All at home in namma Bengalooru

The refreshing diversity is the very essence of namma Bengalooru, says Rachna Bisht Rawat in this article published in the Deccan Herald.

Photo: Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bangalore.

It is truly a world city. If you step into the air conditioned environs of the sprawling Marks and Spencer, you could be in London. If you hit the lush green Barista with its rich pastries and steaming coffee, you could be in Paris. If you step out and run into a smiling woman, perched on the pavement, applying mehndi on an outstretched palm, there is absolutely no doubt about it: you have to be in namma Bengalooru.

Giggling girls with dangerously low jeans, spaghetti-strapped singlets, pierced belly buttons and loads of attitude. Young boys with coffee bean brown skin, straightened shoulder length hair, rippling muscles, sleeveless vests and distressed jeans with rips across the thigh. Grey-haired Kannadiga beauties with sparkling diamond nose pins, long-lashed eyes and green bordered magenta silk saris. Shuffling gentlemen with powder white dhotis, ash-smeared foreheads and leather sandals. Chances are you’ll find one of each kind on just one trip down MG Road. This refreshing diversity is the very essence of this city: Bangalore. Or are we calling it Bengalooru now?

It is truly a world city. If you step into the air conditioned environs of the sprawling Marks and Spencer, you could be in London. If you hit the lush green Barista with its rich pastries and steaming coffee, you could be in Paris. If you step out and run into a smiling woman, perched on the pavement, applying mehndi on an outstretched palm, there is absolutely no doubt about it: you have to be in namma Bengalooru. It’s yours and it’s mine. Though the possibility is that neither of us are Kannadigas. Maybe even ethnic Indians.

This is the city where Hassan Iyengar bakeries rub walls with Pizza Hut. Where people eat veg burgers at Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. Where bare-feet street children sell balloons to spoilt brats in big cars at crossings. Where traffic crawls and ambitions fly.

Down the same road you’ll find a fashion guru who picks future film stars from the young hopefuls who walk into his studio, a designer who toils over what fabric and cut to use in her spring/summer collection, two major newspaper offices almost back to back: with ideologies that are poles apart. This is the city of paradox. This is the city of multistoried malls and multiplex movie halls. But the retired Army colonel and his graceful wife still prefer the crumbling Naga and Nilgiris closer home.

This is the place where double income IT couples have all the money in the world with no time to spend it and young collegiates have all the time in the world but, alas, not enough money to spend. Where parents strive to give their kids an English education, often paying through their nose to ensure it is in the gurukul tradition.

The identity of Bangalore is that it has changed with the times. It has welcomed migrants from the rest of the country, and even the world, with a warm smile and open arms. Provided them with jobs and means and opportunities to grow and blossom. Nurtured these newcomers, then their spouse, then their babies and finally their grandchildren, who finally realise they are newscomers no more. And, all this, without asking them to change. So the noveau rich Punjabi businessman still guffaws as loud as he would in Ludhiana, the model from Mumbai lives with her boyfriend, very few questions asked. The Sri Lankans run their hair salon and the Chinese chef steams the perfect wontons at the five star next doors.

The effects of this burgeoning population are naturally showing: in the traffic chaos, the spiralling land prices, the bursting-at-the-seams infrastructure, the suffocating crowds down Brigade Road.

Things sometimes get so exasperating that we swear we’ll leave. But we never do. Or if we do, we’re soon back where we belong. The cycle starts all over again. That is the pull of this beautiful city – once identified with lakes and garden, now with IT and software. We will hope and we will insist. Things will have to change. The metro will soon ply, the Bangalorean will smile wider and continue to break coconuts at the nearby temple. In all our hearts there is this belief: the garden city will soon get back to its normal shade of green.

Of Indian winged beauties and a British photographer

"If you want to understand nature then it is best not to impose on it. We need to understand ourselves and that can be helped through working with nature rather than against it."



New Delhi, Mar 20: Quest for spirituality brought Amano Samarpan to India almost three decades back, but what makes him come back again and again is the country's "impressive bird life."

"India has always attracted me and still does even after seeing the more unseamly side. However, the wildlife of India is impressive particularly with the bird life that amounts to over 1300 species," says UK-based nature photographer Samarpan.

Samarpan, known earlier as Mark Tracy, took an Indian name under a spritual following.

"Indian culture is very absorbing... and the wide variety of birds from common city birds to endangered ones like Sarus and Demoiselle crane, naturally attracts a bird-watcher like me," he says.

Samarpan says photography helps him to get closer at the world of birds. "My interest in birds was there as a child but it took photography to give me that push into entering their world a little closer."

After a decade long research across the sub-continent and the neighbouring countries, Samarpan has has now come out with a book 'A Photographic Guide to the Birds of India, epal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Pakistan and Bangladesh'.

The guide with more than one photograph of each species - to check the sexual and seasonal difference of plumage, also provides descriptions and identification hints for bird watchers. Many endangered and the common city birds are also featured in the guide.

"The details provided in the book are not entirely based on my observations but represent many years of study by ornithologists in the field. However, I have seen much of what I have written about," he says.

"By photographing birds I am creating awareness of their beauty and I see it as a way to conserve them," he adds.

How did he manage to model the winged beauties for him? "Good photography usually revolves around familiarity with one's subject. So, I select my location and position, and let the birds get used to my presence. I don't impose my self on birds but wait for the right time. Lot of people chase birds, that's not the right way to do it," he says.

"If you want to understand nature then it is best not to impose on it," he continues, "we need to understand ourselves and that can be helped through working with nature rather than against it."

Samarpan, praising the efforts of legendary ornithologist Salim Ali to help preserve bird life in India, says, "I am not sure whether I have ever met a professional ornithologist! They do exist, but not in the world of birdwatchers it seems who are mainly people who like to go out and watch birds.

"Some sound very knowledgeable but actually identifying birds, one of ornithology's jobs, is far from easy and requires quite a lot of understanding, of bird morphology for instance. Photographs do help though to give an accurate overview of a particular species."

Reminiscencing his initial tryst with Indian birds, Samarpan says, "I still remember my first day in India. Laying on a bed in Delhi trying to sleep off jet lag, i was greeted by the sound of House Sparrows outside; after a while, they could be heard inside the room and then felt them landing on my prone body, using me as one of their perches as they palyed around..."

"There are not nearly so many House Sparrows in Delhi today," he rues.

Samarpan sees urbanisation and industrialisation as the main reasons behind birds vanishing from cities like Delhi and Bangalore. He aslo finds lack of bird feeding culture in Indian cities as an other reason behind the decling number of birds.

"I don't see people feeding birds in thier gardens. In Eurpoe bird feeding is a business. I see bird feeding as a way to increase their population and so conseving the species," he says.

About the bird sancturies in India, "I would say, that India has a long way to go in developing it's National Parks and Sanctuaries to make them safe havens. Poachers and enroachment are two particular problems. "For instance, the bird sanctuary at Okhla on the Yamuna near Noida, where some birds recently died from poisoning, needs infrastructure if it is to survive. At the moment a small band of dedicated birdwatcher's are fighting to save the place but professional help is needed if it is to survive the developers and polluters. It could also be made more user friendly for birdwatchers. London has a wildlife park along the Thames river so why can’t Delhi have one along the Yamuna!?" he says.
~ GDN

Tryst with the sanyasan

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to do my own version of "follow the leader". And the leader happened to be none other than Uma Bharti -- one of India's most controversial and charismatic right-wing political leaders.

She was begining her Janadesh yatra -- the latest in the long list of yatras she has embarked -- from Vindhyachal in eastern Uttar Pradesh on the southern banks of river Ganga and I was assigned to cover it for the first two days. Here are a couple of stories that I filed...

Uma vows to form new govt in UP
Uma says she regrets her return to BJP in 2004


During the first week, I covered the airport employee's strike in Delhi too. It was a good experience and gave me quite a good exposure too.


Services affected in Delhi airport
Airport strike evokes mixed response; Govt warns of ESMA
Left trade unions criticise Patel; warn govt
Air services unaffected; inconvenience to passengers in Delhi

MBA aspirant fails to make it
New Delhi, Feb 2 : Stranded because of a strike by airport employees, an MBA aspirant from Mumbai could not appear for her entrance test here today.
Nidhi Chopra said: “My year-long efforts are lost. Who will compensate for that?” Nidhi, accompanied by her parents, came here to appear for the entrance test in a private institute. She came out of the airport premises, but could not reach her examination centre.
The agitating employees had blocked the approach road. She protested but was left stranded for about three hours. Scores of striking airport staff today blocked all entry and exit points at the domestic terminal here, causing traffic snarls, even as flights landed and left here on the second day of the strike against the “privatisation” of Delhi and Mumbai airports.
Protestors blocked all roads leading to the terminal, leaving passengers stranded and forcing them to walk for at least a mile to get into their vehicles. Many parts of the airport premises and roads plunged into darkness as protestors removed lights and electric fuses from the lighting equipment.
The striking employees of the Airports Authority of India vowed to continue their road blockade until the government shelved its airport privatisation plans.

AAI strike: Venkaiah, Jogi face ire
New Delhi, Feb 2 : Former BJP President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday faced the ire of striking employees at the airport in Delhi when they deflated the tryes of his vehicle and tried to block him from entering the terminal.
About a hundred protesters rushed towards Naidu's car as soon as it stopped in front of the domestic terminal at around 3 pm, apparently to surround him and stop him from proceeding to take his flight. Sensing danger, the BJP leader rushed to the VIP terminal.
Disappointed, the angry protestors, shouting anti-privatisation slogans, then deflated the tyres of his car. However, security forces on duty denied to comment on the incident.
Earlier in the day, former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi also had to face a tough time when his car was stopped at the entrance by agitating workers. Security personnel had to escort him to the terminal gate.

Losing their childhood to drugs

A survey done by an NGO shows that almost 70-80 per cent of children living at railway stations in New Delhi are into substance abuse. Several of them, the study says, want to get out of the problem, but have no clue how to do so.

New Delhi, Jan 16: Sandeep lost his childhood, many years back to the mean streets of Delhi. At an age when children haggle for pocket money, this 13-year-old earns and spends most it on intoxicants.
The fact that he continues to be addicted, even after going through a "de-addiction programme" questions the effectiveness of such programmes, say experts working on the field.

Sandeep earns about Rs 150-200 a day by rag-picking at the New Delhi Railway station and spends more than half of it to buy correction fluid and alcohol everyday.

There are several children who are addicted like Sandeep living on the streets of the national capital. A survey done by an international NGO shows that almost 70-80 per cent of children living at railway stations here are into substance abuse. Several of them, the study says, want to get out of the problem, but have no clue how to do so.

People working with street kids attribute this alarming and persistent problem of addiction to the absence of a specialised de-addiction programme exclusively for street children.

"Any level of addiction in children leads to a lot disorientation and vulnerability mainly because of the substance. And as we don't have rehabilitation centres exclusively for children, this problem is persistent," says Mrinalini Rao, programme director (India) of Railway Children.

Most of these children get addicted to intoxicants to "numb the pain of the beating they are subjected to by the police, to supress their hunger and also to be a part of the group," she says.
Agreeing with her is Raj Mangal Prasad, of Association for Development (AFD) - an NGO working on advocacy aspect of children's issue.

"Most of these kids say that they want to get out of addiction but have no clue how to go about it. Government does not have any infrastructure to deal with children who are addicted," he says.

Last year, AFD had taken 15 addicted children from New Delhi and Old Delhi stations to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of the Social Welfare Department. The department official reportedly rejected their plea saying that they did not have facilities to provide medical treatment to these children.

"Getting a place in a NGO-run centre is also not easy," he says. "Most of them charge money as the government grant covers only the cost of 90-day treatment. Once these children return from such short-term rehablitation they get into the habit again. There is absloutely no system to monitor these kids," he explains.

The CWC, which was apprised about this issue by the organisation, has notified the Social Welfare Department about it.

"This is one missing link in the welfare programme for street kids," says M N Vidyarthi, a member of CWC.

"Government of Delhi or Government of India per se, has no rehablitation programme for addicted children. The department has identified some institutes to deal with this. But these institutes charge for the treatment which, the children can't afford."

"A lot of intervention is needed in this regard," he adds.

NGO's are also stressing the need to address this issue immediately. "De-addiction programme must be integrated with other rehabilitation programmes of street children and there is a urgent need to address this issue," says Mrinalini.

These children should be made aware of the consequences of such acts. Education should be an essential part of the programme if these children have to be made to ralise the importance of a better standard of life, she says.

"What is needed for any organisation working with street children is to have a strength-based programme leading to a personal transformation of an individual and most importantly a sense of future has to be imparted to these kids," she adds.
~ GDN

Ancient city modern hues

What’s in a name? Plenty, it seems, if the impassioned debate surrounding the renaming of Bangalore as Bengaluru is anything to go by. Soumya Sitaraman looks back on a time when the city was, indeed, called Bengaluru in her article published in the Deccan Herald

Bangalore, or Bengaluru, a city that evokes memories of overcast skies spilling muted light on flaming blossoms of the Gulmohar arched over beautiful streets. This is a city where stately raintrees make green filigree patterns against the sky above.

Bangalore means an escape from the oppressive heat and humidity of surrounding cities, a sleepy, small Army town with its prominent cantonment area, Army barracks, parade grounds and a large famous promenade, MG road.

This beautiful place with its cool weather inspires a languid pace, where one can literally stop to smell the phenomenal roses that flourish in the front gardens of many a gray-cut stone bungalow.

The ancient history

A 9th-century inscription dating back to the Ganga rule (350 A.D. to the end of the 10th century) found in a temple in the village of Begur mentions Bengaluru as a small hamlet. Research indicates that the location of the Bengaluru mentioned in the Ganga records coincides with modern Halebengaluru near Kodigehalli, not far from the area now popularly nown as Hebbal. The Gangas controlled the present districts of Kolar, Bangalore, Mysore, Mandya and Tumkur.

Later, about 1015, the Chola Empire extended its northern borders and its kingdom included the area now occupied by Bangalore City. Chola kings left their distinct mark in this area with their signature temples. Two temples, now more than a hundred years old, still stand within the limits of Bangalore, in the areas of Domlur and Ulsoor, respectively. The Chokkanathaswamy temple in Domlur is the oldest in the city. Domlur was referred to as Tombalur in Chola inscriptions. The Chola territory at the time covered North Bangalore. The area they named Illaipakka Nadu is none other than the present-day Yelahanka. In Ulsoor, the Chola kings built the Someshwara temple.

Domlur and Ulsoor continue to bear their ancient names from a distant past. The construction, survival and continued patronage of these temples for over a thousand years indicate a strong and uninterrupted presence of an active population in this area.

After the Cholas, the Vijayanagara kingdom overran this area and exerted its influence over the land and its people. A popular story is attributed to Veera Ballala II (Ballala the Brave). At one time, he found himself tired and deep in a forest where he was given a simple meal of boiled beans by an old pesant woman. Sated and grateful, he is said to have nicknamed the area Bele benda kalu ooru or ‘area of boiled lentil beans’.

If this did happen, he may have made the tongue-in-cheek remark referring to the name Bengaluru, then already over a hundred years old. It is, however, probably just a popular fabricated story as the sources that narrate it cannot seem to agree on whether he was a Hoysala or Vijayanagara king and further, bele is actually a lentil, benda kai in Kannada is okra, ladiesfinger, and not beans.

The landscape of the region, when surveyed in the 1500s, consisted of expansive tracts of cultivated and uncultivated land. The plains in this area were and continue to be distinctly marked with innumerable keres, natural and man made tanks that are temporal low-lying water catchments. These keres filled with during rains and recharged the ground water table for the farmers until the next season.

The Kempegowda era

The Kempegowdas, one of the prominent feudal lords of the Vijayanagar kingdom, were the then surveyors of the area. They controlled the Bangalore-Magadi area. By several accounts, they were originally from Yelahanka with roots relating them to the Nadaprabhus. Kempegowda I (1510-1570) built his new capital here around 1537. He called his capital Bengaluru to honor the birth place of his mother and wife, the hamlet of Hale Bengaluru (Old Bengaluru).

Kempegowda built a mud fort with the help of Vijayanagara King Achutaraya. The exterior perimeter had eight gates or points of entry and exit. One of the gates was in Ulsoor. In a large area protected by the fort, Kempegowda encouraged habitation and an urban area soon developed with a growing population, active trade and bustling markets. The area was subdivided or sectioned based on trade guilds, among other considerations. Some that continue to thrive are Chickpet (little locality), Doddapet (large locality), Taragupet (grain market locality), and later, Cottonpet (cotton market area). These areas thrive today as wholesale markets in modern Bangalore City.

Kempegowda’s successor and son, Kempegowda II, defined the perimeters of the expanding urban area under his control by erecting four mandapams strategically placed to the north, south, east and west of a pre-determined point to demarcate the limits he set for Bangalore. According to archeologists, each mandapa was a small granite four-pillared structure with a raised tiered roof. Kempegowda II is credited with the expansion and continued patronage of the Ulsoor Someshwara temple built by the Cholas. Kempegowda II, a patron ruler and devout Hindu, refurbished the Gavigangadhara temple and is credited with building the great Bull temple at Basavanagudi. As part of his civic drive, he built many tanks to hold rainwater within the limits and on the perimeter of the town. Of these, the most famous is the Sampangi tank. Another is the Karanji tank in the area now called Basavanagudi.

The headquartes of the Kempegowdas was at Bangaluru until the Vijayanagara Empire fell. The weakened empire fell prey to more dominant rulers in adjacent areas. A large part of Bangalore was conquered by Mohammed Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur. This marked the beginning of a time of political upheaval and social change. The Adil Shahi Sultans held on to the territory until 1638, when they were overrun by the Marathas. Shahji Bhonsle ruled the area for 50 years until he lost it to Aurangzeb’s army in a fateful battle in 1686. The city was captured and leased to the Wodeyar rulers of Mysore, Chikkadevaraya.

From Tipu to British

Aurangazed probably needed money for his advancing armies and hence sold the property to the Wodeyars for Rs 3 lakhs in 1690. Chikka Devaraya Wodeyar (1673-1704 AD) invested in his new acquisition by rebuilding the fort in granite. He also developed the city towards the south and built the Venkataramana temple. He is credited with developing amenities like storehouses and encouraging education in agraharams.

His successors, Kanteerava Narasaraja Wodeyar (1704-1714 AD), and Dodda Krishnaraja Wodeyar (1732-1734 AD), maintained their inheritance. Their successor, Krishnaraja Wodeyar II (1734-1766), turned out to be weak. A siege at Devanhalli in 1749 brought a mercenary soldier to the attention of Nanjiraj, a minister at the court of the Maharaja of Mysore. The man, Haider Ali, the great grandson of a wandering Islamic fakir, had served with an exemplary and distinguishing ability. This earned him an independent command from the Maharaja. Haider cleverly made himself indespensable over the next 12 years, enslaving the Maharaja to his will. He took over the reigns of Bangalore in 1759 after the Wodeyar gifted him the area. He reinforced the forts and exerted control over the entire region, including Mysore. Haider trained his son Tipu to follow in his steps. They were both patriotic and Tipu was one of the Indian kings who resisted British occupation.

After Tipu Sultan lost to the British, the invaders began to exert their influence on the landscape. Lal Bagh was no more the Sultan’s garden. However, in the spirit of the project, the British retained Lal Bagh and decided to use it to serve as a “depository of useful plants” and a “botanical garden” so that naturalists interested in plant identification, classification, propagation and transplantation could learn from this living library.

At 3,113 feet (949 m) above sea level, the beautiful dry and cool climate of Bangalore attracted many to maintain a summer home here. Its small-town ambience and the gardens earned it the title of ‘garden city’. Bangalore was not always a garden city. It was once a vast stretch of fields that turned unto an urban area thanks to the initiatives of Kempagowda and Haider Ali. Planners give the city its botanical trump card, several well-developed gardens and parks, of which Lal Bagh and Cubbon Park are the largest and most famous.

Another green lung was created for the old city that was soon developing a modern dimension. In 1864 Sir Richard Sankey, the then Chief Engineer of Mysore set aside and planned a large park of a few hundred acres within the city. He named it after Sir Mark Cubbon, Bangalore’s longest-serving commissioner. Within the limits of this park, he set a library.

In 1791, Lord Cornwallis defeated Tipu. After the arrival of the British, Bengaluru became the very English sounding ‘Bangalore’. Lord Cornwallis once again strengthened the fort. In 1809, he established a cantonment that served as a base for the British regional administration. The Wodeyars continued to own property within the city and in 1887 they built a castle in Bangalore fashioned after the European castles of the time. The plague of 1898 hastened the modernisation of Bangalore. Infrastructure for telephone lines was laid to help coordinate plague-relief efforts.

A modern city

Civic authorities, suddenly alert to the danger of vermin, passed new regulations for construction of houses and the maintainance of city-wide sanitation to be supervised by a health officer. The Victoria Hospital was constructed and made operational after its inauguration in 1900 by Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy. The old hospitals continue to exist and operate, side by side with the modern high-tech new hospitals that have mushroomed all over the city.

The year 1906 was a benchmark year. Bangalore became the the first city in Asia to have electricity generated and drawn from the hydroelectic plant situated in Shivanasamudra. In a few months, the project will mark a century of existance.

In 1954, the Vidhana Soudha or the State Secretariat was built. This beautiful building has been recently expanded along original lines and the palm-tree-lined street in front of it improved.

Today, Bangalore is called the ‘Silicon Valley of India’. Growing rapidly to keep pace with the IT business Bangalore has actively wooed, the city has spread well beyond the original boundaries of the cityscape urbanised by its ancestral planners. A cosmopolitan city with a heafty influx of pleople from the neighboring states and now, expatriates from the United States and elsewhere, Bangalore continues to fervently protect and advocate the use of the native tongue, Kannada, the official language of Karnataka.

Tipu’s Lal Bagh

Haider Ali reserved about 250 acres for a garden along the lines of Mughal gardens in vogue at the time around one of the mandapas erected by Kempegowda to define the limits of this fort-city. He brought exotic plants from foreign countries. Tipu added to the collection of rare plants, using his political connections to bring plants from France, Persia and Afghanistan. Roses did particularly well in the landscaped gardens and are said to have flowered profusely. Tipu was believed to have exclaimed “lal bagh” when he beheld a field of red roses, giving the garden its name.

Historic milestone

The area that is now Bangalore has seen trade and habitation for over 2000 years. Archeological digs have unearthed Stone Age implements and Roman coins. Many of these ancient sites remain largely unexplored beneath the mushrooming modernity that belies the antiquity of land use. According to some Puranic geographers, this is the region referred to as Kalyanapuri or Kalyananagara. A milestone from the Mauryan Empire, circa 850 AD, mentions a place called Bengalooru. Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta chose to become a Jain and renounced his throne at the awe-inspiring Jain pilgrimage center Shravanabelagola, 157 km from modern Bangalore. According to epigraphic evidence, Chavundaraya, the Minister of the Ganga King Rachamalla Sathyavakya, installed the giant granite statue of Sri Gomateshwara, a Jain Thirthankara, in 988 A.D.