Idle musings

      On Friday 15-May-2026, the newspaper supplement announced blandly that the famous Kannada actor and singer Dr. B. Jayashree and a group would be performing "Saavirada Sharanavva" on Saturday. Both my wife and I are fans of her musical talent. We also knew of her fame in theatre. It was natural that I booked two tickets - after checking with my wife!     The essence of the show was Dr. Jayashree talking about her life and experience in Kannada theatre interspersed with songs from her plays. For a couple of hours, I was transported to the world of theatre. The show was beautiful. The women singers accompanying Dr. B. Jayashree backed her up admirably, as did the men. The accompanying musicians were also good.     In the rest of this blog post, I will be stating what Dr.Jayashree said, but this is only from my memory. I am sure that the words were different. Also, I am translating what she said in Kannada to English. I did not use my mobile phone at...

I hope this blog post will be shorter than my usual long-winded blog posts ! Last week, I had one morning to myself. Due to personal work, I had taken the day off. We were free by 11:30 a.m. My wife had to go to teach only in the afternoon. Our plan was to eat lunch outside after which I could leave her and go home. Since we had time from 11:30 a.m. until lunch time, we went to Lalbagh. I had to stoop in the passage from the K. H. Road entrance, covered by creepers. The shade was welcome, though ! Photos from Lalbagh follow, but none with people in them ! Zoom into the hollow of the tree and one can see a snake in the dark recess of the hollow ! This is the bonsai garden. Since it was a week day and the sun was beating down quite intensely, it was warm. The greenery was calming though ! It was tough to believe that this bonsai plant is actually 65 years old ! When it was planted, Pandit Nehru was Prime Minister of India ! Near the Glass House, there are sculptur...