Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) is offering citizens an opportunity to redicover the old Bangalore. As part of Rajyotsava celebrations, BMRCL has tied up with a Facebook group ‘Bangalore: Photos from a Bygone Era’, and put up an exhibition of old photographs of the city.
The group has a collection of about 1,500 photos of Bangalore, believed to be the largest collection.
About 100 of them have been displayed at the Rangoli Metro Art Centre (RMAC) on M G Road.
“There have been so many changes over the years. Sometimes, there is a sense that something has gone wrong somewhere. We are inviting people to share old photographs of Bangalore in an effort to create a better city,” Aliyeh Rizvi, a member of the group, said.
Photographs, which are expected to receive a lot of attention, are the goodwill photos sent by Jane Smith, grand daughter of Fred Goodwill, a missionary who founded the Goodwill Girls High School.
These photographs are about hundred years old.
Citizens have also been invited to share pictures they may have of the old Bangalore.
BMRCL wants RMAC to be an art, culture and literature hub of Urban Bangalore. An exhibition-cum-sale of Kannada books and their translations is also being organised.
‘A letter to Gandhi’, is also be back. “We are exhibiting 500 letters written by various people and posted in our permanent post box,” BMRCL’s General Manager (Finance) Vasant Rao said.
He noted that people have started identifying RMAC as the place where Mahatma Gandhi lives and that BMRCL had received letters that sometimes ran upto 15 pages, addressed to Gandhi, C/O Rangoli Metro Art Centre, M G Road, Bangalore.