HERITAGE

If we are apathetic to Nature today, and view the natural world as being something separate from our daily existence, certainly there was a time when it was not so. Much of our rich mythology deals with rivers, trees, and other natural features, and indeed, our ancients imagined mythical beings which combined several features of living creatures. We all know Narasimha, the half-man, half-lion avatar of Vishnu, but Bangalore, and Kannada culture, in particular, has some interesting depictions of some other mythological beings. As a woman who regularly uses Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses, (which means that I travel…

 Women at the Dodda Maramma temple, waiting to see the other car processions. Pic: Perumal Venkatesan No celebration is complete without fireworks. Pic: Perumal VenkatesanA lady cooks sweet pongal (made using new rice and jaggery) inside the temple campus, to offer to the goddess. This is a common practise across amman (Mariamma) temples in Tamil Nadu too. Pic: Perumal Venkatesan The gully where processions carrying the four idols meet. From here they proceed to the Dodda Maramma temple for the Agni Kunda Puja. Pic: Perumal Venkatesan Young lads dance to the beat of the tamte vaathya. Pic: Perumal Venkatesan Karagattam…

There was once a time in Bengaluru when one could see only a few buildings and a handful of people from right where they were standing. These days however, you should consider yourself lucky if you can see more than the bumper of the vehicle in front of you. From being referred to as Garden City, it has now been tagged as Garbage City. Independent bungalows and vataaras have given way to high-rise apartments. Empty streets are now jam-packed with vehicles.   Here is a comparison between the Bengaluru of yore, when it went by several flattering sobriquets, and the…

Srinivasa Mahal, Winner - Private (Residential) category Commemorating World Heritage Day, INTACH Bengaluru announced the winners of the city’s first Heritage Awards. The winners were selected from amongst 50 nominations that were received from the public in two categories, government-owned and private buildings. The selection was made by an eminent jury comprising former UNESCO Ambassador Chiranjivi Singh, senior archaeologist Dr SVP Halakatti and the young and accomplished architect Anup Naik. Based on the diversity of entries, it was decided to give awards to buildings in three categories: Public, Residential (Private) and Institutional (Private). Some of the parameters the jury considered…

A butcher at the Murphy Town market showing off his skill with a cleaver. Pic: Pavan Kulkarni Murphy Town market, along with Johnson market and Russell market, may be officially declared as heritage structures in the near future. Professor Gitanjali Rao, the director of Art, Architecture, Design Environment Consultants (AEDI), a Hubli-based organisation designated by the Archaeology Department with the task of preparing a list of heritage structures in Bengaluru, has confirmed to Citizen Matters that Murphy town market is one of the 800+ entries in their initial inventory of heritage structures in Bengaluru. However, operating under tight time constraints,…

The focus at Neralu this year was on Trees & Public spaces - including ashwath kattes, neighbourhood parks and streets. Alongside that, MapUnity developed an online platform where people could upload the location of their neighbourhood kattes, with photographs and a story. Please do log on to: Mapping the Ashwath katte if you have something to share about your own neighbourhood katte or one you’ve seen elsewhere. We hope that as we all share our stories about the Ashwath kattes we have seen and help to map them, we may uncover yet another story about the city of Bangalore - a story about its trees, its culture and…

Debris left behind after demolition of Malleswaram Market. Pic: Pavan Kulkarni Heaps of rubble are piled high over the land where the almost half century old Malleswaram market thrived till a few months ago. There were days when this place used to be scented by garlands of fresh vibrant flowers hung outside the numerous shops, patronised by loyal customers for its wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Some shopkeepers have been rehabilitated in temporary shops built along the storm water drain next to the market that used to be spread over 2.08 acre of land. Some shopkeepers who had not been rehabilitated have set…

I come from a family that can only be described as bonkers. Come April, amma would ask (I wish I could capture the exact tone of the original Tamizh in English; alas, it’s not to be!), “All right. When does your drama start?” Fact was that come May, I would suddenly, without any preamble or warning, fall ill with high temperature – ague, the works. Standard Operating Procedures would kick in with clockwork precision. I would gather up all the blankets and rugs I could find, make a multi-layered protective covering with them, and go to bed, shivering. I would…

At the Neralu 2014, a discussion on the cultural meaning attached to some of the older, shade-giving trees in the city led to the awareness that people continue to worship the Peepul tree AND informally generate community spaces within their neighbourhoods. This led me to research this idea further and to look at how the peepul tree (Ficus religiosa) shrine with its serpent stones and the raised platform around it, locally called the Ashwath katte, contributes to the making of urban space in the city of Bangalore. The origin of the ashwath katte lies in the rural areas of India. In…

The fruit and vegetable market at Nagarthpet. Pic: Aruna L I had a sneak peek into old Bangalore through a heritage walk organised by www.unhurried.in and I am so glad that someone is taking the initiative to let us all know about the heritage of the city we live in. I had heard of such walks in the temple town of Madurai, which is basically for foodies, but I could not be part of it when I went to Madurai. It is great that something like it has started in our own sweet little Bangalore. There is so much to Bangalore that we are…