Please don’t stop the music!

Bangalore, long time back used to be this place where everyone was laidback and happy and things moved along leisurely, infact, there was a time, the old-timers say when everyone in Bangalore knew everyone else in Bangalore. But with time, Bangalore grew to become a cosmopolitan, modern city. The influx of IT brought with it people, ideas, cultures and so much so that the once ‘retirement town’ had now become a ‘melting pot’ of cultures and traditions and people!

Over the last few years, a lot of things changed and clearly our city has struggled to cope with that and in many ways it has begun to catch up.

Last month however, the law makers and the law enforcers in a stunning twist of events banned live music in the city (yet again!). Well technically, ALL live music is not banned, but performances of any kind, music, dance, theatre etc in a place which serves alcohol is banned. Which essentially means, there are *NO* venues to perform in the city.

For all you naysayers and people who believe that there are venues and we should just organize shows in the myriad halls that exist and any variation of that idea, all I have to say is .. please organize something like this .. one gig a month with whichever band you want to or any dancer or theatre performer and then see how it works out for you. Then you will realize why these venues were of such importance to the young artistes in the city.

Raghu Dixit at the protest

Raghu and I being the only Bangaloreans in the band, came out in full force last week (or atleast as much force as we could) to be part of the protest against such illogical ruling by the police. We certainly hope that this situation is resolved quickly before we end up living in a place that is permanently devoid of culture!

If you would like to see this situation changed, please go right ahead and sign the petition to the government online at http://bengalurubleeding.com/petition and leave your message there. This will be taken officially to the government and we hope that something good will come out of it!

Sign the Pledge