Posting here the piece I'd done for Citizen Matters a few weeks ago. What was supposed to be a report on a treasure hunt ended up being a lot more personal than I intended. An edited report appeared here.
(God, I love italics)
*******
There's something about living in this city for a considerable amount of time that makes it impossible to not be -to a reasonable extent-a loud and brash bigot. There is a wordless demand that you don't simply love this city but be a little proud, a little overbearing, and become an insufferable little mobile advertisement for your part of town.
It is with prompt from the same sentiment that we took part in Hunt For The Past-- INTACH's Heritage Hunt held in the Basavangudi area last week. The event was a sms-powered treasure hunt that took one to different parts of the old South Bangalore area, looking for clues. I was tagging along with Supreeth, another proud South Bangalore child - a Basavangudi huduga who happily waited at the Gavipuram starting point at 8 a.m on a Saturday morning like it does not require superhuman effort; as if he did it all the time. I contributed in my own small way: ambling in to 'Ashrama at around 9 am, having given up on the ancient, sacred privilege Bangalorean techies were granted by traveling gypsies - weekend sleep. Anything for South Bangalore.
A treasure hunt may seem to you like a fun thing to do; a happy walk across the breadth of Basavangudi. But for us, not winning meant ignominy, grumpy silences from our families, possibly no-dinner for a few week, and worst of all, no more license to launch internet forum wars on residents of other localities. The pressure, you will agree, was enormous. And so, we began our sms powered Pilgrim's Progress. We walked all over Basavangudi, looking for clues, quotes, name boards and on occasion gaped at the towering Vivekananda statue opposite Ramakrishna Ashram.
It took only asking an arbitrary (but friendly, mind) passerby where Masti (Venkatesh Iyengar, Jnanpeetha award winning Kannada literary giant)'s house was to find it--proof that Basavangudi will remain old-worldly and charming; in spite of the best efforts of multiple international fast-food chains.
The sms clues, which had by now taken on a surreal, secret scroll like air to them nudged us to walk all the way near Krishna Rao Park to the Basavangudi Boys School. We sat down in silence for a few minutes, mulling and mourning the atrocity that is the Tagore Circle Underpass. We exchanged a few theories on how Bangalore's urban planning initiatives of the last five years seemed like their only motivation was to find and mutilate the most beautiful areas of Bangalore. No really, take a map and trace the Metro route if you don't believe me. There is a conspiracy of pulp-y paperback thriller proportions waiting to be written there. It can be called The BBMP Code.
Basavangudi was home to some of Karnataka's greatest poets, thinkers and intellectuals. And this little park opposite the Basavangudi High School, Supreeth informs me, was where stalwarts like TP Kailasam, DV Gundappa met to discuss their revolutionary ideas with contemporaries and exchange banter. These places, ladies and gentlemen, were in fact witnesses to literary history.
Tagore Circle was in many ways the heart of this part of the city. The Taxi Stand Bus stop was the hot transit stop for people returning from schools and workplaces. The police station with its Infosys- aided makeover looked the equivalent of a 'foreign-returned' young man who had traded desi clothes for swanky designer threads; the overall effect was that of a man wearing Gucci to a 7.00 am laughter club. And BP Wadia Road. Ah, BP Wadia Road! The libraries, the tree canopy, the muffled buzz in contrast to the crazy, random chaos of its cousin, the Gandhi Bazaar main road.
Now all there is to it, is a wide gaping hole where there was a road, making me resent that heart-of-the-area metaphor a little bit; dust and an assortment of cranes, bulldozers and cement mixers all of who have about as much clue to their purpose as the confused looking BBMP engineers on the site.
The sms clues in the meanwhile were not in a very ruminative mood.They sent us off running towards Bugle Rock where the stone busts of the aforementioned literary giants looked at us with kind eyes. Resisting the lure of Vidyarthi Bhavan dosas, we trudged nobly towards the Basavangudi Co-operative complex for our last clue at the foot of what was supposedly "The only Gandhi statue in Gandhi Bazaar". From there we hurried back to the starting point to be told, to our feigned surprise, that we had won.
Ah the sweet taste of victory.
Naresh Bharadwaj, one of the people behind the startup Meeva Technologies which designed the treasure hunt is a long time Basavangudi resident himself. We marveled at how walking around these roads on a sunny Saturday morning can be a serendipitous re-introduction to places we've already known. Naresh and Srilatha of Meeva are looking to implement the same model to tourist sites, museums and palaces. Their service lets users design and implement their own sms based activities.
Reassuring as it is to know that Basavangudi continues to be home as we know it, Hunt For The Past seemed to be a slightly ominous name for a treasure hunt here. For running around these roads as we did will tell you (BBMP's machinations aside) the places remain the same. Its people, however, do little to resist change.
(God, I love italics)
*******
There's something about living in this city for a considerable amount of time that makes it impossible to not be -to a reasonable extent-a loud and brash bigot. There is a wordless demand that you don't simply love this city but be a little proud, a little overbearing, and become an insufferable little mobile advertisement for your part of town.
It is with prompt from the same sentiment that we took part in Hunt For The Past-- INTACH's Heritage Hunt held in the Basavangudi area last week. The event was a sms-powered treasure hunt that took one to different parts of the old South Bangalore area, looking for clues. I was tagging along with Supreeth, another proud South Bangalore child - a Basavangudi huduga who happily waited at the Gavipuram starting point at 8 a.m on a Saturday morning like it does not require superhuman effort; as if he did it all the time. I contributed in my own small way: ambling in to 'Ashrama at around 9 am, having given up on the ancient, sacred privilege Bangalorean techies were granted by traveling gypsies - weekend sleep. Anything for South Bangalore.
A treasure hunt may seem to you like a fun thing to do; a happy walk across the breadth of Basavangudi. But for us, not winning meant ignominy, grumpy silences from our families, possibly no-dinner for a few week, and worst of all, no more license to launch internet forum wars on residents of other localities. The pressure, you will agree, was enormous. And so, we began our sms powered Pilgrim's Progress. We walked all over Basavangudi, looking for clues, quotes, name boards and on occasion gaped at the towering Vivekananda statue opposite Ramakrishna Ashram.
It took only asking an arbitrary (but friendly, mind) passerby where Masti (Venkatesh Iyengar, Jnanpeetha award winning Kannada literary giant)'s house was to find it--proof that Basavangudi will remain old-worldly and charming; in spite of the best efforts of multiple international fast-food chains.
The sms clues, which had by now taken on a surreal, secret scroll like air to them nudged us to walk all the way near Krishna Rao Park to the Basavangudi Boys School. We sat down in silence for a few minutes, mulling and mourning the atrocity that is the Tagore Circle Underpass. We exchanged a few theories on how Bangalore's urban planning initiatives of the last five years seemed like their only motivation was to find and mutilate the most beautiful areas of Bangalore. No really, take a map and trace the Metro route if you don't believe me. There is a conspiracy of pulp-y paperback thriller proportions waiting to be written there. It can be called The BBMP Code.
Basavangudi was home to some of Karnataka's greatest poets, thinkers and intellectuals. And this little park opposite the Basavangudi High School, Supreeth informs me, was where stalwarts like TP Kailasam, DV Gundappa met to discuss their revolutionary ideas with contemporaries and exchange banter. These places, ladies and gentlemen, were in fact witnesses to literary history.
Tagore Circle was in many ways the heart of this part of the city. The Taxi Stand Bus stop was the hot transit stop for people returning from schools and workplaces. The police station with its Infosys- aided makeover looked the equivalent of a 'foreign-returned' young man who had traded desi clothes for swanky designer threads; the overall effect was that of a man wearing Gucci to a 7.00 am laughter club. And BP Wadia Road. Ah, BP Wadia Road! The libraries, the tree canopy, the muffled buzz in contrast to the crazy, random chaos of its cousin, the Gandhi Bazaar main road.
Now all there is to it, is a wide gaping hole where there was a road, making me resent that heart-of-the-area metaphor a little bit; dust and an assortment of cranes, bulldozers and cement mixers all of who have about as much clue to their purpose as the confused looking BBMP engineers on the site.
The sms clues in the meanwhile were not in a very ruminative mood.They sent us off running towards Bugle Rock where the stone busts of the aforementioned literary giants looked at us with kind eyes. Resisting the lure of Vidyarthi Bhavan dosas, we trudged nobly towards the Basavangudi Co-operative complex for our last clue at the foot of what was supposedly "The only Gandhi statue in Gandhi Bazaar". From there we hurried back to the starting point to be told, to our feigned surprise, that we had won.
Ah the sweet taste of victory.
Naresh Bharadwaj, one of the people behind the startup Meeva Technologies which designed the treasure hunt is a long time Basavangudi resident himself. We marveled at how walking around these roads on a sunny Saturday morning can be a serendipitous re-introduction to places we've already known. Naresh and Srilatha of Meeva are looking to implement the same model to tourist sites, museums and palaces. Their service lets users design and implement their own sms based activities.
Reassuring as it is to know that Basavangudi continues to be home as we know it, Hunt For The Past seemed to be a slightly ominous name for a treasure hunt here. For running around these roads as we did will tell you (BBMP's machinations aside) the places remain the same. Its people, however, do little to resist change.
Apart from the bragging rights, and the obvious Basavanagudi mannina Makkalu prestige retained, what else did you win? :)
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