By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD
As we sometimes do, from time to time, to kickstart lazy weekends, which we both love very much, yesterday morning, my wife Shabana and I, decided to go out for brunch, to Arterra, the newly opened café inside the Jagannatha Centre for Art & Culture (JCAC), located in Vijayanagar 1st Stage.
Now, this convention centre is undoubtedly the first facility of its kind that has been established in our city, as a space for artistic expression and cultural exchange, thanks to the vision of the entrepreneur and art patron Dr. M. Jagannath Shenoy, who is a man very well-known for his vision and philanthropy, in many fields.
As a doctor, I have been attending many large medical conferences and other conventions and whenever I did this, I used to always feel that our beautiful city, despite its rich heritage, lacked a facility, where at least mid-sized conferences, conventions, concerts and expos, could be held with ease and convenience, in the right kind of ambience.
Thankfully, now with the arrival of JCAC, this need has been more than met and we can all feel proud that we here in Mysuru can play hosts to any such events, where visitors can experience our hospitality, in the right ambience. Yes, this centre with its own microclimate of halls and open spaces, has all that one can ask for in a cluster of auditoriums, with the most essential and important being perfect acoustics.
When I say this, I am sure that you will all agree with me, that there can be no two opinions that this one attribute, can make a world of difference to the experience of enjoying any musical performance, which showcases the talents and abilities of the artistes, to their fullest. Arterra too, the café that is now an integral part of this complex, is a place where one can relax and unwind in an unhurried way, savouring not only just good food and service, but also its beautiful ambience.
My family and I have therefore been going there quite often now, to enjoy these qualities and thankfully, we have always come back very pleased with the experience. Yesterday, as we were about to enter the café, we spotted Jagannath Shenoy himself, standing in conversation, in the company of H.R. Leelavathi, the legendary Kannada Sugama Sangeetha (light music) singer, writer, poet and composer, all admirably rolled in one.
Starting her career in 1950, more than seventy-five long years ago, she has established her place as the leading and longest standing exponent of Karnatak Music and Sugama Sangeetha, attached to Akashvani, the Mysuru unit of the All India Radio (AIR).
I instantly recognised her, which is not at all surprising, considering who she is and what her stature is today, but what surprised me most was that she instantly recognised me for who I was and clasping my hand in hers, she started complimenting my writings. I could not help feeling both elated and a little uneasy too, with all the praise that she was showering on me and I told her that!
After a brief but most pleasant chat, when my wife and I took leave of her and Shenoy, she asked me how I decide upon what to write about in my column, week after week, a question that I have been asked by many people, over all the years that I have been writing for Star of Mysore (SOM).
That was when I told her that as a writer, always in need of a subject to write about, week after week, it was the most difficult task for me and so I make the best of what I chance upon and sheepishly asked her if I could write about this very brief but most wonderful meeting of ours, for this weekend.
To this, she smiled most genially and said, “Yes, you can please go ahead and do it, if it is going to make your job easy”…And so, here I am!
A very puzzling & pesky situation
I am sure that like me, you have all been noticing that over the past few years, traffic in our city has been suddenly doubling, during weekends and other holidays, making it difficult for us to use our roads.
Now, with the arrival of this year’s Dasara, this scenario is certainly all set to become worse because of the ongoing flyover construction work that is in progress at the Manipal Hospital Junction, which as of now is the tightest bottleneck, through which our largest volume of traffic to and from Bengaluru, has to pass.
The obstructing array of barricades.
Thankfully this may soon ease once this flyover is completed, although we have to still keep our fingers crossed, because the growth in traffic somehow always seems to outstrip the facilities we create to ease it. Cities like Bengaluru, among most others are the most notable examples of this perplexing paradox.
Coming to the problem that I wish to highlight here today, the Fountain Circle near the Central Jail, on Ashoka Road, is fast becoming a spot that experiences very bad traffic jams, especially during weekends. To bypass this tight spot, many vehicles including the heavy ones like trucks and KSRTC buses, heading out towards Bengaluru, have started entering the St. Mary’s Road from the Dr. Ambedkar Circle near the FTS and then joining the main road at Subash Nagar, behind St. Philomena’s College.
There is nothing wrong in this because there is nothing else, they can do to beat the bottleneck but this detour too has been experiencing another very frustrating bottleneck on a very narrow road due to an inexplicable situation that has remained unaddressed for a very long time now.
The road taking off to Subash Nagar from Shivaji Road from opposite the Mahalakshmi Sweet stall, has a house that has at least a dozen Traffic Police barricades with ribbons placed outside it, for some bizarre reason. This array takes up nearly one third of the width of the already very narrow road, making traffic flow extremely difficult. Can our Traffic Police please look into this strange situation and immediately remove these barricades?
Incidentally, we do not find this kind of a situation even around the most protected, high-security areas in our country, including our Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi!
e-mail: kjnmysore@rediffmail.com
This post was published on September 27, 2026 7:30 pm