DIRECT FROM SHIVAJI

Earlier Shivajinagar to me was nothing more than just a bus stand, where you go just to change buses and reach somewhere else. There is nothing interesting to do, no fun, no excitement and an absolute waste of time taking you nowhere. Chaos, noises, pollution, foul smell…that’s it and you are done explaining Shivajinagar to the core. This was the reflection which i had regarding Shivajinagar.

Then I started off with the course of designing a walk in Shivajinagar. This was really an excellent opportunity for me to know Shivajinagar in a better way. This was the start of my journey in Shivajinagar, including all aspects of it.

Shivajinagar is huge…really huge. This was the initial notion I had when I started exploring Shivajinagar. Numerous streets, numerous shops, plenty of fancy things, large population. Definitely Shivajinagar turned out to be something really more than my expectations. The first thing I did was went exploring Shivajinagar geographically. I went to almost every street in Shivajinagar, getting the essence of each one of them. Each one of them in spite of being identical to each other is very different and carries its own natural charisma and aura. Moving further on I went to various shops and was amazed to look at the variety of stuff they have to sell. From old to new, small to big, traditional to modern…Shivajinagar has everything in it. This is really a very good aspect of the place which is mainly the reason behind the shopaholics being attracted to Shivajinagar.

Shivajinagar is considered to be around 120 – 150 years old and therefore it carries in itself a huge deal of mysteries, events, people, stories and really interesting aspect of a society existing in that space since so long.  Major communities living in Shivajinagar are the Muslims, the Hindus and the Christians. It truly displays the essence of the proverb which has been very rightly noted, ‘Unity in Diversity’. In spite of being such an old community, which has experienced numerous ups and downs during the course of its existence, people just not only live peacefully but do consider each other’s emotions, beliefs, thoughts and are truly interested in a harmonious coexistence.

Shivajinagar is something which can be considered as a living example of a very colourful, lively, vivid, rich, cultural place which won’t allow itself to be discovered on its own but rather to know it in a better way one needs to get thyself connected to it to the core.

Religion is one of the most important aspects of Shivajinagar. One can’t imagine Shivajinagar without this notion of multiple religions connected to each other in a way and thus glorifying the different values and beliefs it contains. Religion is the binding force which holds the people of Shivajinagar together.

Moving ahead I came across some really old houses and shops which were of the British era and were really beautiful to look at. They even being so old were very well capable of re-enlivening the ancient scenes and generating the basic idea of how architecture prevailed in Shivajinagar.

Food is also one of the most exciting and enjoyable factor of Shivajinagar. It not only attracts you to itself but also in a way connects the local people with the outsiders like us. There are a couple of streets in Shivajinagar which are completely devoted to serve people with tasty local dishes. It not only makes the place more interesting but also provides local people with job opportunities. Apart from these things Shivajinagar is considered as a commercial area of Bangalore since so much of trade and commerce flows in, of different levels targeting different strata of the society.

There lies a marvellous kingdom of art, design and architecture in Shivajinagar. It is really exciting to observe these things which just lie around in Shivajinagar but to admire them one needs to identify it and then take it from whole new bottoms up perspective. Since the place is really old it gives oneself numerous opportunities to try various design tools and extract or convey the information about a particular place using them in a manner which creates interests and displays the real beauty of that place including all the aspects of it.

WALK –

For the walk we have planned to design a gallery space for the same. The gallery won’t be displaying Shivajinagar but instead will include Shivajinagar from a different perspective.

The theme of the gallery is to show the relation between the old Shivajinagar and the new one. Thus we have sub titles to categorise the things. They are – TRANSITION…IMPACT…ACCEPTANCE…( as in the transitions might be accepted or might not) .

For the execution of our project we have thought of various mediums covering different topics. These mediums might take any form or shape as the gallery gets developed. Also we will be including some narratives in the form of photographs or even through other means like old newsletters, publications, receipts, etc.

Thus we plan to provide the actual essence of Shivajinagar getting developed or evaluated to the people coming for the walk in the form of the gallery. 

PARAM JAIN