Articles by Siri Srinivas

The Bangalore Science Forum (TBSF) needs no introduction. It has for the last 47 years relentlessly promoted Science in the city through lectures and discussion. A few hundred metres away from its cultural cousin, the Indian Institute of World Culture on B P Wadia road, TBSF's Wednesday evening Science lectures have been patronised  by thousands over three decades. Come July, weekly lectures give way to a month long festival of Science, with luminaries from various disciplines delivering lectures on a diverse range of topics at H N Hall at National College Basavangudi. While Professor Siraj Hasan, Director, Indian Institute of…

As if my mother's smiling approval each morning of the various little children who bagged single digit CET ranks this year, and reading aloud of their newspaper interviews (in which each of them invariably extol the virtues of boring things such as ‘perseverance and hard work') weren't enough, the household phone has been ringing off the hook. Little cousins I didn't know existed have been dialing in with a frequency and gusto that puts fans of NRI American Idol contestants to unspeakable shame. The competitive exam season post the twelfth standard/II PU exams may be the most seemingly pointless/endless, excruciating,…

Authenticity is a tough art to master. There was one time when I went to a restaurant abroad that claimed to be Chinese, had interiors that was roughly Korean, displayed Japanese art and was called, hold your breath, Dalchini (Cinnamon in many Indian languages). The Confused Orient would have been a better name. A food critic once wrote about how any self respecting European chef would take the next flight out; livid with shock, on seeing what was passed off as Italian cuisine in the city.You must sympathise with the purists for the raw deal they get. Or perhaps, you…

Experimenting with food is tricky. As dubious as the idea sounds, it could sometimes draw great experiences. Years ago, we ventured into a strange bylane off stuffy Avenue Road at 11.30 PM in the night. While most of Bangalore slept, this little gully would wake up and savor its food. Carts selling sweets, south Indian fare, and Bhajjis appeared out of nowhere to feed the working class. From creatures of the night, driving around with late night radio to giggly college kids wanting to sample the unusual to weary men and women working in surrounding businesses, street food was everyone's…

A series of marches and human chains were organised Feb 12th across the city, protesting the attacks on women in Mangalore and the subsequent statements of Sri Rama Sene’s Pramod Muthalik. Bengaluru Unites, a protest campaign mooted by Professor Rajeev Gowda of IIMB, saw attendance of thousands as students and professionals took off from classes and work to join hands against moral policing for about an hour on Thursday afternoon. People congregated in more than a dozen locations across the city, from Mount Carmel College, Vasant Nagar to Garden City College, KR Puram, from Manyata Tech Park, Nagavara to Embassy…

You would have loved to grow up in the pleasant, perfect, considerably privileged locality of I Block, Jayanagar. The streets were clean, sidewalks smooth, roads neatly planned and regularly tarred: Not a single game of badminton on the streets was ever interrupted by an infrastructural glitch. The children who lived here attended "good schools", spoke purr-fect English and by age 8 could carry off a full fledged shouting-match over games of I-Spy in The Queen's very language. After all, we'd grow up to be independent people, leading awesome lives. Not the least like those children, who came to be recognized…

As a matter of principle, we don't like over-achievers around here. But some, we let pass. Rakesh Sharma is currently interning at St. John's Medical College. He will head to Oxford to pursue a D.Phil in Clinical Neurology as one of this year's Rhodes Scholars. Like that were not enough, he manages his own show on WorldSpace Satellite Radio. He also writes a popular blog about the pains of juggling medical education alongside culture clashes. Having excelled in theater, music, writing, and academics and, yet, miraculously managing to retain a sense of humor, he talks to me about pulling off…

In all the times one is under deep emotional and spiritual duress, one feels irrevocably attached to certain people. As if misery were some sort of brotherhood held together by common predicaments. This brotherhood allows you the unlikeliest and most surprising company. And so it is, today, in a moment of spellbinding epiphany, I realize that holding my hand in this universal, timeless, not-so-secret society is... Leon Trotsky.On a bright sunny day in 1940, the late revolutionary hobbled up to the window of his room in an alien land, looked at the skies (that were blue), the grass(which was green)…

Sushila Rao is a fifth year student at The National Law School, Bangalore. She is one of the five Rhodes Scholars from India for the year 2009. En route to the prestigious scholarship, she has excelled in vocal music, street theater and in writing academic articles. When I sent in a request for an interview, a week after the scholarships were announced, she was busy battling assignments and exams. She tells me about the scholarship and, of course, about how even the country's best can't escape the rigors of academic grind. Tell us about yourself. Why did you choose to…

Walking from the Golf Course at Kumara Park, a friend and I were both clueless about which way to head to land at Palace Grounds. That rainy Sunday being the last day of this year’s Bangalore Book Festival (BBF), we promptly asked a traffic policemen for help. The gentleman was kind in his advice: Browsing galore at the fest. Pic: Padmashri R.“Illinda nadkond hodre, kaal murdhogatte”, (Going on foot from here will ensure broken legs) he said.On learning from us that we were going to the Bangalore Book Festival, he snorted sardonically. “Ivatt hogtidiraa?” he exclaimed, incredulous at our nonchalance.…