Tag Archives: bengaluru

A pioneer of fine dining in Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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I FIRST VISITED Bangalore (Bengaluru) in 1994. At that time, as far as I am aware, there were few restaurants that offered high quality Western European food in the city. One of the few, or maybe the only one, was Sunnys, which at that time was located in a tall, slender building in a lane that runs between Lavelle Road and Kasturba Road.

 

Sunny’s was established in about 1993 by Arjun Sajnani and Vivek Ubhayakar. It was named after their golden retriever, Sunny. I remember  that the kitchen (or part of it) was located on the ground floor, and the dining areas were on floors above it. When I first visited the restaurant, Sunny’s also sold imported food specialities like cheeses that were not available anywhere else in Bangalore.

 

The original location of Sunnys

Sunnys moved from the tall,  slender edifice to larger premises next to a petrol station on Vittal Mallya Road, and close to the UB City shopping mall. Later, it moved to its present address in a converted mansion on Lavelle Road.

 

Although slightly pricey, Sunny’s served exquisitely presented, superbly prepare, delicious food. The service and ambience at the various locations of Sunny’s was faultless. The Christmas lunches, which we attended a couple of times, we’re lavish. The establishment imported  Butter Ball turkeys from the USA. I do not know what they did to those creatures, but the results on our plates were superb: the tastiest roast turkey I have ever eaten.

 

The original premises of the restaurant is still standing,  but locked up. Sadly, there are rumours that Arjun Sajnani is closing his restaurant, but his inspired cooking will continue in the form of a ‘cloud kitchen’.

  Apart from being a superb cook and restauranteur, Arjun is an acommplished actor, play director, and film director. Just as every performance on stage must be flawless,  it was clear to me that Arjun and his team felt the same about every dish placed in front of a diner in the restaurant

The cats on the MAP in Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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I LOVE CATS. So, I was keen to visit the exhibition, “The Many Lives of the Cat”, which is being held at MAP (Museum of Art and Photography) in Bangalore until 29 March 2026. This small but beautifully displayed exhibition is, according to MAP’s website:

“… a showcase of how the Indian cat appears in paintings, sculptures, matchbox covers, artist sketchbooks and more.”

 

The works on show include those of lesser-known creators, as well as paintings and sketches by well-known ‘modern’ artists including: Bhupen Khakhar, Arpita Singh, and Jamini Roy. There are also older prints and paintings made in the nineteenth century and earlier.

 

Each of the artworks is properly labelled. In addition, there are quotes from a book,  “The Indian Cat”, by the art critic and historian BN Goswamy (1933-2023). After seeing the show and looking at his beautiful book that was on display at MAP, I purchased a copy at my favourite Bangalore bookstore: The Bookworm in Church Street.

 

Even if you are not a cat lover, this is a wonderful collection of artworks. When I mentioned to a friend that I  had just visited the exhibition,  he said:

“I am severely allergic to cats.”

I replied that the cats in MAP were worth seeing and would do him no harm. I am not sure he was convinced.

 

MAP, which opened only a few years ago is housed in an attractive contemporarily designed building on Kasturba Road, which is interesting to see even if you are either allergic to cats or have little interest in viewing an exhibition. That said, I left the exhibition happy to have seen it. And had I been a cat, I would have been left MAP purring contentedly.

Coffee,  Silks, sweaters,and Air India

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UNITY BUILDINGS IS a collection of low blocks near to Bangalore’s Town Hall. The buildings are arranged each side of a long Central avenue. I am not sure when they were built but my suspicion is that they were constructed in the 1970s.

 

Unity Buildings

At one end of the central avenue, there is an older building, Haigh Memorial Hall, which was built in the 1920s. Constructed to commemorate a Wesleyan missionary,  Reverend Henry Haigh, this grey coloured edifice houses an Air India office. Haigh arrived in India in 1875, and during his long stay there he did much work to produce publications in the Kannada language. He returned to England in 1903. The Unity Buildings complex stands on land owned by one of the churches in Bangalore.

 

We visit Unity Buildings for several reasons. First, there is a Kashmiri shop, where over the years I have bought excellent woollen Pullovers (sweaters). Another reason is to visit two shops that offer good selections of silk scarves and other garments. One of them is Janardhana Silk House and the other, the less costly Shobha Silks.

 

The third reason to visit the complex is to enjoy good South Indian filter coffee and vegetarian snacks a the Unity Buildings branch of Kamat. According to a sign within the restaurant, this Kamat company has been in business since 1948, when it was founded by Sri Rangappa Pandurang Kamat (1919-1993). Other branches of Kamats were established by Rangappa’s younger brother Sri Sheshagiri Pandurang Kamat (1926-2002). The Unity Buildings branch of Rangappa‘s company was opened in 1972, and maintains its original appearance, apart from new overhead lights.

 

Usually full of customers, Kamat in Unity Buildings was almost empty on Republic Day this year (2026). When we stepped inside, we were given a warm welcome by the manager, whom I imagine was pleased to see at least two customers on such a quiet day.

 

On normal working day,  Unity Buildings is a bustling place, but never as busy as, say, Bangalore’s Commercial Street area and KR Market (City Market). However, it is a pleasant place to shop for various things.

Memories of childhood at a car show in Bangalore

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MY MOTHER WAS the driver in our family. Having been injured in a bad accident during the 1930s, she was an overly cautious driver.

Fiat 1100

All of our family cars were Fiats. My mother believed that because there were many hills and mountains in Italy, where Fiats are made, these cars must be reliable and ‘strong’. We had a Fiat 600, then an 1100 (millecento), and then finally, a 1200.

Seeing several Fiat 1100s at a vintage car show held at the Bangalore Club (in Bangalore/Bengaluru) jogged my memories of my mother, the 1960s and 1970s, and my childhood motoring experiences.

You can read more about my late mother and her unusual attitude to motoring here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/REMEMBERING-HELEN-MY-MOTHER-ARTIST/dp/B0DKCZ7J7X/

A festival of art incarcerated in a penitentiary in Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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MANY ART WORKS are ‘imprisoned’ in museums, galleries,  and private collections.  Today, 25 January 2026, we visited a collection of art ‘incarcerated’ in a prison.

 

The prison is, in fact, a former prison. It is what was once the grounds of Bangalore’s Central Jail.  After it became disused, it was converted into a public  park in 2008: Freedom Park. This contains many of the former prison’s buildings, which have been restored to create a fascinating museum within a leafy park.

 

Freedom Park was the site of the 2026 BLR Hubba, which we visited today. The Hubba is a 10-day annual art festival held in Bangalore. Each year it is held at one of the city’s historic landmarks. This year at the former jail.

Encompassing many kinds of art including  for example,  sculpture, painting, music, theatre, and poetry, this festival is  well-attended and vibrant.

 

At Freedom Park, the Hubba’s artwork and events were scattered all over the site of the former jail including within the cell blocks and at the place where hangings were carried out.

 

On the Sunday that we visited the Hubba, there was a competent jazz band playing and a crowd of visitors. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the art and themselves.

 In comparison with the rather disappointing 2025/26 Kochi Muziris Biennale,  which we attended in early January, the Hubba was wonderful: a well curated, excitingly appealing festival of art. Although the Hubba contained far fewer things than the much larger biennale, it produced a far more impressive impact on us than what we saw in Kochi

Views from the top of a building in Bangalore

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Just before leaving Bangalore (for Bombay), my friend Mansoor Ali took me to see the BLR Design Centre. It is located on the top floors of a building on the corner of Church Street and Museum Road, and is a fine example of good modern design.

According to the centre’s website, the institution is:
“A collaborative workspace focussed on transforming urban living environments through architectural partnerships, cultural dialogue and design-driven solutions.”

The views from the centre’s roof terrace are wonderful. What particularly intrigued me were the reflections of buildings that can be seen on the glasswork of the Sobha Mall, which is across the street from the BLR Design Centre.

An artist who expanded the art of playing cards

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GANJIFA IS A traditional art of decorating playing-cards. Ganjifa cards originated in Persia and spread to India. They can be rectangular but are often circular. Traditionally,  the Indian cards were decorated with scenes from the Ramayana.

 

By Raghupati Bhat

In the 1980s, Indian artist Raghupati Bhat revived the Mysore tradition of ganjifa painting. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a set of his ganjifa cards. Images of these are projected on a wall of Kaash Space,  a gallery in Bangalore’s Berlie Street.  They form part of a superb exhibition of later works by Bhat, all of which are developments of his earlier ganjifa artworks.

 

Raghupati Bhat’s drawings and paintings depict  mythological stories from the Ramayana.  All of them are exquisitely executed and filled with minute details. A set of four painted miniatures are painted with dyes made from natural products, using single hairs from paint brushes to achieve the great detailing within them. In many of his line drawings, Bhat included delicate, beautiful ‘doodles’ in addition to the pictures’ main subjects. All in all, the exhibition includes a fine selection of the artist’s intricately executed creative interpretations of episodes and  characters in the Ramayana.

 

In addition to Bhat’s works, the exhibition includes three other artists’ works: some photographs, some paintings, and two beautiful inlaid wood panels. These other artists’ works were inspired by those of Raghupati Bhat.

 

This wonderful exhibition continues until 21 December 2025, and should not be missed if you happen to be in Bangalore.

Bricks and design at an art school in Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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THE HUMBLE BRICK is a much used material in the construction of many kinds of building. It can be used unimaginatively, as it often is, or imaginatively to create visually intriguing textures.

 

During a visit to one of Bangalore’s art schools,  the Chitrakala Parishath,  we watched architecture students participating in an outdoor “brick techtonics” workshop. This was being supervised by the noted Indonesian architect Andy Rahman.

 

We watched small groups of students arranging bricks so as to make interesting patterns, following plans drawn up by Andy Rahman. As they worked, Mr Rahman moved from group to group, discussing with them what they were doing.

 

All around the area where the workshop was taking place, labourers were working noisily on a construction site where new buildings were being built for the art school. Thus, the architects working on realising theoretical bricklaying design ideas were surrounded by real life applications of established building practices.

 

I hope that when the budding architecture students begin designing ‘for real’ that they will recall the interesting brickwork creativity that Mr Rahman was introducing to them. For he was showing them that even the humble brick can become a component in a visually fascinating design.

Problems with identifying gender in London and Bangalore (Bengaluru)

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WHEN OUR DAUGHTER was about two years old and able to walk unassisted, she often wore overalls (jump suits), rather than girlish frocks. One day we were walking in London’s Kensington Gardens when we passed a couple of elderly ladies.  One of them looked at our child, and said to us: “What a cute little boy you have”

We replied:

“Actuually, she is our daughter.”

To which one of the ladies said to her friend: “it’s so difficult to tell one from the other these days.”

 

The former Men’s Bar at the Bangalore Club

Some months later, we were in India at the Bangalore Club (in Bangalore). In those days, the late 1990s, the club had a Men’s Bar, to which only men were admitted. Its wood panelled walls bear hunting trophies and archaic weapons.

One day, I was having a drink in that bar with my father-in-law, when our daughter arrived in the adjoining room with my wife. Excited to see us, our daughter,  dressed in her overalls, dashed into the Men’s Bar. An elderly gentleman, seeing a child in the bar, said to our daughter:

“You are too young to come in, young man. When you are 21, you will be welcome here.”

To which, my wife standing close to the entrance, said: “She’s our daughter.”

The gentleman then responded: “In that case, you will never be able to enter our bar”.

 How wrong he was.

Sometime during the early twenty-first century, the rules changed: now both men and women can use what had been the Men’s Bar.  Now, this bar has been renamed: it is simply The Bar.

Today, almost 28 years later, nobody would have any difficulty identifying our daughter as a young lady.