too at a very small cost.

If you are looking for a Mehandiwali to put Henna on your hands, all roads will lead you to this street. The only mother daughter duo who claim to put rajasthani mehandi are found here. But unlike their counterparts in other cities, they have a proper office, you have to book them in advance and they come in their own car and charge like anything. I would not recommend them either for quality or attitude, but I guess that’s what monopoly does that to you.

Just a small rider, on Fridays the place suddenly goes silent, so probably that is not a good day to visit this area. You can enjoy the little eateries which are spread here and there and serve the basic food.

Sometime try and sit in a corner and try to enjoy the place. You would see kinds of people interacting, with no artificially trained expressions put in, no efforts made to convey something that is not meant and just simple plain interactions. Even when they lie, they let you know with a smile that they are lying. They are the people who have been doing business for their survival and are not being paid, just to stand there. You can see that every interaction impacts them and hence they try to make an impact. They know what they can deliver and what they can not. They know who their neighbors are and would gladly direct you to them if required. One can enjoy shopping with personalized interactions, rather than talking to robotic salespersons who hardly know anything about the products that they are selling leave apart the general dynamics of the space they are in.

One more facet of the city discovered before I take a break from the city for sometime.

Click here for choices on Bangalore Hotels.

Explore Bangalore Series XXXI – Nandi Hills, Village & Around

For some reason I assume that everyone who has lived or visited Bangalore must have been to Nandi hills sometime or the other. But what I discovered to my surprise was the number of places that are around Nandi hills and Nandi village.

Couple of weeks back on a lazy Sunday morning, me and two of my friends decided to drive down to Nandi Hills for breakfast. We literally got up from the bed, brushed our teeth and drove to Nandi Hills. As the luck would have it, Nandi Hills had the perfect weather and clouds were kissing the hill on all sides. It was a pleasure to sit among the clouds and have piping hot noodles. Since the weather was too good, we decided to roam around a bit and we discovered a small well like structure, which is supposed to be the source or the starting point of river Arkavathy. You have to go around the hill and then go down a bit to reach this spot. The spot just has a walled tank, which presumably is very deep and is surrounded by absolute greenery. You can sit on the thick walls of the tank, in fact you can lie down, look at the sky and feel to be in a different world altogether. From this spot there are stairs that bring you back to the top of the hill.

As we got down the Nandi hills, we drove towards the Nandi village, this is the village that gives Nandi hills its name. There is an ancient temple called Bhoganandiswara temple in this village, apparently it has been around for 1200+ years or so. From the outside, the temple does not look very huge, but once you enter the premises, you would suddenly be hit by the hugeness of the temple and its compound. The outside compound is surrounded by the lined corridors. There is a platform in front of the actual entrance of the temple, which apparently was used for dances during festivals. There are some wheels that are surrounding the platform which may belong to some chariot that was used during some time. As you enter the temple you see a Shiva temple, with amazing carvings, and a person there explained us that the temple dates back to some time in 8-9th century and has influence of various dynasties that ruled the area. The corridor around the Garbhagriha that is used to make a Parikrama around the temple, is amazingly well adorned with carvings. Though he could not give us much about the history of the temple, but this is what my internet research yielded:

Boganandiswara temple in Nandi village constructed around 806 A.D. by Rathnavalli of Bana Dynasty is in Drawidan style. Temple is known for its anciental Architecture. Sri. Arunachaleswara temple, nearby Boganandiswara temple built out soap stone, is another example where one can find fine Ganga, Chola, Hoysala style of architecture

It is a beautiful temple and one of the few temples which is very clean and well maintained. There is a huge water tank on one side of the temple which is again covered on all four sides by pillared corridors, and doors on all four sides with ornate walls. Some of the structures will remind you of Hampi, especially the damaged ones. Surprisingly, there were hardly any people in the temple, so the temple provided the perfect serenity that it is supposed to provide its visitors. We were told that there is a huge rush on Shivaratri, but most of the other times, there are not many visitors. And the fact that the temple is so huge probably makes the number of people present seem less. I would strongly recommend visiting this temple to anyone who is in or around Bangalore.

As you drive a little ahead of the temple, you would reach Mudenahalli. You can also visit Sultanpet, which has another path leading to the top of Nandi hills, with around 3000 steps. There is supposedly an ancient temple in Sultanpet, but we could not locate that. But what we did get to see was the breeding of silk worms, right on the streets of the village, which was quite interesting.

And as you drive back towards Bangalore, you would see Tipu’s fort on your left hand side, which is more like Hawa Mahal, or just a façade. As you enter the fort, there is whole town of Devanahalli, bustling with people. My guess is that at some point in time, the fort must have been a walled city and people lived inside the city, which still continues but the town would have grown way beyond the original limits of fort walls. There are remnants of fort here and there that you see if you drive around the town. You can also drive to the Tipu’s birth place, which is a small structure, with four pillars and a roof. When you look at the structure, you would wonder if this is really the place where the great Tipu Sultan was born, as there is no other old structure around that place, but then I guess there is no other evidence to think otherwise too.

You can cover all these places in less than a day….so do explore them sometime…:-)

Stepping outside Bangalore - Topannahalli & Kalavanchi

I am happy some of my friends like me, like to drive around and go into wilderness and think this is a better way to spend quality time together than sitting in one of the cafes in the city under energy guzzling lights, expensive coffees and extremely limited space. Yesterday 4 of us, including a 5 year old, drove out of Bangalore towards Krishnagiri, through Sarjapur Road. As you drive past the inhabited limits of Bangalore, you would see whole lot of new properties coming up, lots of schools and institutes coming up and of course the planned IT parks.

I actually got to see the town called ‘Sarjapura’, which I was always curious about since it has been 3 years that I have been living on Sarjapur Road in Bangalore. Past Sarjapur town, there are hardly any villages and there is lot of green land around. There are rose plantations and huge facilities that export roses from Bangalore, making it one of the primary exports from the region, probably the biggest after much celebrated cousin IT. The road is good throughout with very few bad patches, and is surrounded by lush green trees and a good percentage of them are fruit trees. We actually stopped by few places and plucked custard apples to out heart’s content. Being totally inexperienced in doing so, I bruised myself at lot of places, but I guess it was worth it. 

After we drove around 70 kms, we reached a village called Topannahalli, and we stopped by a place which had the board saying ‘Akshara International School’. The board was on top of a house and the house belonged to the relative of one of my friends. We stopped there to have fresh coconut water, and I surprised everyone by having water directly from the coconut without using any straw or glass, while everyone in the village thought of me as a city person who would not be able to handle coconut. Now did someone not say that there is real happiness and joy lies in doing things that people says you can not do? We got to see the sapling plantations of Tomatoes, Brinjals and Chilies, which are then sold to nurseries. There were tons of saplings that the villagers sell to government departments or to other plantation agencies.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a ‘Guinness world records’ certificate on the walls of the house. When I asked about it, even with the huge language barrier, the parents proudly explained the achievements of their young son, who is a master in miniature art, and has been awarded an entry in to Guinness world records and Limca book of records for creating an unbroken chain of 21 steps using a single toothpick. They also showed us the file containing all the articles that has been written around their son, photographs of his various creations that have been featured in his various places and his photographs with various dignitaries. In my every exploratory trip, I come across some surprises that make all the efforts put in doing the exploration worth it. This is usually not there in your planned trips where you know what you would get to see and feel. In fact most of the times media hype makes them turn out as a dampener. 

After Topannahalli, we reached a small 100-120 family village called Kalavanchi. This is the village our friend came from and he took us around all the places in the village, the small school, the cow sheds, old houses, small basic shops and the small katcha lanes where all the village kids were playing, animals were roaming and people were talking to each other. We had some simple but most amazing dinner at this friend’s parent’s house before we were ready to drive back to Bangalore. Just when we thought of leaving, it started raining heavily. With greenery all around the rains looked beautiful, and I looked around and admired it for a while. 

As the life demanded, I am back in Bangalore, writing this piece with a custard apple in my hand and some fresh air in my lungs…. Look forward to some more such trips.

DNA in Bangalore

I had written about the launch of DNA in Mumbai about 3 years back. Then, I was pretty impressed with their innovative marketing of the paper, specially the punches on the hoardings. 3 years later they come to Bangalore and they still maintain the spiciness in their hoardings that sprawl across the city. The punch lines are very Bangalore specific, and the same is true for a jingle that is played on the local radio stations. For example there is one hoarding that says C, C++ and Kannada the most spoken languages in Bangalore, or again the old formula of giving contemporary choices and asking ‘What is in your DNA?’: Marriage or live-in

But in addition to these campaigns what impressed me most about their pre-launch campaigns was their green campaign. They went around the city distributing plants along with their inaugural offer promotion, which I think is quite innovative with all the current relevance in the world and especially in Bangalore which is fast loosing its green cover. They had their vans parked outside the large apartment complexes (mine being one), and at strategic locations across the city and giving one potted plant, along with the initial subscription offer.

I missed the subscription offer though…as I met them on my way out…, Guys are you coming back?

Explore Bangalore Series XXX – Indian Cartoon Gallery

Cartoons are probably the best and first read parts of a newspaper or for that matter for most publications. But after that first glace that often brings a smile on our face and a thought to our minds we forget the cartoon and the cartoonist. Over a period of time, we instinctively know the style of a cartoonist and his / her favorite characters, some of which are real life and some representative. I never gave a thought to the fact if these Cartoonists were formally trained in the art of drawing cartoons. For no reason I always thought that all these people are born with this talent of expression.

Then, one fine day I got to know about the Indian Institute of Cartoonists (IIC), based in Bangalore, through an exhibition that they did of the works of some famous cartoonists from across the country. IIC aims to promote the art of Cartooning in India. Brochure of the institute describes a Cartoon very well ‘A cartoon is a rare and brilliant creation of art that wraps aesthetics, portraiture and comment. While tickling the funny bone of the reader a cartoonist mould public opinion, drawing his attention gently to the follies of our leaders and people around us’.

IIC is located off MG Road, if you take the lane next to Kids kemp, it is about 50-100 mts down that road on the right hand side in the basement of a building called Midford Garden. You can visit it to view the cartoons, to read the literature about cartoons. IIC plans to have a cartoon library which will have cartoons and cartoons related literature, along with a museum of original cartoons and clay n wax models of cartoon characters. They would be organizing various cartoon competitions at various levels apart from regular exhibitions and cartoon related events across the country. Membership of IIC is open for anyone who wishes to be a part of its journey.

I was lucky to get a re-print of Ranga’s portraits of famous personalities, autographed by the personalities themselves, compiled under the title of ‘Profiles in lines’.

Did you know that David Low is considered to be the father of Cartooning and K Shankar Pillai that of Indian Cartooning?

Explore Bangalore Series XXIX – Trek to Bilkal Rangaswamy Betta

Bilkal Rangaswamy Betta is a huge hill, probably the highest in the vicinity of Bangalore, located around 50 kms south west of Bangalore, off Kanakapura road. This is different from the more popular BR hills. If you take the Kanakpura road from Bangalore, you have to take a left at Harohalli village and then go around 15-17 kms till you get another village called Marlavadi. Marlavadi is the last bit of civilization, source of food and water before Rangaswamy betta. You can start early from Bangalore and have your breakfast here and get your lunch also packed that you can probably have at the top of the hill. The village is typical small little settlement with shops that still sell a lot of local material along with the popular brands. We were pretty impressed by the penetration of certain brands in the smallest of shops. Like a typical village, this village also carried an air that relaxes you without you making a concious effort to be relaxed. There is a rustic smell that comes from people living in tune with the nature and animals. There are children playing all along the roads, streets, fields, houses and just about anywhere. There are people moving and talking at their own pace, with no pressure to run and win a race. We stopped at various places in the village to feel the village and to click the pictures. One house served us buttermilk, and believe me the taste was very different from the packed buttermilk that we are used to drinking, though am not sure which one I like more.

You have to walk 3-4 kms towards the base of the hill from this village. The path has dense vegetation, lot of trees and a small river. You will see the village animals and at times children on the way. You would get a few tamarind trees and custard apple trees on this way. The base is very close to the river. Once you start climbing the hill, it is a very steep climb, almost till the top of the hill barring one or two relative less steep patches. There is a defined path to go up and down the hill, but a very narrow one, that can accommodate only one person at a time. You can stop and keep looking out for the view that would keep changing every few minutes, and you would be able to see the ground going further and sky becoming clearer. But the icing on the cake is once you reach the top. The view is just breathtaking. You see the valley all around, everything green, sky with actual color called sky blue, clouds trying their best to kiss the hills and a wind that gives you a heavenly feeling as it passes through your hair. There are huge boulders on the top and small water tank. Below a huge boulder is a Rangaswamy temple, which has a huge hall and another small water tank that looks natural. When you sit by this tank, you can faintly see the skyline of Bangalore and the highways going out of Bangalore. 

You can spend sometime on the top. It looks like people do camp on the top of this hill, but I am not sure if it is allowed by the forest department. Coming down from this hill is easier than climbing, but you have to be very careful as the stones can be loose and can topple you. If it rains, it can become very dangerous as the path would become extremely slippery. We did face some rain during the descent and once we reached the base, we enjoyed the walk through the fields. You must carry a lot of water with you, as after the village there is no source of water and the steep climb would make you use a lot of water. 

The trek was organized by the Chandra on behalf of YHAI (Youth hostel association of India). There were 11 people, and what a group, it had women, students, working professionals and senior citizens. And I must admit that I was the least fit member of the group and had to take numerous stops on the way up. I can not thank Chandra and Yati enough for pushing me hard to climb the hill. But for them I would have given up and would have missed the beautiful view that was well worth all the effort it took to climb the hill. 

Look forward to some more trips with YHAI.

Explore Bangalore Series XXVIII - Navadarshanam, An experiment in alternative living

Navadarshanam is a 120 acre self sustained settlement, 50 km south of Bangalore. It is an experiment in alternative living, living in a way that does not disturb the balance of the nature around you, unlike what most city dwellers end up doing intentionally or unintentionally. 

The Navadarshanam (ND) campus is something that probably many of us would wish to be in, but may not have the necessary courage to create something like this. In its 120 acres, it has few cottages made with eco-friendly construction methods, a small space to process, manufacture and sell health foods, a common kitchen that cooks on health food principles, a gobar (cow dung) gas plant that supplies cooking gas to the kitchen, a wind mill and a few solar panels that generate the electricity for the campus, a cow shed that houses a few cows, some fruit trees and tons of self generated greenery. Anathu, founder member and permanent resident of ND, explains how the barren land regenerated itself, and lakhs of trees germinated out of nowhere, including thousands of sandalwood trees. There are interesting exercising devices that generate electricity and water plants as you exercise. The periphery of the campus is a cool 4km walking track, ideal for a morning and evening walk. You can buy health foods from their simple store, these foods are also available through select Namdhari outlets and a couple of other outlets in Bangalore. 

There is an interesting story behind the origin of ND, how some people who were all very highly educated, lived across geographies and were a part of a study circle, came together to create ND. As you listen about this story from Ananthu, you see the elements of destiny, some good intentions and most importantly the intent of actually doing something that people usually keep talking about. And the fact that an external agent in the form of a Swamiji came and put the action into what was being studied, was being spoken about, discussed and written about. Swamiji in a way threw a challenge at this brilliant young team to actually create a space that lived by these principals that this team was inclined to explore. The story of the initial years, of being cheated for the land price and dealing with working on an absolutely new concept in an absolutely ambiguous situation. After all what do you do with so much of barren land, and nothing as your support system. I would like to sit with Ananthu again and explore their journey, because their ND journey is documented, but I want to know about the personal journeys that they have to tread, to create such a concept. 

Team at ND is working primarily in five key areas:

 

Eco-restoration: Allowing the earth to create a cover for itself, with a belief that earth is alive just like us and has the power to regenerate for itself.

Natural farming: Farming without using any artificial chemicals and without destroying the ecosystem of the surroundings.

Health & Food: Research and production of foods that do not disturb the ecology of the body, by way of undigested food.

Energy: Generation of energy using wind power, solar energy, animal waste and Honge seeds, all of which are available in abundance.

 

Eco-housing: Construction of houses using the local material and labor, designed in such a way that need for energy is minimal. 

ND is a completely Saatvik place, where a conscious effort is made to keep the Rajsik and Tamsik elements away. In that kind of an environment you feel one with nature and one with yourself. This is an environment that makes you question a lot of things that you are doing without questioning. It forces you to think about your purpose of existence. The biggest question that I had in mind was, why we complicate our lives so much, when everything we need is available right there with the nature, why we keep running after all the gadgets and collecting all that we really do not need. I got reminded of my Bhutan visit, where there were no garment stores and people weaved their own clothes, and everyone there was as well dressed as people in any other part of the world. 

Though Navadarshanam does not encourage more people visiting it, at least not more than what it can handle, but if this post rings a bell somewhere, it is definitely a place to visit while you are in Bangalore.

Explore Bangalore Series- XXVII– Food

Tamas, Koramangala – My favorite Mediterranean food in Bangalore. The menu is not too big, but you can be sure you will be full without being stuffed after you eat a full meal.

Firangi Pani , Koramangala – A usual pub I guess, though I am not the right person to review a pub.

Gufa, Jayanagar – An unusual décor that is made to resemble an ancient cave where supernatural powers would stay. Food and service are decent.

Café Masala, Eva Mall, Brigade Road – Centrally located, ok décor, ok food and ok service. I had only continental food there.

Café Soul, MG Road – Good continental food right on city’s favorite road. A good place for the lazy weekend lunches.

Jaya Mahal Hotel, Jai Mahal Road – Excellent location, lots of space in the old colonial building. Food is ok. I had breakfast, it was any hotel breakfast with the continental and Indian spread.

Brahmins, Basavangudi – The origin of Adiga’s chain in the city is in this small little joint in Basavangudi. Idlis and Wadas are just delicious, you would love the way they melt in your mouth, and coffee is yummy. Not to be missed place.

Ballal, off residency road - Another food joint from Old Bangalore. Good place to have a semi formal kind of lunch / dinner.

Tangerine, 100 ft Rd, Indira Nagar – Good sizzlers, though the metro construction makes it a nightmare to go there.

Juke Box, Koramangala – Go for Nostalgia factor, it is supposed to be the most frequented joint by people of Koramangala especially for its music.

Explore Bangalore Series XXVI – Ulsoor Walk by INTACH

This seems to be a season of city walks. This Sunday I had the opportunity to go for the Ulsoor walk organized by INTACH. INTACH is in the process of organizing ‘Parichay’ series of walks, and this was the third walk in that series. The idea is to make people aware of the rich culture and heritage that is scattered around us, both in terms of built heritage and living heritage.

Here is an excerpt from the invitation mail for the walk:

The Ulsoor walk started from Someshwara temple, which is one of Bangalore's oldest temples. It dates back to the Chola period with several additions made during the Vijayanagar period by the founder of Bangalore, Kempegowda. The interesting thing is you can see the architectural elements from both these periods quite clearly in the temple. Ulsoor is, of course, one of Bangalore's oldest settlements. 

I had always wondered what the Vijaynagar style of architecture is, and it was on this walk that I could understand it a bit. When you visit Hampi, look at the stone pillars, notice that pillars are square at the bottom and the top and round or with many faces in the middle. This is the typicality of the Vijaynagar style of architecture. I was also told that all the colored Gopurams that we say at the temple entrances and on top of the temples were originally not supposed to be colored, they were plain carvings in stone, but over the time they have been painted in multiple colors. INTACH team also introduced to the various carving and motifs on the temple walls, and shared the stories behind a lot of them. They told us how to identify the insignias of the Kempegowdas, which would typically tell that the construction had an association with the Kempegowdas, either by way of building it or patronizing it. They shared a story which indicates that temple was built way before the actual settlement happened around it. It is associated with Markandeya (not sure of the name though) rishi, who was doing his tapasya and Lord Shiva instructed him to construct a temple at that spot. 

There was a festival going on in the temple premises and there were celebrations with music and dance. Another interesting but intriguing thing that we saw was piercing of tongue by some of the dancers of the festival. There were small dagger like objects that they held in the middle of their tongue, which forced them to have their tongue stuck out all the while, and these people, including few old women were dancing while holding their dragger pierced tongues out. 

I had written after my visit to Madurai temple about the bad state of Hindu temples and the absence of basic cleanliness. The same holds true for almost all temples including the Someshwara temple in Ulsoor. The inner areas of the temple have been completely changed by putting granite and ceramic tiles, which by logic would have been put to keep the temple clean, but I guess once the tiles were laid they assumed that cleanliness has been taken care of by itself. Things stick to your feet all the time as you walk around. The beauty of the temples is lost when the modern electrical fittings are fixed without any thought and wires are hanging everywhere.

We were also told that Ulsoor derives its name from Halasuru which is Jackfruit in Kannada. Apparently, the area was once a huge Jackfruit plantation. Like the rest of Bangalore, Ulsoor had people from various parts of the region coming and settling down. The area has some 150+ year old houses with center courtyards, and had well developed water management system so that the area would never get flooded. 

We had to miss the last part of the walk as it starting raining heavily. But look forward to more such walks to know the city that I live in…. :-)

Explore Bangalore Series XXV – Walk through Basavanagudi

I had written about the Victorian Walk on M G Road by Bangalorewalks couple of years back. Last week I was invited for the trial run of their to-be launched ‘Basavanagudi Walk’. As expected the walk was interesting and informative, punctuated by some awesome food, traditional Bangalore stuff and lots of interesting trivia about Basavanagudi and Bangalore. 

If you have migrated to Bangalore in the recent past, as in last few years, in all probability Basavanagudi is not the area that you frequent. You may be aware of couple of famous attractions in that area, like Bull temple and Ramakrishna Math (I had written about these two places after our heritage walk). But you may not know a few other hidden treasures that are scattered around that locality. And I am quite sure that you would not know lot of stories behind the origin of Basavanagudi and a whole lot of things that have their origin in Basavanagudi. As you walk around with the enthusiastic walk guide, she takes you through some of the landmarks of the area and talks about the evolution of Basavanagudi which at some point in time would have been a town in itself. 

There are beautiful buildings from various eras that you would have passed by at times but may not have noticed, and there are connections that you may never establish. There are temples that you may have heard of but never visited. There are origins of culture, education, migration and lifestyle, some by design and some by default. It’s a place that has seen many bygone eras and you see the remnants of these eras lying here and there, which would escape your eye in the usual hustle bustle of everyday life. By walking around early morning, you get to see them, listen about them and wonder why you not saw them earlier.

As an ardent ‘Walking Tours’ fan, I thoroughly enjoyed this walk too. All the best Bangalorewalks for this new walk…

Autonomous Robotics Workshop @ Bangalore

Advanced Robotics Research Organization, a non-profit organization, has scheduled a workshop on Autonomous Robotics to be held in Bangalore from July 16th to July 20th, 2008. The workshop covers hands-on building and understanding of robotics. It also motivates students towards Robotics Research. The workshop is open to all engineering students from all branches as well as technical professionals who are willing to gain knowledge in the field of robotics. For course information please visit http://www.arro.in/ar.html.

To register for the workshop please visit here - http://www.arro.in/register.html "

Explore Bangalore Series- XXIV – Innovative Film City

If you have enough money in your pocket, all the wonders and attractions in the world will walk up to you and park themselves near you, so that you can visit them as and when you want, without having to go around the world and hop cities. Innovative film city is one such ambitious project that brings a lot of world attractions to India. It is a place that is aiming to be one stop shop for all forms of modern day entertainment.

Innovative film city is located about 40 kms from Bangalore on Mysore road, a good strategic location as it will be accessible from both Bangalore and Mysore. The whole city is said to be spread over 58 acres, but to me it looks like it should be slightly larger than that, at least it gives the illusion to be larger. The place is still under construction but was opened formally in April, 2008. There are few attractions and amusements which are operational, some are in the process of coming up and some are planned to come.

Film city is planned to provide 360 degree solutions for entertainment, both for the customers of entertainment industry and the industry itself. It’s website says three major planned sections of entertainment. First is Innovative Attractions which covers amusements, attractions, museums and entertainment. Second is Innovative Style which covers shopping, dining, leisure & lifestyle. Third is Innovative Studio which would have an academy, studio and facilities for film shooting and production.

Of the attractions, most are ready or almost ready. You have museums like Tussuad’s wax museum, Ripley’s Believe it or not museum, Guinness book of World Records and Jurassic Fossil museum. There are attractions like Dinosaur world, miniature city, Snow Park, mock sets, cartoon city, haunted mansion. In Amusements they have Funplex where you can play whole lot of video and high end games and also see a 4-D movie. Then there is go-karting, mirror maze, mini golf, aqua kingdom where you can go and play around for some time. There are two amphitheatres, one an open one with a sitting capacity of more than 5000 people and another for children. A 21 screen multiplex is planned too. The other too segments Style and Studio are yet to come up.

The façade of the city gives a magnificent look. As you take a turn from the road, and enter the city it makes you feel as if you are entering something majestic. As you go inside, at this point in time you see a lot of construction going on, but you can also see that something world class is being built, both in terms of attractions and the way the facility is being managed. There are a lot of employees spread across the length and breadth of the city who keep guiding you towards various places, though there are well printed maps and guides that they hand you over with the tickets. The facility is very well maintained even though half of it is still under construction. There is a food court where you get various cuisines at reasonable prices, and there are coffee day outlets for your caffeine and snacks needs. Drinking water is available at various places.

Entry to the city is priced at Rs 50/- per person and each attractions comes at an additional cost which ranges from Rs 50/- to Rs 200/- . You can plan for Rs 800-1000 per person for a day to visit to the film city, and I am sure you can see only a part of it in a day. Once it is complete, it looks like there will be many things that will keep bringing people back to the film city, specially the huge and well designed amphitheatre. I think this is going to become a major destination for the future shows in the city. Parking is outside the film city on the road at the moment, I am not sure if a proper parking is planned, but I hope there is one, otherwise that may become a bottleneck very soon. Probably they may also want to come up with differential pricing for people who may not be able to afford the current or the future pricing. May be something like happy hours on weekdays…

Overall a good project that brings something new and different to the city to keep it engaged. I usually do not like visiting artificial places but I would still say that is definitely worth one visit, post which you can take a call if you want to visit it again or not.

Explore Bangalore Series- XXIII – Kempegowda Towers

There are a lot of things that seem too big today and there are things that are beyond our imagination at this point in time. But a few generations from now, our descendents might peep into our imagination and smile, try to imagine the world as we inhabited it and may be do a subtle comparison in their subconscious. This Sunday, I along with 3 co-explorers had similar experience. We decided to do a trail around the four Kempegowda towers in the four corners of the erstwhile Bangalore, erected by Kempegowdas of course, sometime in mid 16th century when they founded the city of Bangalore. Kempegowdas are said to have established their kingdom in 13th century with Yelanka as their capital. These towers in four directions were the limits to which the then kings thought that the Bangalore city may extend to. As you would see the trail today, all the four towers are very much in the core city and most of us may be actually living way outside these expected limits of the city.

As a part of the CouchSurfing community, there are a few trails that we are trying to create that help us discover the city that we live in. This is the second trail that we did after the Old Bangalore heritage walk. Sandeep as usual did the research and defined the path we need to take along with a readymade impromptu talk on history of Kempegowda (KG) towers and their placement. Now what was amazing was that at every tower we saw something more than just the tower. Each of the towers had a water body and a park close to it, though we are not very sure if it was the way when they were erected or if they were added at later dates. Each tower had the same stone stating exactly the same information about towers, though the information is clearly visible only on the stone in the Ulsoor tower.

We started at 6:30 AM in the morning and since most of us lived in the south of Bangalore, we decided to start from the south tower at Lalbagh. This also happened to be the only tower whose location we knew absolutely. I had been to this tower many a times, but this is the first time I went around it and looked at it more carefully. It is a structure with four pillars and a gumbaj on the top. On all four sides there are figurines of deities symbolizing their directions. There was Shiva in the south, Ganesha in the east, Karthikeya in the North and Vishnu in the west. There were two statues of each of these deities, the top one in sitting position and the bottom one in a standing position. This tower is mounted on a rock that is supposed to be one of the oldest rocks known in the world. It’s an easy climb and if the weather is good, it gives you a good view of the surroundings.

Early mornings in Lalbagh are always delightful, with fresh air, greenery, space, silence and whole lot of people doing the morning walks, yoga and exercises. There is a new gate being erected in Lalbagh in a Japanese / Chinese kind of architecture. As we walked along the pathways, we could hear some soothing music and unknowingly we started walking towards the music. And this was the surprise discovery that there was live music being played at the Band Stand. There was a lady, I was told her name is Shashikala, who was singing with people sitting around her informally. It was a delight to listen to that music right in the morning. As I looked around at the faces of the people who were listening to her, it almost gave a feeling of ‘moments to live for in life’.

After the south tower, it was the actual beginning of our discovery of towers. We proceeded towards the west tower with maps in our hands. We reached Chamrajpet and this is an area which none of us had ever visited before. By this time, the city had started waking up a little bit and I am sure this is the only time when we could drive almost without braking. We had to ask a few times for Kempebudhi Lake or kere as it is known locally. This tower is slightly dicey to find, as it is hidden among the trees and there are multiple structures around the lake that give you an impression of being the sought after tower. There is a kali temple at one end of the lake, KG tower is on a rock behind the temple. This was the worst maintained towers of all. There is a stairway to climb up to the tower, but you get good views of the city if you jump around on the rocks besides the tower. You get to see the topology of the city and see the houses on hillocks around that area. On this tower, there were altars for the all four sides of the gumbaj for the deities, but there were no idols, probably they have either been taken away or have withered away with time. As you get down from the tower, you would notice two more ancient structures similar to the towers, but without any gumbaj. We tried to figure what they could be but all that we could make out was they were in alignment to the KG tower and were probably used to reach the tower at some point in time. Both these structures have a huge stone in the middle with a hole in it. The whole was smooth enough and gave an impression of being a mill stone.

Kempebudhi lake is a huge lake but is in a very bad shape. Ironically there is a decent pathway that surrounds the lake and leads to the West KG tower. On the other side of the lake is a BWSSB facility that also houses a nice park with a toy train with an engine that looks like steam engine. This was the surprise discovery around this tower. We understand there is a deer park also close to this tower, but we did not venture out to find that out. 

Third tower in the North is near Mekhri circle, on C V Raman road and in a park called KG Tower Park. This should not be very difficult to locate, but we did go around a bit before we reached this tower. The tower stands in the middle of a well maintained garden, and is the best maintained tower. The upper part of the tower appears restored. This tower is mounted on a tiered platform. The carvings on this tower are little more intricate than the other towers. Unlike other towers this tower does not seem to be on an explicit elevation, but then the topology of the surroundings may have undergone a change over the centuries. The park timings are 5:00 – 9:00 AM and 4:00 – 8:00 PM. We reached around 10:00 AM and we thought we will have to view this tower from outside the boundary wall of the park, which was quite high for my height. But then we discovered a way to sneak into the park through a gate that was not so high.

On our way back from the tower we discovered the Ramanna Maharishi shrine in one corner of the park, which was open. And you can use the entrance of the shrine to enter the park if you happen to reach here when it is not open. The shrine has a golden statue of Ramanna Maharishi in a big hall with interestingly done roof. It was a quite place and there was just one Pujari there and no one else. Probably you can sit inside this shrine and meditate after a good morning walk in the park. This was the unexpected discovery at this tower. 

Between the third and fourth tower we had to stop and respond to out hunger pangs. We stopped at the Jayamahal palace hotel for a breakfast, which was almost as serene as the KG Park with north tower. The breakfast was ok, but we had a chance to read the morning paper, chat a bit, as till now we were all deciphering the maps and trying to match them with the known one-ways to reach from one tower to another. 

Fourth or the east tower is also easy to reach as it is at an one end of the Ulsoor lake. You have to go towards the Old Madras road after crossing the Ulsoor Gurudwara. This lake is owned by Madras Sappers, a division of Indian Army, and hence it is usually inaccessible for general public. But it seems the luck was in out favor this Sunday and there was a national rowing competition going on, and we could enter and climb up to the tower without any hassles. Like the south and the west tower, this tower is also on top of a rock and gives a panoramic view of the lake. Like the west tower, this tower also had empty altars. We got to see the national junior rowing championship, reminded me of my long forgotten sports days and participation in such competitions. 

We finished around 12:00 Noon and it felt like having lived through a period. There was a joy of discovery when we saw the west tower, there was thrill when we managed to enter the park with north tower, there was serenity in listening to music right in the morning and there was a feeling of serendipity when we saw the Madras Sappers gate open for East tower. And there was a sense of satisfaction completing this trail that we had been planning to do for sometime now. 

Some links that helped us design this trail:

History of Bangalore

Trail on the Google Map

If you take a comfortable pace, with a breakfast break, the trail should take 4-5 hours, provided you take the non-traffic hours.

Explore Bangalore Series- XXII - Muddenahalli

Does the name Muddenahalli ring something in your mind; probably not. I was not aware of the existence of this place till the time I landed up there almost accidentally, while we were searching for something else. Muddenahalli is a small village located about 60 Kms north of Bangalore, right next to the Nandi Village after Nandi Hills. 

Muddenahalli is the village of Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya or Sir M. V. as he is fondly known as, one of the most well known personalities of Karnataka. This is the village he was born in and this is the village where he rests in peace today. There is a small park that is home to his mortal remains or his Samadhi. There is a small platform with a small statue of his, and a small plaque that reads his date of birth and date of death. The first thing that strikes you when you look at the plaque is that he lived for good 102 years. The memorial has the perfect backdrop of Nandi Hills. His house in the village has been converted into a museum which I could not visit as we reached almost an hour after it was closed. There is a gift shop also within the museum, but the state of the shop was not encouraging. The village is still a very small village, and it may have been a village of few houses in mid 19th century when Sir M.V. was born. 

You can visit this humble village whenever you decide to drive down to Nandi Hills. You reach the Nandi village and take a right turn towards Muddenahalli. You may have to take local help if you can not read Kannada. The village is also a base camp for the Skandagiri treks. There is an ancient temple also on the village, whose name I could not gather, but it has the traditional huge compound and a temple telling the tales of the times it has witnessed passing by.

If you happen to visit Nandi Hills in the evening, you can go to the top and see the new airport. For me it was a nostalgic sight as I could see those flights from my balcony till a few days back and now I have to drive all the way and climb a hill to do the same. But nonetheless it gives you a good semi-aerial view of the new Bangalore International Airport. 

On your way to Nandi Hills and Muddenahalli, you can also venture into few villages and buy / pick up fresh fruits and vegetables. You can choose to pluck them yourselves too. We picked up a lot of fresh Guavas and Jackfruits. Another month or so, you should be able to pick up lots of grapes on this route. 

This adds to the list of chance discoveries in my travel adventures…:-)

Day 1 at Bangalore International Airport

I was to land in Bangalore on 24th April morning 8:45 AM, and this turned out to be the exact date on which Bangalore’s new international airport was to be open its operations. To be honest I was sincerely hoping that I land at the old airport as old airport is hop. Skip and jump from my place. And the closer you were to the old Bangalore, the farther you are from the new airport in Devanahalli. But now that I have landed at BIAL on day 1 and comfortably back, it feels good to be a part of the history. There have been so many debates, arguments, views and controversies around opening of BIAL that I want to share the experience of being there on Day 1.

As we were landing at 8:30 AM on Saturday morning, all those who were returning home, wanted to peep out and have a glimpse of the new airport from the top. While landing at HAL, I could always see my apartment complex, and a whole lot of other identifiable landmarks, at BIAL, it was a vast empty space all around and then there were two air strips in the middle of nowhere. First look at airport from the plane window did not give a great impression, it looked like a building still under construction. It is definitely much bigger and better than HAL, but is it big enough to take care of the potential air traffic of Bangalore in coming years, I am not sure. As we landed through an aerobridge, which used to be a rarity at HAL, it felt nice to go through an absolutely new aerobridge still to be adorned with advertisements or any other kind of messages or notices. As we walked out, the place looked little deserted, but none the less everyone carried a curious look on their faces as they walked towards the immigration counters. The counters look ported from the old airport, not very different and I think could have been better designed. They look like counters in old time banks and are situated too close to each other. The yellow line to separate the queue and the counters is yet to be drawn. The no of counters was good enough to clear most passengers within 5-6 mins. I spoke to the immigration officer who was excited to be at the new airport. When I asked him is he happy about being in the new facility he said’ Its day 1 lets see how it goes’. 

Toilets were a big disappointment. Less than 9 hours of operations and toilets were dirty, filthy and it appeared that they had not been cleaned at all for last 9 hours. The escalator for coming down was not working, but there were people attending to it and it started working in about 30 mins or so. Baggage carousels are well designed, a lot of people can stand by them and collect their baggage. While immigration was finished in 5 mins, we had to wait good one hour before the carousel started moving, which everyone applauded by loud clapping. I was lucky to get my baggage very fast after it started moving. While waiting for the baggage, I moved around to see the airport and strolled around in few retail outlets, most of which were still in the setup mode and were fixing things. The prices mentioned were in dollars and I wonder why. 

The whole airport carries a resemblance to Infosys campus, specially the wash rooms. Similar designs and materials used, probably because of the Mr Narayana Murthy being at the helm of affairs at both places…There was a huge board saying ‘I came here First’ with the lovely BIAL logo, open to everyone to sign on it. It felt great to sign on it. If you happen to see it, look out for my signature right on I. 

As I came out of the airport, the view outside was almost similar to the one at HAL, loads and loads of taxi guys with placards waiting for their customers. It is when you go past them that you are able to see the other options to get back home. Thanks to very active association of my apartment complex, I knew that I have to take the electronic city bus to reach home. Volvo bus station is about 200-300 mts from the arrival gate. You can take the trolley right up to the bus. Bus conductor helped me load the luggage on the bus. The buses are well designed to carry lots of luggage and can seat 31 persons. Conductor had a small machine around his neck which he used to issue tickets. Ticket to Sarjapur road junction on ORR costs Rs 150/-. You can also take taxis, which are flat priced at Rs 15/- per km. For most of us living in south Bangalore I guess bus is a better option than taxis, specially for women traveling alone as its one long stretch of lonely road. The bus was comfortable and it took me 1 hour and 20 mins to cover approx 50 kms of distance. It was a Saturday, so it may take a little longer on weekdays and during peak hours. 

I think Volvo buses are going to be a huge hit, provided there are enough of them. With only 31 person capacity, we would need a lot of them. Buses are a good option to come back from airport, but to go there buses may end up serving only those who board it from the starting point. This would mean we need many more starting points or routes for the buses. Another idea may be exploring Taxi pooling to and from huge apartment complexes, organizations and hotels. This can reduce pressure on everything: roads, environment and pockets.

In my opinion it would take another 3-4 months by the time everything smoothens up and the airport wears its planned swanky look. Overall it was a nice experience to be there on Day 1, far better than what most newspapers make it out to be.

iCamp – A new chapter in Innovation & Bangalore

Over 80 people from various walks of life, most of whom did not know each other, walked into the colorful Mindtree office on a Saturday morning. Not many knew what to expect from the day ahead, but what connected them instantly was that all of them were bright and cheerful people, not scared of the ambiguity that the day brought in and ready to explore what was there. Well, now is that not exactly what an “Innovation Community” should look like. 

It was a day that most of us who participated would remember. It started with, well getting up on Saturday and driving all the way to Banashankari, which in itself is a big deal for most of us. Once there, we found the smiling Prakasan, who had work relentlessly to make the event happen and everything was well organized. There was a whiteboard up for grabs for anyone to block a time slot and put his or her topic to speak on. There were 7-8 time slots that were available with a provision to run two parallel sessions and dilemma was all the topics were too interesting and one did not feel like skipping any of them. I managed to get few of them serialized, but unfortunately still had to miss a few of them. 

Interestingly about 90% of the people were attending a barcamp for the first time, so Murli took this opportunity to explain all of us about the do’s and don’ts of a barcamp or an unconference, and all the rules can be summarized in one simple sentence ‘there are no do’s and don’ts’. Anyone who is present is the right person to attend and contribute. We were told that you can actually hijack someone’s topic and take it to any direction that you want. 

The topics that people chose to speak or discuss brought out the various dimensions of Innovation, some obvious and some not so obvious. Some of topics were as diverse as “How to use Innovation to manage relationships?” and “Innovation and Spirituality”. Topics were as innovative as the group. There was a discussion on Innovation in education and on an eternal topic ‘Innovation / Creativity and Processes’. It was suggested that we form an Innovation community comprising of people from diverse backgrounds and professions that can explore many more dimensions of Innovation and can probably be a fertile learning ground for the likes of the people who attended the iCamp. The response was tremendous and we hope to keep the momentum intact. 

As a small contributor to the organization of this iCamp, I would like to thank Mindtree for hosting us and delighting us with Samosas and Jalebis so that the flavor of Saturday was not lost in a corporate environment. I would also like to thank K-community for providing support to iCamp through enthusiastic participation. I am already looking forward to the next camp. In the mean time if you would to be a part of this community, you may please get in touch with me.

Explore Bangalore Series – XXI: Fireflies Dusk to Dawn Music Festival

Fireflies Ashram is located around 20 kms outside the city limits of Bangalore on Kanakpura road. The place has been designed for various ecological and social initiatives, but probably is best known for its annual music festival that it hosts under the majestic Pipal tree every year. This Saturday I attended the festival for the first time, though it had been taking place for last 4 years. I am told that every year the festival has a theme and this year the theme was Adivasis or ‘Tribals’. The format followed is similar to Vasanthabba, i.e a dusk to dawn event that starts around 6:00 PM and goes on till 6:00 AM, just around the time when morning sun shines on. 

If I have to sum up the festival in few words, it would be that it is not everyday that you get to hear such diverse and deep music everyday. There are musicians who create music, who have devoted themselves to music, who are keeping a lot of traditional music alive and others who are into a lot of new age experimental music. It’s the music that can keep you wide awake through the night and makes you resonate with nature that is spread wide around you in the space. 

Look at the repertoire that we got to hear at this year’s festival that happened this Saturday. The beginning was done with Nadaswaram , and you could see some magical fingers playing the Shahnais. There was Padmanabha’s veena recital that left the audience asking for more. There was a Puje Kunita the folk dance of Karnataka that got the audience dancing to the traditional folk with Dhols. There was Australian Jazz completely enthralling the space. There was portugese guitar group that had interesting compositions on Adivasis and their development programs. There were fusion groups who left you in complete awe. 

My most favourite performance was by Shabnam Virmani and Dipta Bhog, who sang the songs of Kabir in tradional Malwa style. Shabnam was enchanting and was equally well supported by Dipta. She explained the verses of Kabir in simple English before she sang each piece, and then both of them sang with such ease and I was amazed at the way they were able to bring every emotion in their voice. The simplicity of their folk singing actually made a huge connect with the audience, even those who did not understand the language. Somewhere saying that we are all simple human beings at the core and somewhere down the line we have complicated ourselves. I am not sure if their songs are available in the market, my google search did not yield anything. But if anyone knows where to source it, I would love to have it.

My next favourites were Bauls from Oikyotaan, with lead singers Kartik Das Baul and Bony Chakarborty. Bauls are supposed to be fakirs like Sufis, and hence the songs are about reaching out to that ultimate power. I particularly liked a song that was by Radha to Krishna, where she curses Krishna to be Radha in the next birth to understand what Radha went through for Krishna in this birth. All the performances were something you would to keep listening to and not get tired. Then there were Qawwals from Nagpur, who performed the regular and popular Qawwalis, and this is a tendency that I have seen in all the Qawwals who perform in Bangalore. Nevertheless they were able to infuse energy in the huge crowd at 5:00 AM when people had been awake the whole night.

All in all you would come back intoxicated from the festival and all your senses thank the organizers for putting the whole festival together. I am sure it must not be an easy task, especially in the beginning years of the festival. I want to point out a small irritant with an intent that organizers might want to look at avoiding it next year. There were small children selling cigarettes to the crowd, which can probably be avoided. Not to mention the fact that smokers around me were irritating enough and I had to keep reminding them that it is a public place and they are not supposed to smoke. May be a smoking / non-smoking area would help both the categories. Nonetheless, congratulations to all those who organized, performed and participated. I am already looking forward to the next festival. 

See some of the glimpses of the event here…