Play to focus on Malleswaram

A group of children are staging a play which will explain the history behind Mantri Mall

Theatre for Change presents a street play ‘Mill to the Mall’, heritage walk and an art installation, that will include history about Malleswaram, on May 25.

Sujatha Balakrishnan, founder of Theatre for Change, decided to include a heritage walk with the theatre play as she felt that citizens are unaware about local history in their own areas. The students of the theatre workshop she conducted will be staging the play.

“I was near Mantri Mall and asked people around if they knew what the place was earlier but no one was aware of it. The play focuses on the history of a mill which was replaced by the mall, without leaving any traces of it,” she says.

The play closes with a note that the audience should head to the New Krishna Bhavan for masala dosa and gives the history of the place. The play is multilingual with dialogues in English, Kannada and Hindi.

There will also be an art display with images of places that participants of the workshop visited.

Atharv Srivastava, fifth grade student, says that he learnt a lot about Malleswaram. “It was an enjoyable and educational experience, and created a sense of curiosity in me.”

His brother, Aryav, second-grader, says that it was exciting to learn trivia about the place he lived in.

Ruchira, homemaker and mother of five-year old Arsheit Dwivedi, says that such initiatives are good to create a sense of attachment and interest among children.

“I had been living in the city for a couple of years, but wasn’t aware of the history of the surroundings. It was nice to see my son taking interest.”

Children were asked to visit places, photograph and sketch them. Kashyap, another student, visited Villa Pottipatti, which is a 120-year-old monument. “I was also asked to make a one-point perspective of neem trees,” he says.

A heritage walk will be held in the morning, which will commence from Kadu Mallikarjuna Temple and will end at hotel CTR.

Locations of the heritage walk:
The walk will start from Kadu Mallikarjuna temple, and proceed to Nandi Theertha temple, Government Girls School (which was the private bungalow of Dewan Nanjundaiah), Villa Pottipatti, Malleswaram market, Venugopalswamy temple and end at the iconic CTR, that served breakfast for the Mysore Maharaja family, during their visit to Bengaluru.

What, where?
nThe heritage walk will start at 8 am from Kadu Mallikarjuna temple.
nDisplay of the art installation and staging of ‘Mill to the Mall’ will be held at Sirur park, opposite Mantri Mall, at 5 pm and at the Orion Mall amphitheater at 6.30 pm

If interested, contact: 89717 41212. Entry to the event is free.