41st anniversary of The Times of India, Bengaluru: Making space for all in the open

Time of India

18-07-2025

BY:
V Ravichandar
Public Spaces Are Critical In The Creation Of Successful Cities Where They Serve Ecological, Recreational And Aesthetic Roles
It is an unfortunate reality that the rapid urbanisation of Bengaluru from the 1980s to date, has led to a realty boom of rampant, unbridled construction and encroachments have shrunk open spaces in the city.
A recent study notes a 1,628-hectare reduction of water surface area to 696 hectares between 1973 and 2023. The 1995 masterplan indicated open spaces to be 25%.
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The latest estimates are 6%, a 75% reduction. It is stating the obvious when we note that public, community spaces have been rapidly disappearing faster than Ravi Shastri's tracer bullets.
A city comes alive in its public spaces. It's in the parks, lakes, performance spaces, community centres, art galleries, gatherings in street corners, fields that we have a shared communal experience that in many ways is an essential part of life.
Public spaces are akin to a spa for the mind and soul. Its availability invigorates us; its absence diminishes our quality of living.
We revere the city's founder, Kempegowda, but ignore his mother's advice - 'Keregalam kattu, marangalam nedu' (Build lakes, plant trees). Thousands of tanks down to low three digits, many of them riddled with sewage. No large park of note, post Lalbagh and Cubbon Park.
The maintenance and upkeep of government auditoriums for public events has been abysmal.
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In essence, it's been a story of neglect of public spaces over time.
It's not all doomsday news on the public spaces front. Since 2010, there have been many private initiatives with a larger public purpose that are slowly improving the quality of social life in the city. The original Bangalore Habba by Padmini Ravi and Nandini Alva in early 2000s showed what was possible if you considered streets too to be a large open canvas for a city festival.
Arundhati Nag's Ranga Shankara made theatre, particularly Kannada plays, accessible to a wide local population – that she managed to complete the project braving the odds is less known. Jagriti by Arundhati and Jagdish Raja was an oasis in parched Whitefield. They were the early trailblazers.
Two recent additions have been by enlightened city realtors, who clearly realise the value of fostering spaces for arts and culture: The Prestige Centre for Performing Arts and the Brigade group-upgraded Venkatappa Art Gallery.
They were preceded by Indian Music Experience and Museum of Art & Photography by Abhishek Poddar. Currently, NGMA sports a vibrant arts calendar thanks to energetic leadership. And the Chitrakala Parishad has held its own over the years and its annual Chitra Santhe has grown by leaps and bounds, indicative of the city's desire for more.
As a tech city, spaces for science has kept pace with the needs. Bengaluru Science Gallery, Param Science Centre and Curiouscity have been attracting visitors old and young.
And there have been a host of smaller locations like Atta Galatta, Ahum, Courtyard Koota, Courtyard, Shoonya and others have played host to audiences interested in arts and culture. The Attakkalari Dance Biennale, Nrityagram, Natya Stem academy have catered to varied dance forms.
The Happy Streets by The Times of India has been a celebration of the city, locality by locality. One saw similar energy during the Hubba in your parks in 2024.
Now BBMP is continuing the Park Habba tradition.
There are four initiatives this author has helped catalyse – Bangalore Literature Festival, Bangalore International Centre, Unboxing's BLR Hubba and Sabha. Of these, three are publicly funded, free-to-attend event spaces.
The last space is a connect with the past restoring a 160-year building as a public space for arts and culture. This author has self-depreciatingly called himself patron saint of lost causes.
He now has cause to graduate to be a self-appointed mayor for public spaces! While many of the above could be considered quasi-elitist and middle class-focused with entry barriers, the recent efforts to make events free is showing some results of increased access.
There is much more we must do to make our public spaces truly accessible, akin to the kind of attendance one sees at the karaga or kadalekai parishe or the music season concerts.
Author Kiran Keswani has documented the disappearing 'kattes', elements that retain the flavour of the rural past, few of which barely survive the city's rapid expansion and absorption of the peripheral villages. Despite this, kattes have evolved as a bottomup city-making process to meet the daily community needs for a public space and her case study of Dodda Mavalli Katte gives hope of what is possible with community ownership.
Public spaces are critical in the creation of successful cities where they serve important ecological, recreational and aesthetic roles. They could be physical spaces or festivals / events many of them in the open. Public spaces have the potential to enhance urban productivity and bring ecological benefits. They act as sites of cross-cultural encounters, where participation in group activities such as festivals and celebrations can occur, where a shared sense of identity can be created.
Nationally, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai have been considered the major cultural centres. Of late, Bengaluru is making reasonable strides to catch up and create its own niche. We need more high net worth individuals with a philanthropic mindset to set aside a small portion of their social funding portfolio for arts and culture. The future lies in privately catalysed, public-purpose institutions and city festivals where government acts as an enabler for these spaces and activities to flourish.
Future planning activity must increase the extent of open spaces and renewal of older areas as arts and culture districts.
What government chooses to do, including creating new spaces, reviving its dilapidated spaces and sponsorship of events, would be the icing on the cake! That it has opened Freedom Park as a public space beyond just protests gives us reason to hope.
(Author is a civic evangelist actively working on the city's hard & soft infrastructure)