Losing the City's Character

The Venue of last Sunday's session of Pencil Jam or the Weekend Drawer's Club (WDC) of PencilJammers was MG Road. I ended up at the MG Road metro station,  which is opposite Higginbotham's. 

I was shocked to see that it was ready for demolition. 

I love old buildings and am always sad to see them neglected and in disrepair. The worst form of neglect is demolition. You don't care if it exists anymore or not.

Bangalore had, and still has, many such old and beautiful buildings. They are disappearing at an alarming rate. 

Higginbotham's being demolished is a double whammy. It is a book shop. Was. Bangalore crows that it is the silicon valley (or plateau) of India. That means it has intellectual pretensions. In such a place, to see a bookshop and an old lovely building ready for the wrecker's ball is really sad.

I am relatively new to Bangalore. I have spent many happy hours inside Higginbotham's, browsing through and buying books. I did that even when I used to travel to Bangalore on work and could spare some time.

I can't imagine Bangalore without this shop and its old building! In some ways, Banglore has lost something of its character. Well, it is one of many features that created Bangalore and it is going to disappear.

During the jam, I sat in front of it and drew trying to capture and hold on to the place. The urge to possess it in some way, and not let go, was very strong. 

I had taken some photographs and drew again at home, with them for reference. 

Bangalore has been rainy for weeks now. So the lighting was diffuse. Even with that, the portion behind the facade looked well lit and the facade itself, dull. To me, it sounded appropriate - that the place had a bright and glorious past and its future bleak or non-existent. I tried to capture that as much as possible through the sketch and a quick, loose watercolour. 

The feeling of loss won't go away but, I somehow possess its soul - at least a part of it. When I say soul, I do not mean it any mystical or idealistic sense - which I do not believe in. It is a feeling. That elusive thing called character. A yearning. A sense of respect for an image of something that housed the outcome of what is uniquely human. 

My Paintings' New Home

Whenever I gift or sell my sketch or painting to someone, I request that the receiver or buyer send me a picture of their home that shows how and where it hangs.

All accept and promise that I will soon receive a picture. No one had ever fulfilled that promise. 

Until now.

Here are the two pictures I received a few days ago and I am elated.

From the top one of the two paintings in the photographs hangs a tale.  A few years ago I received a call from a gentleman who requested that I let him use that picture on a wedding invitation! His daughter was getting married in that very church and he wanted the picture on the invitation card! He had searched on Google for a picture of the St. Andrews Church on Cubbon Road, Bangalore and this was among the hits Google returned in response to his query. There were many photographs, of course, but he wanted this. I was really flattered and I let him use it.

In turn, he graciously invited me to the wedding which, I attended. It was a lovely wedding, indeed!

As coincidence would have it, Facebook told me that I posted the picture of the St Andrews' Church exactly four years ago!

The two pictures now hang in the home of a dear friend's sister, in the US. This post is also a note of thanks to the friend and her! 

I wish her and her family a lot of happiness!!