Photos: Vishwanath Suvarna photographs the forgotten forts of Karnataka
Photojournalist Vishwanath Suvarna spent 18 months trekking all over Karnataka, tracking down famous and forgotten forts, citadels and lookout towers. In August, 600 of these photographs were published as a coffee-table book, The Golden Views of Karnataka, in English, with a more concise version in Kannada released in 2017.
This grand fort at Gulbarga — earlier Kalburgi — in northern Karnataka is said to have been built by a local ruler, Raja Gulchand. Later, the founder of the Bahmani dynasty, Ala-ud-Din Hasan Bahman Shah (r. 1347-1358) added the main citadel, called the Bala Hissar that still sits at the centre of the fort.(Photo by Vishwanath Suvarna)
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The Badami Fort is a renowned archaeological site in the town of Badami. It is located on top of a hill about 2 km from the town, in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka. The fort dates back to 543 AD and is said to have been built by the Chalukya King Pulakeshi.(Photo by Vishwanath Suvarna)
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The Chitradurga Fort was built in parts, between the 11th and 13th centuries, by dynastic rulers of the region, including the Chalukyas and Hoysalas, and later modified by the Nayakas of Chitradurga of the Vijaynagar Empire. At the fort, there are about 19 main gateways, 35 fortified doors, secret pathways and numerous water ponds and oil ponds. The fort is spread over 1,500 acres across a cluster of hills.(Photo by Vishwanath Suvarna)
In the dense forests of northern Karnataka, Suvarna sought out the forgotten Mirjan fort in Uttara Kannada district, said to have been built during the reign of the 16th-century Queen Chennabharadevi, known as the Pepper Queen of India.(Photo by Vishwanath Suvarna)
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Gummanayakana Kote is a fort located in the Chikkaballapur district of Karnataka. It is said to be among the oldest forts in Karnataka, built in 1350 by a feudal chieftain, Byregowda, of the Vijayanagara empire.
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Modus Vivendi (1000 people – 1000 Homes), 2000: In this self-portrait, a work of mixed media on canvas, Kallat appears as a swaggering, bespectacled juggler of heart and brain. The painting is an exploration of selfhood in the city of Mumbai, where he grew up and lives. The individual, lost in the multitudes, wanders in a state of perpetual disorientation, as reflected in the work. The radiating streaks of red, orange and green, reminiscent of thermal imagery, were achieved by texturing the canvas with layers of paint or canvas and then peeling off some parts to attain the desired visual effect.
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Sheer delight: While out surveying the remote Phoenix Islands Archipelago, Schmidt Ocean Institute scientists captured rare footage of a “glass octopus”, named so because it is completely see-through. What one does see when one shines a light on it is its optic nerve, eyeballs, and digestive tract. Even though this species has been known to science since 1918, scientists were forced to study about this animal through specimens found in the guts of predators, before this sighting.
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Herald / Harbinger is a permanent public art installation by Ben Rubin and Jer Thorp. It broadcasts the sounds of the Bow Glacier cracking and breaking 200 km away, to the centre of Calgary, one of Canada’s largest cities, almost in real time. The sounds and imagery shaped by data from a glacial observatory are broadcast through 16 speakers and seven LED arrays.
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Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022): The movie explores the many dimensions of parenthood and love through the story of a Chinese-American immigrant named Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) who, while struggling to run a failing laundromat business, uses her newfound powers to travel across multiple realities to save the world and work on her strained relationships with her loved ones. It’s a family drama that’s fast-paced, funny and, above all, tackles earnestly the idea of healing from intergenerational trauma.
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At first sight: For centuries, sunspots were thought to be Mercury passing across the Sun. By the early 17th century, with the invention of the telescope, astronomers could get a clearer look. In 1610, Galileo Galilei (who first used the telescope to observe space) in Italy and his British contemporary Thomas Harriot identified these as spots on the Sun. Seen here are 35 drawings of sunspots created by Galileo between June 2 and July 8, 1612.
