Vinayak Hegde

I recently saw an announcement for Ubuntu Artwork. Ubuntu is asking photographers and graphics artists for artwork for inclusion in the Ubuntu Linux Distribution. The photos have to be CC-by-SA licensed to be considered. I managed to submit about 17 of my best pictures before the deadline. Feel free to use the larger versions from Flickr for wallpapers (since quite a few of you have asked me about them). The wallpapers from last Ubuntu (10.04) contest are here. Few of the photographs submitted are below.

Meanwhile my camera (Nikon D80) should be back from repair and servicing tomorrow from the Nikon service center.

Several years back, I was appalled by the quality of reporting in mainstream news papers. Most of the articles either smelled of sponsorships (paid articles thinly veiled as editorial coverage) or political bias (favouring the left, right and/or the party in power) or total inaneness. Slowly, I shifted to TV for much of my news. There were still a few channels which had a good coverage of the days news. Gradually there was a degeneration in the TV news as well as one half became more and more opinionated and the other half covered covered completely inane non-news sensationalising it (Aaj Tak Sansani, India TV). Compare this with the News coverage in the British Media – all the different newspapers have slant (even the BBC if you observe carefully) but atleast they are somewhat upfront and consistent about it but with the Indian news media, it is difficult to differentiate what is an advertisement and what is actually news. The news media has largely moved from reporting news to creating news and trying to actively shaping opinions. News anchors have meanwhile moved from reading news to shouting on TV. Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose are in the top pecking order in this high -decibel world. We live in a Dystopian world.

I have stopped reading newspapers about 5 years back and stopped watching the news on TV about 2 years back. In fact, I have disconnected my cable connection and view less than 1 hour of TV per week – most of it at lunchtime in office. I guess I am not missing much. Most of my news comes via either social networks such as Twitter and Facebook or by talking to friends and colleagues. The danger with this approach however is that you tend to get marginalised in your thought process and tend to lose touch with your immediate surroundings. It is possible that I might be aware about what is happening in Kazakhistan but unaware of the riots in Bangalore. The upside of this approach though has been, I have been able to concentrate on what I am interested in and become extremely productive. I am watching myself to see how this experiment goes.

Last weekend I went to the Fireflies festival of Music. Fireflies festival was relatively less known underground indie festival on the outskirts of Bangalore but has become popular over the years. This years edition had several good bands crossing various genres and covering everything from traditional and experimental sounds of Kerala to sufi inspired hymns to Lounge Piranha’s alternative grunge and Low Rhyderz Reggae and Hiphop.

I reached a little late around 7pm and stayed through the night through till the last two acts. All the acts were very good and the variety was staggering. The only downside was the time taken to setup the stage and occasional problems with the sound setup.

Esperanto Soul Fusion

With Geeta Navale on the Veena, the esperanto project had some funky psychedelic sounds combined with Carnatic music.

HFT Jazz

Shabnam Virmani rendtion of “Kabir ke dohe”

Shabnam Virmani – Filmmaker-turned-singer regaled the audience with her soulful rendition of couplets of Kabir. She explained the meaning of the couplets before singing them. Her performance got a fantastic response from the audience.

Hulivesa

Definitely the highlight if the evening was Huilvesa – a traditional dance from coastal Karnataka. Hulivesa (Loose Tulu translation “In the form of a tiger”) is performed by young males typically aged between 5 years to 10 years are painted with yellow and black stripes like tiger adorning tiger masks and other props. The kids dance to a familiar drumbeat and perform various acts such as eating a coconut and doing acrobatic acts.

Lounge Piranha

Lounge Piranha are a post-rock alternative grunge band. They performed several songs from their released (and upcoming) albums. They played some good guitar riffs. The lead singer had a wry sense of humour and kept making jibes at “world music”.

Qawwali – Bharat Sargam and group

The Qawwali troupe got the audience on their feet by playing some popular songs such as “Jhoom Barabar Jhoom” and “Mast Kalandar”. There was almost a mini riot when the audience wanted to play one more song but the organisers wouldn’t relent and let them play the request.

Vayali – Traditional Kerala songs and experimental bamboo orchestra

Vayali started with an experimental bamboo orchestra in which all the instruments (mainly percussion) were made of Bamboo. They ended their performance with traditional Kerala songs.

Low Rhyderz

Low Rhyderz is a Hip-Hop/Reggae band. Probably the least interesting on all the performances, they were not able to engage the audiences like the other artistes. They were high on style but disappointingly low on entertainment.

Last year I had been to a friend’s place and seen a painting at her place which I liked a lot. She said she had bought it at Chitra Santhe. Chitra Santhe is typically held on the last Sunday of January every year along the Kumara Krupa Road. This year it was crowded and buzzing with activity and I saw several people carrying cartloads of paintings. This year, Chitra Santhe attracted more than 1300 artists and the road was choc-a-bloc with paintings of various styles. Also every other person seemed to carry a DSLR to take pictures of the artists and paintings. I did not carry my camera but the fair was a treat for the eyes. I bought a series of paintings depicting dances of India – Odissi, Bharatnatyam and Kathak. If you are in Bangalore during that time of the year, this is one event you should not miss.

After the static display and the helicopters, it was the performance of the Surya Kirans planes that blew everyone away. They just flew off amongst the loudest cheers of the crowd which had been standing to see them perform for almost the whole day. Then there was silence for 10-15 minutes as other small aircrafts were performing stunts in mid-air. Then suddenly there were loud cheers from the crowd as the Surya Kiran planes came out of nowhere and were etching patterns in the sky.

They came zooming in from behind the crowd

Going Upwards

At angles

Almost headon over us

In T-Formation overhead

Dispersing in various directions downwards