A brush with Bangalore's past at expo

 Krishna Kumar, 50, a long-time Bangalorean, was busy clicking pictures of old images of Bangalore at the exhibition titled ‘A City in Transit,’ organised here on Sunday. 

Pointing to an old picture of the Victoria Hotel that once stood near Mayo Hall, Kumar said: “I remember hanging out with my college friends many times at the hotel. Now, it has been replaced by Central Mall. Those were the good old days,” he said.   

Reliving the past

The exhibition, in fact, brought back a thousand memories for Kumar as he glanced through various pictures on display, be it a black and white picture of Commercial Street, when it used to be frequented by horse carts and bicycles, the entrance to Victoria Hospital in the 1960s or an old picture of Trinity Church.  “As a boy, I remember cycling by Trinity Church. It was much less crowded  back then,” Kumar said. 

The many photographs, sketches, paintings of various aspects and landmarks of Bangalore by various photo agencies and individuals are an attempt to juxtapose the Bangalore of today with that of the bygone days. 

Metamorphosis

“The display is a means to show not only how Bangalore has changed over the years, but to also capture this process of change,” said Surekha, curator of Rangoli Metro Art Center on MG Road.
 Kumar, who himself is an enthusiastic photographer, has been taking pictures of the changes that are taking place around him. 

“When the Metro was being constructed, I took a number of pictures. I have also taken pictures of the Plaza Theatre, while it was being demolished. After a 100 years, they could also be put up like this for people to remember how Bangalore looked like,” he said.