Since I published my last blog post, I’ve spent a good amount of time feeling like a hypocrite. While I took an almost fervent interest in the food, culture, and traditions of the locals in Dibang Valley during the week I spent there, I haven’t made a significant effort to learn about the city I’ve lived in for two years now — Bangalore.
Sure, I’ve drank beer at Peco’s, played volleyball in Cubbon Park, tackled Death by Chocolate in Corner House, hiked up Nandi Hills, ate a breakfast at Koshy’s, danced at 21st Amendment Gastrobar and purchased several books at Blossom’s; but for the city to accept me as one of its own, I think there’s lots left for me to learn and do.
I found out about Shoba Narayan’s Namma Bangalore when I was mindlessly scrolling through the list of events on BIC’s website. She was going to be hosting an event there and talking about “how to be a travel writer in one’s own city” using her book as a reference. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to the event but when I spotted the book in a store, I immediately added it to the tower of books I skillfully held in one hand. In only the first ten pages of the book, I felt a jumble of emotions. I was humbled by the amount of knowledge about the city I was receiving, I was thrilled at the list of places with interesting backstories that I could visit, and I found myself becoming softer towards this city I’m quick to criticize.
So, here’s a few tidbits from the book that I would highly recommend to every immigrant (like me) who is fascinated by, and disgruntled with the city all at once.
- No one can ignore the bright pink flowers that blossom every spring in this city. We owe this seasonal flower choreography to Gustav Krumbiegel, a German horticulturist. He was brought to India by the king Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV to landscape his palace gardens, and it was Gustav’s idea to flank the boulevard with sequentially flowering trees — red silk-cotton trees in January, orange silver oak in February, purple jacaranda in March and so on.
- Hebbal Kittayya is known as the “first bangalorean.” There is a hero stone in Hebbal with inscriptions (dating back to 750 CE!) that talk about the valour of this man who was martyred while defending an attack on his village.
- The oldest temple in South India, the Panchalingeshwara Temple contains an inscription with the name of the city reading “BeMgUlurA.” Interestingly, the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation buses still use “Bengulura” as the spelling.
- This part of the book is not necessarily about the people or culture of Bangalore but it stood out to me - to this day, Indians are uneasy about entering museums and a part of the reason behind this, Shobha argues, is because we are a privileged civilization where ancient art objects remain a part of our everyday lives. Modern curators would pack away the treasures in places that we casually tourist through, like Pattadakkal and Badami, in a heartbeat.
- Bellandur lake is extremely old (around 2000 years old) and so are Hebbal and Begur lakes. Old lakes can be identified because of the Durga idols floating in them (these idols were traditionally built to safeguard lakes.)
- If you want really good nipattu which are a popular deep-friend snack here, you have to visit the stores with the name ‘condiments’ in them. Pavithra Condiments in Basavanagudi and Srivinas Condiments in Gandhi Bazaar are a couple of reccomendations.
- Maddur vada was invented 106 years ago when the owner of Maddur Tiffanys, upon learning that a train of visitors was arriving early, hastily converted the mix for his pakoras into a flattened version that would cook faster. Masala dosa was invented by the Madhvas of Udipi to hide forbidden onions into the folds of the dosa.
- Just like everything else in Karnataka, the terrain is also diverse. You have the konkan coasts and the Sahayadri mountains, thick Western Ghat forests and the flowing Kaveri in Karnataka. Now, if you have to divide the state culinarily, it would be North Karnataka, the Mysuru-Mandya district, coastal Karnataka and Coorg.
- Sukanya Ramgopal is a Bangalorean and one of the few women in the world who play ghatam, a clay pot instrument. Shobha uses her example to showcase that new India means change pitted against tradition. Earlier, women did not play percussion instruments on stage and now, there are several women who do.
- Dr. Krishna MB is an ecologist in Bangalore. I found one of his quotes mentioned in the book particularly interesting — “Companies like IBM, Bausch and Carrefour come into India and try to create temperate landscapes that they are used to in their home countries within their Indian corporate campuses. Instead, they could use native trees which would not only grow and flourish quickly in Bangalore’s climate but also reduce their landscaping costs. Carrying the argument further, they could incorporate architectural elements like cross ventilation and lattice-work that are more suited to a tropical climate instead of building glass-and-steel towers that use more energy.” If you’re impatient about waiting for governments and businesses to do something like this, here’s a cool group (Heritage Beku) I discovered in the book, that you could check out and join if you’re interested. They are doing good work to preserve the impressive heritage of this city that I am rediscovering everyday.