The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Reporter's Diary

THE FESTIVE and holiday season finds itself overshadowed by Tsunami. Coming as the news did immediately after Christmas, it was a dampener.

For veteran newshounds, it was a time to recall a bigger tragedy and natural disaster as far as India was concerned. Many recalled the November 1977 cyclone and the tidal wave disaster that struck Andhra Pradesh, especially Krishna district.

Some old timers in the local media had gone there to cover the tragedy and its aftermath and can even now, after 27 years, remember the stench of the corpses and carcases. "We never thought we will be writing about a second such event in our life," they said.

* * *

CAN ART be electrifying? Connoisseurs will tell you that a work of art can be, if it is sufficiently creative or bold in its imagery. But can you mix electricity and art?

That is what visitors to Sunday's "Chitra santhe" at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath asked themselves when they saw an electric car parked inside the parishath.

For most of the day, the car — which was more like a golf cart really — was seen parked in a corner of the parishath looking strangely out of place in the middle of all those paintings.

When curious passers-by asked the car driver about the vehicle's presence, they learnt that the vehicle was on loan from a nearby five-star hotel. The car driver said the fair organisers had borrowed the car to use it for transporting VVIP visitors. The "santhe" had artistes lining Kumara Krupa Road with thousands of paintings, sculptures and other art works.

Unfortunately, the only VVIP that day was the Governor of Maharashtra, S.M. Krishna. And he only stayed for half an hour before swishing off in his official car.

So, the electric car wasn't used at all.

* * *

THEY HAD to hunt for at least two hours for a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. The General Secretary of the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, D.K. Chowta, and the Director of Gandhian Studies, Ghandhi Bhavan, were on the look out for a picture of Mahatma Gandhi to adorn the stage at a function recently; of course, it was not at the Gandhi Bhavan.

But it was pathetic that despite a hectic search, they did not find even a single photograph of the Father of the Nation. "Many have forgotten Mahatma Gandhi. We picked up a spoilt little photo from a saloon," the two said.

* * *

ONE RARELY gets a chance to see what work prisoners do inside the Central Jail. The scribes got a chance to see this during a "satsang" held recently in the Bangalore Central Jail in Parappana Agrahara. But the scribes had to pass follow the procedures before getting a view of the prison interiors. The first was at the huge entrance gate. A security guard allowed people to go in groups.

An officer inside wrote the names of each person and affixed a rubber stamp below their left palms. "Please make sure that the stamp remains. Do not rub it," he told each of them. The visitors were then asked to deposit their mobile phones with another officer. One more security guard frisked them before allowing them through the second huge gate.

K. Satyamurty,

Divya Sreedharan, Vidyashree Amaresh

and Raghava M.

Contributions by K. Satyamurty, Divya Sreedharan, Vidyashree Amaresh and Raghava M.

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