Articles by Deepa Mohan

They are everywhere...on the pavements, weaving in and out of the traffic at signals...people who sell a variety of known and unknown things...cotton buds, lights, windshield screens, remote control protectors, dusters.....The latest "item" to be sold is this "solar flower", which comes out with waving petals in sunlight: Most of these things are cheap, shoddy pieces, which, I feel, are made in China (ok, Taiwan, to be precise!)...and they are sold for a few dozen rupees...we seem not to mind the very poor quality of the stuff, and sometimes, it's our way of supporting the people who sell them.But I wonder…

They are everywhere...on the pavements, weaving in and out of the traffic at signals...people who sell a variety of known and unknown things...cotton buds, lights, windshield screens, remote control protectors, dusters.....The latest "item" to be sold is this "solar flower", which comes out with waving petals in sunlight: Most of these things are cheap, shoddy pieces, which, I feel, are made in China (ok, Taiwan, to be precise!)...and they are sold for a few dozen rupees...we seem not to mind the very poor quality of the stuff, and sometimes, it's our way of supporting the people who sell them.But I wonder…

Vinay Sreenivasa and I organized a photowalk to document the last of the beautiful promenade known as Ambedkar Veedhi. One would think that a Government would have the aesthetic sense to leave this most historic of boulevards alone...but no, the Metro must needs run right through this last bastion of public spaces and greenery.So, to mark the murder of yet another public space, and the funeral of the greenery, we decided to photo-document the stretch of Ambedkar Veedhi...We started with the desecration that was a tree-shaded Minsk Square, not so long ago; now it's a desert of cement and concrete:We…

Vinay Sreenivasa and I organized a photowalk to document the last of the beautiful promenade known as Ambedkar Veedhi. One would think that a Government would have the aesthetic sense to leave this most historic of boulevards alone...but no, the Metro must needs run right through this last bastion of public spaces and greenery.So, to mark the murder of yet another public space, and the funeral of the greenery, we decided to photo-document the stretch of Ambedkar Veedhi...We started with the desecration that was a tree-shaded Minsk Square, not so long ago; now it's a desert of cement and concrete:We…

As I was going to Mysore, I got this by-now-very-familiar scene of huge trees (oxygen-giving) being hacked down to make way for more cars (carbon dioxide-giving):The earthmovers have arrived in Cubbon Park, and I am organizing a photowalk on Ambedkar Veedhi (the stretch from GPO to the High Court) tomorrow at 4pm, to photodocument what we are about to lose. If you are interested, please come along (with or without camera!) to the GPO main gate at 4pm tomorrow, 9th October. ⊕

I had to be at Cantonment Station early one morning, and I was happy to see that an old friend still exists there:There was a time in the not too distant past when one communicated a lot by "snail mail"...someone had recently posted that the post-boxes are hardly to be seen! Well, here's a beautiful example, still well-maintained and in use....Red nostalgia, for a time when a post-card was an inexpensive way to communicate! ⊕

As I was going to Mysore, I got this by-now-very-familiar scene of huge trees (oxygen-giving) being hacked down to make way for more cars (carbon dioxide-giving):The earthmovers have arrived in Cubbon Park, and I am organizing a photowalk on Ambedkar Veedhi (the stretch from GPO to the High Court) tomorrow at 4pm, to photodocument what we are about to lose. If you are interested, please come along (with or without camera!) to the GPO main gate at 4pm tomorrow, 9th October. ⊕

I had to be at Cantonment Station early one morning, and I was happy to see that an old friend still exists there:There was a time in the not too distant past when one communicated a lot by "snail mail"...someone had recently posted that the post-boxes are hardly to be seen! Well, here's a beautiful example, still well-maintained and in use....Red nostalgia, for a time when a post-card was an inexpensive way to communicate! ⊕

It's now the time of the year, when the Mahogany trees in the city put out their lovely "chocolate ice-cream" fruit-pods.... here's what they look like:If you find these pods upon the ground, pick them up and see the beautiful red striations inside!I wish the BBMP would start planting the saplings of such life-sustaining, shade-giving, and long-lived trees once again in our city.... ⊕

I was glad to see a training bus, with many drivers sitting in it, going past with one learner driver at the wheel:However, I was not sure if this was a training vehicle, and having seen the words "Tharabethi Vahana" on the bus, tried to google for the meaning of the word "tharabethi"...but could not find any free Kannada-translation website. Google does not translate from Kannada to English or vice-versa...but I am still amazed that in the home of the software industry, no one has yet designed a good Kannada-to-English translation site. ⊕