history of bangalore

For long, I was intrigued by this derelict locomotive lying in the Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain Park opposite the Jawahar Lal Nehru Planetarium. I would have a fleeting glance of it while passing the gate. I had once seen it from up close and did not see any markings on it. Truly, it was a mystery locomotive. A few years back I went to the park to do a detailed documentation of the locomotive. The more I looked at it, the prettier it seemed. The first thing that one usually does when confronted with locomotives that don't bear any markings,…

We have come a long way from the days of paraffin or kerosene lamps. Though our grandparents may be familiar with these lighting relics, they are now relegated to occupying a small space in our storage or as a curio on display. Days of kerosene street lamps Kerosene street lamps were part of daily life in Bengaluru up till August 5, 1905. The task of cleaning, refuelling and lighting them was designated to three men appointed by the local administration. An inspector was also tasked to oversee the entire lighting operation in the city. This Victorian-era practice of lighting street lamps…

What can history teach us? I am often asked this seemingly old yet enduring question, in various ways: Why should we study old buildings? Why worry about people who lived long ago? The oft repeated quote, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is obviously not a sufficient answer one can offer. In this article, I draw on Donald Anderson’s biography ‘The Last White Hunter’ by Joshua Mathew to address this question. Donald Anderson (1934 – 2014), belonged to the last of four generations of Scots who made India their home. I was taken aback…

Bengaḷūru, today, is bursting at its seams trying to provide for a population well beyond the capacity of its infrastructure. One would assume any proposed remedy would refer to planning methods adopted in the early settlements and respond to the city’s unique topography. Instead, the authorities concerned seem to have divorced themselves from local wisdom as they go about creating land parcels catering to commercial, and opportunistic interests, ignoring heritage and ecology. A few years ago, when I started my research on Bengaḷūru, the journey took me to the oldest labyrinths of the city, the past reached out across the…

This is an excerpt introducing the book Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the past, present and future, written by Harini Nagendra, a Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India. The book is scheduled to be released on June 10th, 2016, at 6.30 pm at Alliance Francaise, Bengaluru. My office is in the peri-urban fringe of Bengaluru. From a place that was fairly rural, in ecology, lifestyle and livelihoods, this area has transformed almost literally in front of my eyes in the past decade into a mess of congested traffic, garbage dumps, slums cheek by jowl with apartment blocks,…