It happened
On April 26th, Blend Crew Cohort One graduated. Five creator-interns spent three months building real things for real audiences.
was their goodbye to that chapter, and our welcome to whatever comes next.
By The Numbers
5
Crew members graduated
99+
Votes during the live session
5
Hours of show, start to encore
5
Panelists on stage
55%
Reused or upcycled objects
Here's the evening.
Five hours of show, one room, ninety-nine votes and a lot of engagement. The bits we managed to catch before, during, and after the lights came up.
Five projects. Three months.
Real Work.
Anjala Ashraf
Designer
The Bengaluru Typeface: A Living Archive of Hand‑Painted Signs
A living archive of Bengaluru's hand-painted signboards - multiple artists across Chickpet, Avenue Road, and Cottonpet who have been painting Kannada and English script by hand for decades. No fonts. No templates. Just muscle memory. Anjala has turned their work into a coffee table book and postcards. Everyday design by people who never called themselves designers.
Aapti Madhu
Host
Aapti in Bengaluru · On the Down Low
A pilot episode of a series - Aapti in Bengaluru - following a girl exploring the city, inspired by Emily in Paris, but rooted in what’s real here. It’s about discovering corners of the city that never make the algorithm. This episode captures a Bengali dinner hosted by two sisters in their home - not a restaurant, not a pop-up, just something more personal. Because gatekeeping is overrated.
Aditya Srinivas
Video editor
Tālme: Made in Bengaluru
A six-minute short documentary about Tālme - a resin art brand built inside a mother's salon in the middle of a busy day. Two locations: the salon (where pours happen between mirrors and hair spray) and her pop-ups (where the finished pieces finally breathe). One warm, direct question at the centre of it all. Quiet magic, finally noticed.
Adeeb Shaikh
Videographer
Bengaluru’s Visual Arts: History & Takeover
A cinematic, commentary-led deep dive into Bengaluru’s art history - from Kalamandir (1919) to the role of Bangalore University in shaping visual arts education, carried forward by the pioneers who built it. Leading up to the arrival of the National Gallery of Modern Art in 2014, marking how far it had come. This traces how art moved from classrooms to cultural landmarks - becoming what it is today. It isn’t a heritage video. It’s a reckoning. Someone built the room before anyone could walk into it.
Tushar Dawrani
Social Media
Sindhi Food in Bengaluru: The Visibility Gap
The food exists. The community exists. The restaurants don't. Tushar documented Sindhi home cooks across the city, made a short film about the invisible networks that keep the cuisine alive and then served Sindhi food publicly to watch the city react. Not a guide to Sindhi restaurants. A documentary about why they don't exist yet.
Five Interns. Five Journey’s.
Five careers began.
Each Cohort One member received their certificate and badge. Stage was Anjala, Aapti, Aditya, Tushar, Adeeb — in that order — to roaring applause from a room that had watched them grow up over three months.
FIRESIDE CHAT
THE CBC EQAUTION
99+ votes, 5 panelists, live voting
and one short equation that rewrites how Indian creative work travels in 2026.
CONTENT
x
BRAND
x
COMMUNITY
=
STORIES
x
TRUST
x
NETWORK.*
*Crowd Sourced
Vote Now
Five practitioners debated each letter of CBC. The audience voted live, one round at a time. The right side of the equation came from the room itself, not from a stage.
Read the CBC
Equation report
A report on what each word means, what the three together imply, and the three things that get harder from here.
THE SET
Apeksha Pai.
Originals only. Two guitars.
Apeksha Pai closed the night with an originals-only set, accompanied by Pritish Jayakumar and Dwijesh Sridhar on guitars. No covers. No hard close. The room stayed.
APEKSHA PAI
PRITISH
JAYAKUMAR
DWIJESH
SRIDHAR
A BIG THANK YOU!
To everyone who made this real.
To Antra and BhoomiVerse for opening the doors. To Koyel, Adarsh and Ayesha for showing up not just for us but for the cohort. To Apeksha, Pritish and Dwijesh for sending us into the night with songs of their own. To Cohort One — Anjala, Aapti, Aditya, Tushar and Adeeb — for trusting Blend with three months of your lives. To everyone who stood in the room, voted, scanned, asked and listened, thank you!
