The moment you enter this 100-year-old quaint house, you attain a sense of tranquility. Standing in the middle of the hustle bustle and busy streets of NR Colony in Basavangudi, exists this unique place called Bimba.
As soon as you start taking a tour, accompanied by one of the co-founders the well-informed and enlightened Deepak Doraiswamy, you realise that creativity and nature are embedded into every inch of the space. He talks about how this place is not just an art gallery or a store but a temple in its own right.
A temple executed by Mrs Deepika Doraiswamy and Mr Deepak Doraiswamy. As he is explaining, you are visibly stunned to see furniture, a sit out which has been made out of a cut wooden tree trunk and supporting it are two halves of a bullock cart wheel.
Such is the incredible creativity at play that every waste tree trunk and wooden log has been brought to life by them. Deepak calls says its is bringing back life to the lifeless. He says Bimba was an accident turned into a miracle. He shares his vast knowledge of how we could save several forests, nature by respecting bhoomi maa by giving her back what we take from her and how she keeps everything into account and gives it back to us in the form of disasters and accidents.
He sheds light as to how his wife travelled that extra mile to get what she wants and scouting for objects which are about to be discarded and creating miracles out of it. He continues to take me through not just a visual tour but how the couple have a dream to create it as an art space to create love and awareness among common people.
According to him, when a customer walks in, he no longer is the customer, he gets hooked onto the values rather than value of the elements in Bimba. Indian folklore and traditional art forms, furniture’s created out of mere logs of coconut tree wood, printing press materials form the vast range of elements in the art space.
One can find a vast range of traditional Indian objects from Lanterns, to stools made out of carved coconut trunk, tables and cupboards creating from everything you can imagine, organic cotton apparel created by weavers from different parts of the country which involves over 30 processes, which use only vegetable dyes to the courtyard behind and the small amphitheatre which houses the most talked about and unique creation of Bimba — The Rasaloka.
Small miniature dolls and moments are created by the artist and more than an hour-long narrative follows. Says Deepika, “Bimba happened 16 years ago, it is a great opportunity to experiment and experience. Flow is the classicism; the thought is how to celebrate earth.” She performs Rasaloka every Saturday and there are no tickets in a amphitheatre which accommodates 40 people.
According to her, It is a moment captured in time. Rest is to take the objects in a theatrical way, it is a universal feeling of belongings.The ashram is open on all 8 days with The free Rasaloka event happening every Saturday.
The writer is an art expert and curator.
