BENGALURU: It’s another week and sometimes I feel the entire city has the same idea at the same time! There is a spate of ‘things to do’ and one must pick and choose carefully. My ‘funda’ is simple: go where one feels comfortable (read as discerning) because, I’m too old for this bilge (to use a polite term)! My days at smiling inanely and avoiding ‘social-pests’ are well and truly over.
So, it was with a certain sense of excitement that I accepted an invitation to tour the Museum of Arts and Photography (MAP) on Kasturba Road. Born out of the untiring efforts of art aficionado and collector Abhishek Poddar, the museum boasts of over 60,000 pieces of art, sculpture and photos which are digitized so a viewer can choose what to see and view all the works in that category!
I was blown away with some priceless pieces dating back to the 10th century. Comparable to any major art facility in the world, it hopes to bring art appreciation to the common people. It also boasts of an art library, a research centre and a conservation facility. Absolutely chuffed that namma ooru can boast of facilities like this rather than only being a pub city!
Feeling all ‘artified,’ my bff Alka Dev and I headed to see more art at the ‘Kala for Vidya’ exhibition at the Taj West End. Though it was a preview, (no hoi-polloi), most of the art was already sold! Again I am chuffed that Bengalureans love their art as much as their artisanal gin! I was really happy to bump into artist Gurudas Shenoy and his lovely wife Amita, and talking ‘art’ with them was exhilarating. But of course, lunch at that hotel was a must do, as was meeting up with their director of sales Arjun Pandalai. It is amazing how many generations of patrons frequent the Taj hotels. We are (now) four generations of Taj loyalists.
Susan Fernandes’s late husband, Ashok and I were childhood friends as his parents and mine were good friends too. Bangalore was a cantonment town and all of us were either armed-forces or civil service brats. When Ashok married the young, beauteous ‘Suzie’, the whole town was agog with excitement. Susan braved the tragic loss of the ‘larger than life’ Ashok and slowly but surely came into her own emerging as a pillar of resilience for her three (young adult) children and for herself. She was always an ‘earth-child’ deeply connected to nature and sustainability. She opened her new eclectic clothing store with all hand-spun fabrics last week, and her friends (hundreds of them!) swarmed the place as her creations flew off the hangars. I too, hung onto my stash of clothes for dear life lest they were wrested away from me. Way to go Suzie-Q!
My week ended at the Leela Palace where I was fortunate enough to witness two tennis legends Bjorn Borg and Vijay Amritraj in conversation. They were both erudite, funny and their easy camaraderie was clearly visible. The hand-picked guest list of tennis enthusiasts, the lovely poolside venue and the impeccable service with the food and bar elevated the evening to be an experientially unpararelled one. Kudos!