Habba turns City into cultural hub

Habba turns City into cultural hub
Deccan Herald

A walk down the boulevard on M G Road on Sunday was certainly not the usual experience — it had been transformed into an “artists’ walkway”, vibrant with displays of all forms of art, as part of the Bangalore Habba, reports DHNS, Bangalore.

Most people would describe ‘The Jungle Book’ as sweet, but the Institute of Baking and Culinary Art seems to have taken a culinary view of the whole thing. They have on display the entire story rendered in sugar on the Walkway.

The usually unfrequented walkway saw crowds thronging the various stalls to look at, and in several instances buy, the multitude of objects on show. The range of art is quite diverse: Photography, paintings, clay models, fashion design, wood and metal work and puppetry are all there.

The J D Institute of Fashion Technology has created their take on the state the city is in. There are two figures, one dressed in sacking and the other in newspapers. The former has only dried leaves littering the space at its feet, while the other is in poorer shape, with, among other things, cigarette butts on its body and soft drink cans and plastic cups at its feet.

The Rangaputthali Puppeteers’ stall proved to be a huge hit, with crowds craning over each other to get a peek at the brightly coloured wooden men, women and the occasional snake, dance to the tunes of their masters.

Artwork by spastic children and the deaf are also featured, as is traditional artwork from a village near Vijaywada. Grotesquely fascinating clay faces also caught the eye, as did some fringe art pieces, like a doll made of treated bread, a picture frame made out of dried banana leaves and polythene curtains. Besides, there are several rather impressive photographs on sale.

The Habba was not confined to the walkway. Elsewhere in the City, several Bangaloreans briefly abstained from driving their petrol-fed, “eco-unfriendly” cars, choosing instead to drive around in electric and solar powered cars, besides bicycles and roller skates. They were taking part in the ‘eco-parade’, from Cubbon Park to the Vidhan Soudha and back. Many of them took it a step further, having dressed up in green and, in some cases, in outfits made of leaves.

The shunning of pollutants apparently did not extend to noise: Cubbon Park rocked on Sunday.

A band called Yell-O opened, playing popular rock numbers from Deep Purple, The Doors, Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest.

The songs were Smoke on the Water, Road House Blues, Crazy Train and Breaking the law. Stomp followed, with AC/DC’s You shook me all night Long, Highway Star by Deep Purple and Around the World by Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

One of the rather off-beat forms of “art” on display was at a tarot reading stall where people could have their futures read at a price.

Whatever the card told of individuals’ futures, that of the Habba must surely have been a bright one.

Discordant notes at the fete
Activists of the Karunada Sene and Karnataka Rakshana Vedike led by Kannada Sahitya Parishat President Prof Chandrashekhar Patil held a protest during the inauguration of the Bangalore Habba urging Chief Minister N Dharam Singh not to inaugurate the function alleging that the local people and the local artists were not involved in the cultural festival though the organisers had named it as Bangalore Habba.