When Whitefield came together, it was all song and dance at this 'habba'

When a traditional village sport, entrepreneurship, and a young Anglo-Indian vocalist come together, you know it's Whitefield celebrating its diversity.
At Sunday's Whitefield Habba -organised by the citizen group organised by the citizen group Whitefield Rising -old and new Whitefielders gathered at the Inner Circle playground for a day-long festival, the purpose of which was to bring them together.

Until the 1990s, Whitefield was mostly a village surrounded by several others. As the suburb developed into a technology hub and brought in an affluent new population, a simmering undertone of `villagers versus outsiders' took shape. “The Whitefield Habba is to reassure them that all of us are in it together,“ said R Keshava, a native of Nallurhalli, eagerly pointing out that the Habba's food stall had cooks from his village.“It's a show of unity .“

Gymnasts from the Vijayanagara and Gandhipuram villages performed the traditional Mallakhamba (grease khamba as it is known colloquially), a game where teams of five members vie to climb a bamboo pole greased with oil to claim a prize on the top. There was also Dollu Kunita and Garuda Gombe, folk dance forms most Whitefielders are unaware of.

Then there was 27-year-old Sama ntha Megan Peck, the youngest among the remaining Anglo-Indian settlers in Whitefield. The Peck family was one of the 22 families that first settled down in the 1880s. “I remember my dad telling me stories about jackals. And the Whitefield main road had just one lane,“ said Samantha, a trained choir singer who performed at the Habba.

The Habba was also a platform for self-made entrepreneurs to showcase their work. The Inner Circle playground put up urban artist Rajani Mani's first exhibition. Her paintings capture the daily life at Whitefield, including one that depicts people sitting around the Immadihalli village square (katte).The Habba also gave 54-year-old taxi driver Rudolph Muller a chance to show off his Christmas stars. “I do this as a hobby. I buy aluminum strips from SP Road, cut them into stars and fix LED lights. I sold about 150 of them last Christmas,“ he said.

Besides street games and dance performances, school children from the Ramagondanahalli government school performed skits on lake protection and waste management.

“The success of the Habba is not to be measured in footfalls, but its implementation,“ Whitefield Rising founder Nitya Ramakrishnan said.“We were hiding within our preconceived notions, but there is so much to learn about each other. The IT folks should know about Garuda Gombes as much as the villagers should know what the IT people bring with them.“

Interestingly , the Habba was themed around Kannada Rajyotsava.And as one participant was heard saying, it seemed like the whole of Whitefield was at the Inner Circle playground on Sunday .