old bangalore

  Bengaluru this week February 25th 2016     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     March (and end of financial year!) is nearing and we need to gear up for our next fundraising drive. But before that, we would like to hear from you - what do you think of our work -- does this journalism supported by Oorvani Foundation matter to you? What can we improve on? Write to us at edit@citizenmatters.in! This week’s highlight: Are you getting cheated by your LPG dealer? How much are you paying for your LPG cylinder? Pic:…

A WP engine. Train no 7724, Nilagiri Express. Pic: IRFCA - www.irfca.org It was a sunny Sunday morning in 1966. My uncle, Gurunath, had been fascinated by trains for long before that, I guess. Sunday mornings were our outing times. This Sunday, he took me to the Bangalore City railway station. Platform 1 of those days was what is now Platform 7. The current ‘backside gate’, as auto drivers refer to it, was the main entrance. Construction of the current Platform 1 was in its early stages. Back to the old Platform 1 (PF1). We sat on a bench on…

As kids, we used to chant a popular ditty: Ganesha banda kaayi-kadubu tindaChik-kereyl bidda dodd-kereyl edda (Ganesha came, ate coconut modakaFell in the small lake, emerged from the big lake) Don’t ask.  But I’ll come to the point. And I do have one, believe it or not. In the 1960s, when we first moved to Jayanagara 6th block, there were two kereys (tanks). The small tank was to the west of Kanakapura Road and the large tank to the east. Unlike now, the tank bund part of Kanakapura Road was very narrow. If two lorries—usually rickety old Fords—had to pass…

Kathri. Scissors. That was the connection that first brought this man into my life. In my salad days, learning to ride a bicycle was not quite what it is today. One did not have access to bicycles to fit one’s age, no trainer wheels, no helmets, knee pads, nothing. One borrowed a bicycle from one’s siblings or other kinfolk. You started with simple strokes that were not written down in any DIY manual. It was community education. Peers, neighbor uncles, one’s own kin, or someone or the other would help you learn. You went out, took several spills, and got…

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…

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…

Very early every morning, from the west, I would hear Sri Thirumale’s voice. He would have washed some clothes and would be putting these up to dry on the bamboo poles hung horizontally from the ceiling. All the while, he would be reciting something. One day, while I was in class 2, I found myself sitting in front of Aththi as she taught me the first shloka of the Sri Venkatesha Suprabhaatam (or just ‘Suprabhaatam’ as it is even now known). How this came about, I don’t remember. This is what Sri Thirumale used to recite every morning. After some…

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…