FROM LATHI TO PAINTBRUSH: HOW A TOUGH COP BECAME BANGALORE'S ART PATRON

From fierce IPS officer to nurturing art patron, Jija Hari Singh's journey reflects resilience, reinvention, and a passion for community.

- SANDHYA MENDONCA

"Let's catch up for a heart-to-heart, just the two of us, like the old days," Jija Hari Singh told me after her major triumph in finding land and funding for an art village. The old days were when we used to meet on the corner of MG Road, midway between the offices of the DCP Traffic and a leading local daily—Jija Hari Singh, IPS (the first woman police officer from South India) and I, a newly-minted crime reporter (the first woman to hold the post full-time in an English daily in Bengaluru). She was scrawny yet stern in khaki, and the two of us chatting made for a sight that drew many curious glances.

Now I find her calm, mellow and settled in stature as an art patron. There are no rough edges, nothing to prove. I have seen this side of her evolve over the last decade when we collaborated for some art events. I asked how she's transformed her life from tough-talking, lathi-wielding cop to a leading light in the arts community. It was her husband's comment on her 59th birthday that set everything in motion. After her staff had gone home, Subir, her IAS officer husband, remarked, "Thank God, 365 days more and we'll be free of all these people." Jija was upset. They weren't burdens, she told him—they were the people who supported them, cooked for them, looked after them. But then something clicked. 365 days. She had exactly one year to figure out what came next.