A talk on the toll of India’s growing heat crisis attracted a crowd of 80 at a bar in Indiranagar.
Credit: Shoaib Kalsekar
Lectures now have a new address in Bengaluru — the bar. On Sunday evening, around 70 people gathered at a restaurant-cum-bar in Indiranagar for a talk on visual thinking. With pens, notebooks, tablets and drinks in hand, they listened as expert Kaustubh Khare delivered his presentation on a screen.
The talk was part of Pint of View (PoV), a Sunday sundowner lecture series launched a month ago. It aims to bring scientific research out of university campuses and into informal spaces, while also finding an audience for other bold ideas. PoV has also hosted sessions on the secret lives of bats, the meaning behind Indian textiles, and India’s growing heat crisis.
PoV is run by Harsh Snehanshu and Shruti Sah, the duo behind the silent reading movement Cubbon Reads, along with machine learning engineer Meghna Choudhary. The idea was inspired by a similar event series in the US, called Lectures on Tap. Snehanshu calls PoV a “grown-up edition” of school lectures, one that comes without grades or gatekeeping. He says hosting lectures in centrally located bars makes learning accessible.
The events are ticketed (Rs 500 and up), which Shruti says is proof that people are coming for the love of learning. “We have had startup founders, climate researchers, artists, musicians, dancers, and even real estate professionals come over,” she notes. Most attendees are in their 20s and 30s, though people in their 50s and 60s also join occasionally.
For speakers like Khare, a scholar of semiotics and design, the experience has been rewarding. After his talk ended at 5.30 pm on Sunday, he fielded questions until 7.10 pm from a diverse crowd that included medical practitioners, lawyers, and dancers, among others. By contrast, he points out, classrooms often have homogenous audiences who attend more out of obligation than interest. Khare believes initiatives like PoV challenge India’s attitude toward learning, which is widely seen as a phase — “something you do only in school or college”. They also give researchers a chance to see how their work resonates with the public, he adds. For attendees like author Aayush Puthran, the series is a refreshing “package of learning and socialising”. “Many mixers in Bengaluru are dating-oriented, which gets annoying,” he explains.
PoV has talks lined up on lunar exploration, the unreliability of memory, the circular economy of spent grains, the hidden lives of moths, and how hummingbirds conserve energy. The organisers plan to increase the frequency of these lectures, and add experiential tours to the mix.
For upcoming lectures, visit @pintofview.club on Instagram.