Beyond startups to pop-ups in Bengaluru

Hindustan Times

01-05-2025

Akhila Srinivas may well be Bengaluru's queen of pop-ups. Akhila runs The Courtyard, her family home now transformed into a gathering space, and The Conservatory, which has hosted a number of restaurant pop-ups that are not as expensive as the five-star ones but aren't cheap either (the range is from ₹1,500 to ₹6,000 per person per meal). What distinguishes her curations is that they are rooted in a specific cuisine prepared in a specific way. Consider the recent line-up: Sienna Café's Bengali food, Gingko Pune's Uzuki summer menu, the Maratha Kitchen's food and more. There are a lot of women chefs with interesting takes on their native and learned food, be it Goan or Keralite. A good indication of their popularity is that five-star chefs get on the wait-list to attend. So what's the feedback, I asked Akhila. 'Visiting chefs say that Bengaluru's diners are both adventurous and attentive to food,' she says. 'When a chef comes to explain the concept, the diners actually listen.'
At the other end of the spectrum is the recently finished culinary pop-up at The Leela Palace Bengaluru with 3 Michelin-starred Chef Massimo Bottura. Priced at ₹50,000++ per person, the sold-out event attracted visitors from Bengaluru and nearby cities who don't hesitate to spend for high-end experiences brought to their doorstep. Bengaluru a la Delhi, you might say.
I think of all this as I talk to Raihan Vadra, during the Bangalore Art Weekend that happened last month. Raihan is 25 and together with Svasa Life magazine, Platform Magazine, The Usual Suspects India community, brand-agency Form & Flow and other collaborators, he put together a weekend of panel discussions, art, music and fashion, all held at Sabha, a restored bungalow in Kamaraj Road. I try not to bring up his mother, Priyanka, his father, Robert, both of whom have been in the news. Instead, I ask the Delhi-based visual-artist about how Bangalore is different from the events that he has organised in Delhi and Mumbai.
Well, for one thing, Bangaloreans actually listen, he replies, echoing what Akhila said. In Delhi, young people quickly lose interest in hour-long panel-discussions. In Bengaluru, as I witnessed, there were panel discussions held over two days, on topics ranging from conscious living to making films. A full house of people mostly in their 20s and 30s sat patiently and listened. The second thing Raihan mentioned was the fact that the entire weekend was alcohol-free, which would be unheard of in Delhi. Kombucha was on offer from Dad's Hack, created by Bengaluru boy, Zeshan Rahaman. But the sessions were still packed with folks, chatting and viewing art. In Delhi, said Raihan, unless it is a 'party,' meaning unless there is alcohol, it is hard to get folks to attend. The last thing he mentioned was that there seemed to be a 'hunger for art and culture' here in Bangalore. Now this is something that feels contradictory. On the one hand, talk to art galleries like Sakshi and Sumukha and they will say that Bangaloreans don't buy, or appreciate art. We may have our startup billionaires but culture, we lack. Even Chennai buys more art, they will say. But that may refer to older folks who have the means to buy fine art. The youth of Bangalore have a hunger for other forms of culture including zines (self-made magazines), graphic art and manga.
Bangalore Art Weekend was nominally about art, but it also had workshops on zine-making, sketching and design. The panel discussions included performance poetry, ad films, discussions on reclaiming public spaces, mental health, upcycling clothes, getting off social media and living a slower, more intentional life. Designers sold clothes. But most importantly, people stayed back to listen.
My favourite recent pop-up was an exhibition of embroidery artworks by 10 Lambadi artisans who undertook a residency under the guidance of Bangalore-based fashion-designer Anshu Arora, who along with her husband, Jason Cherian founded a label called The Small Shop. Anshu connected with The Porgai Artisans Association where over 60 women who belong to the Lambadi tribe relearned the embroidery techniques that was their heritage. What Anshu did over a four-month residency was nudge them into making embroidery art so that it could be elevated to gallery spaces and command a lot more money. So ten women volunteered and created a stunning variety of artworks that were sold in Sabha. I attended a panel discussion on the last day in which the visionary founder of Tribal Health Initiative (under which Porgai operates), Lalitha Regi spoke about how crafts such as the Lambadi embroidery could be brought back from the brink of disappearance. As I stood and gazed at the intricate embroidery panels hung in the museum-like space, I felt as if I were in the beautiful Sittilingi Valley where these women live and work among birds, bees, trees and butterflies.
(Shoba Narayan is Bengaluru-based award-winning author. She is also a freelance contributor who writes about art, food, fashion and travel for a number of publications.)