The Story of India

How Pa Ranjith’s Kaala changes the way we imagine the city / Film

- Pranav Kuttaiah

Last summer, on a visit to my home city of Bengaluru, I stood waiting for a train at the newly renamed Dr BR Ambedkar Vidhana Soudha metro station. In the background, I could hear gentle twangs of a veena in the style of Carnatic classical music. The contrast between the name of the station and the style of music, which has been the reserve of upper castes for centuries, was quite amusing to me. However, the music is so ubiquitous in the city that I doubt most long-term residents even notice it. To many outsiders, it is a defining marker of Bengaluru’s culture.

I wondered how many of these defining cultural markers reflect the true demography of Bengaluru. How did a cosmopolitan and diverse city of mostly meat-eating people come to largely be thought of as a city of idli, dosa, filter coffee and Carnatic music? The culture of indigenous settlers, working castes and those who live in auto-constructed spaces—which most residents, without the slightest sense of tragic irony, call “colonies”—is omitted from the mainstream. When one thinks of Bengaluru, one rarely thinks of the hip-hop, the football grounds or the beef stalls that are integral to the culture of its poorer citizens. As the city globalises, these are the cultural practices that would be allowed to vanish; what would survive are the idli, dosa, filter coffee and Carnatic music, considered more “worthy” of preservation.