Karnataka

From Delhi to US, Bengaluru artist flooded with requests to ‘moonwalk’ on bad roads

Written by : TNM Staff

Bengaluru-based street artist Baadal Nanjundaswamy recently made rather viral news when he got an actor to don an astronaut’s costume and ‘moonwalk’ on the Tunganagar Main Road in the city. The pothole-riddled road and its dim streetlights were wittily used to create the illusion that the street was the heavily cratered surface of the moon.

Baadal, who had set out to shed light on the deplorable condition of the road, clearly succeeded, and then some. Not only did the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, the city’s civic agency, take note and begin repair work just a day after Baadal’s tweet went viral, but the artist has been flooded with requests from various parts of India and the world to recreate the scene on their pothole-ridden roads.

Thanking the BBMP for their prompt response, Baadal posted a video on Tuesday showing an earthmover taking up repair work.

In the replies to the tweet, meanwhile, are many people asking Baadal to do something similar for other roads as well. The requests are for different parts of Bengaluru, and also cities like Delhi, even from Hawaii and Louisiana in the United States.

This isn’t the first time that Baadal has taken a creative approach to highlight the state of the city’s roads. Known for transforming potholes into artistic installations that pack a point, last year Baadal had transformed a pothole at the Cubbon Park Junction area into a pond, complete with an actor posing as a mermaid too.

Earlier in 2015, after he had placed a faux crocodile in a huge pothole on Sultanpalya Main Road, the BBMP had taken up repair work just a day later, much like the most recent case.

The BBMP, meanwhile, has been claiming that it is working to fill up Bengaluru’s potholes on priority, after it was pulled up by the Karnataka High Court last month. Last week, the civic body had announced a Rs 2,000 fine for engineers who fail to fill the potholes.

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