Bangalore to Bengaluru: Shanthamani M’s online exhibition, ‘Past Continuous’, portrays a city in flux

A series of photomontages attempts to capture the cultural transformation of Karnataka’s capital

A senior colleague and I started talking about Bangalore on our way to grab lunch on a workday two years ago, when going to the office and restaurants were quotidian affairs. The colleague, who was born and brought up in the city, told me, who had been living there for four years, how things used to be. She used to cycle, without traffic congestion, to Rex Theatre on Brigade Road, to Cubbon Park, to post offices, markets and other places. The city, she recalled, was much cooler, calmer, and greener. Six years into this millennium, Bangalore became Bengaluru. Along with the name, the city too changed drastically. At this point, the colleague paused for a moment and said, “It doesn’t feel like my city anymore.” Viewing Shanthamani M’s online exhibition at the Museum of Art and Photography, , rekindled the memory of this conversation. Her photomontages from the mid-2000s attempt to portray Bangalore’s transmogrification. Like my colleague, Shanthamani, too, has fond memories of a cooler, greener city. Despite growing up in Mysore, she has constantly visited Bangalore from the 80s. “I used to come to see exhibitions in Bangalore. This was the only place (near Mysore) where I could see works of other artists,” she says, “It was still a pub city and you would find people playing music on Brigade Road. But it had a different kind of balance and charm.”