Astronauts landed on the streets of Bangalore, people’s were shocked after seeing this scene
If you’ve ever been to Tunganagar Main Road in Bengaluru, you must be familiar with the enormous potholes which have made commute practically impossible in the area. Citizens living or working in the nearby areas were stunned to see a special guest walking the streets recently.
The potholes in the area served as inspiration for Baadal Nanjundaswamy, an artist who has been in the news multiple times for raising his voice against faulty infrastructure and policies through art.
He dressed up as an astronaut and “moonwalked” on the craters, a video of which has gone viral on social media. Now that you think of it, the pothole ridden streets do resemble the lunar surface!
And it wasn’t a coincidence that the video appeared at a time when Chandrayaan-2 has begun its final descent towards the south pole of the moon. Nanjundswamy, 39, is always on the lookout for interesting ways to highlight the pothole menace.
As a canvas, Bengaluru’s pothole ridden roads have served Nanjundswamy, an alumnus of Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, well. There’s the famous crocodile that sat in a pothole in 2015. The same year there was the painting of Yamraj (The Indian god of death) around an open manhole. Then there was the installation — a mermaid – an actor posed as one – sitting in a pothole at the busy Cubbon Road junction in 2017.
The idea for the moon walk came to Nanjundswamy about a fortnight ago and since then, he adds, he was on the lookout for a suitable location that was traffic-free, a tough task in Bengaluru. Additionally, it also took time for the costume to be ready.
“Everybody was talking about Chandrayaan and it gave me an idea to highlight the issue,” says Nanjundaswamy. “I didn’t expect it to catch the public’s imagination in this manner and I have been receiving so many calls from media outlets that had to switch my phone off.”
Nanjundswamy, who works as an art director in Kannada films, says he has always felt a very strong desire to communicate issues through his art . “My verbal communication is poor, but there are issues that I wish to highlight and I can do so only through my art.”
The aim is to only highlight, he adds: “This is just a funny, sarcastic way of highlighting the issue and almost always I find that the authorities fill the potholes. I have nothing against them.”
Let’s hope Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) takes note of Tunganagar street as well!
Source – News 18, Hindustan Times.
