Pertinent Observations

Archive for the 'bangalore' Category

27 Apr

Art as a celebration of life

On a long leisurely walk towards Gandhi Bazaar yesterday evening, we ventured into this pretty-looking ancient house which said “Bimba, the Art Ashram”. We turned out to be the only visitors in the place. There were some four “shopkeepers”, led by this guy with a funny beard called Deepak. Deepak was to lecture us for [...]

26 Apr

Tithi hotels

A new and fairly lucrative business has developed in Bangalore over the last 10-15 years or so. An uncle of mine likes to call them “tithi hotels”. They are basically institutions that undertake contracts to help you perform the annual death ceremonies of dead ancestors (according to Hindu tradition, you are supposed to remember the [...]

18 Apr

Expat Living

When you live in a city other than the one you’re comfortable living in, and if you have a lot of disposable income, you try to live like an expat. By that, I mean you will try and use your disposable income in order to insulate yourself from the parts of the city that you’re [...]

17 Apr

On Walking out of a play

Last night the wife and I went to watch what we thought was going to be a play at KH Kala Soudha in Hanumanthanagar. It was supposed to be “directed” by RJ Vinayak Joshi and “starring” among others TN Seetharam, Master Hiriyannaiah and others. It turned out to be more like a talk show, where [...]

15 Apr

Floor Space Index

In an extract  from his latest book Triumph of the City Ed Glaeser argues that one way to improve urban living would be to increase the floor space index, and allow higher buildings. In another recent article, Ajay Shah argues that the presence of army land in the middle of cities is again hampering urban [...]

22 Mar

In Perpetual Transition

This post has nothing to do with Ravi Karthik’s blog. It has everything to do with Bangalore’s roads. I can’t recall a single instance in time in the last 15 years when all roads in Bangalore have been in “normal state”. Maybe ever since the KR Market flyover started, there has been one part of [...]

09 Mar

Making BRTS work

(yet another post that is a few days late, but what the hell) In the recently delivered Karnataka State Budget, the government has budgeted funds for developing a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in Bangalore, in order to supplement the Metro and help ease the city’s traffic woes. The problem is that it’s a small [...]

09 Mar

The Jairaj Model

So finally here is the follow-up to the Union Square Park post. Basically most parks in Bangalore follow what I term as the Jairaj model. Even a number of parks that are older than 10 years old have been remodeled using this model in the last few years. K Jairaj became the commissioner of the [...]

14 Feb

Union Square Park

So earlier today on my way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I stopped over at Union Square for a bite. I picked up a falafel sandwich from the Maoz Vegetarian outlet nearby and walked over to the Union Square Park to eat it, while sitting on a parkbench and eyeing little girls with bad [...]

11 Jan

The Jayanagar Problem

I don’t know why there are no good mid-to-high end restaurants in the Jayanagar-Basavanagudi area. Ok I must admit there are a few that are quite good – Chung Wah Opus (run by the Kamats of Yatri Nivas fame) and Banjara come to mind, but there aren’t too many. What bothers me more is the [...]

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