At the Art of Bangalore

(Published in Times of India, 2008)

I was having dinner at the food court of a multiplex when I looked up from my bowl of soup to survey my neighbours. Suddenly I didn’t know where I was. Was this Bangalore? Or Singapore? Or New York perhaps! I had around me people from at least 15 different nationalities leave alone the Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati and Tamil that I was hearing in a babble. Bangalore truly has become the international melting pot. But this somehow is restricted to food courts and malls, cinemas and corporate offices. This does not reflect in the city’s cultural life. One would expect a city this multilingual and multicultural to have a more exciting and buoyant cultural calendar.

If one looks at the year 2007, one finds only a few spaces like the Rangashankara and Alliance Francais which have programmed cultural activities which cater to various kinds of audiences, with the theatre festival at the Rangashankara being one of the most visible and exciting cultural event in the city. Other spaces like the Chowdiah Memorial Hall, the Guru Nanak Bhavan or the government run spaces like the Kannada Bhavan, Ravindra Kalakheshtra are only venue points for any show that is booked there. Of course one saw the Habba this year which had an interesting lineup of programmes but lacked audiences for most of the shows except the music ones. Also the few scattered film societies did their best to showcase various kinds of films round the year and workshops happened at the Centre for Film and Drama. There were theatre performances and some book readings organized by Toto Funds the Arts who also gave out annual awards for creative writing and music. But all these are small, private initiatives of people in the field who care about the arts and culture with very limited or no help from the government or the corporate sector. They fall way below what could be the potential of this city to become a vibrant cultural centre.

My wishlist for Bangalore beyond 2007 would be to have a thriving cultural life with arts centres in various localities so people don’t have to travel long hours through the city to reach these spaces where lecture demonstrations and workshops train the young and not so, adequate spaces for rehearsals and performances by groups at low costs to them, festivals that bring together national and international groups to perform in the city at prices affordable to the public, seminars and conferences that discuss and debate issues and concerns, platforms where artists across various disciplines can meet, work together and connect with their audiences in interesting ways, schools which look forward to including education in the arts and culture as part of their regular curriculum and so much more. Of course each of these wishes need funds, organization who are dedicated to making them happen and the support of the public that often cribs that Bangalore has nothing but watering holes to hop in the evenings.

I have often thought whether Bangalore needs city cultural policy which will pave the way to create a platform to bring the government, artists, corporates and the citizens together to create, promote and contribute to the city’s cultural life. Some vibrant cities like London has a policy that is created by the Mayor and then a held together by a working team of citizens and cultural activists. Will that work for Bangalore? One could try. But to begin with could we look at some ideas here – could the corporate houses give their free spaces ‘free’ to artists to set up camp or theatre wallahs to rehearse and perform, could they also put a small portion of their marketing budgets into supporting arts centres, arts spaces, and cultural programmes in the city, could they look at involving the arts in their employees lives as well, could government agencies maintain their spaces better and look at hiring professionals to programme and run these, richer schools provide funds to less priviledged ones for arts courses and experiences, could multiplexes give up a show a day or even a week to documentary/ non mainstream films? Above all could we as citizens contribute both in terms of funds and volunteering to the arts and cultural organizations in the city so that they are more enabled?