Milestone book on B’lore reprinted after 53 years

‘Bangalore Through the Centuries’ was written by M Fazlul Hasan, who worked with the city corporation

A new edition of ‘Bangalore Through the Centuries’ will be available from Monday. The book was first published in 1970.

M Fazlul Hasan

The book was written by M Fazlul Hasan, who retired as an administrative officer with the city corporation. Naresh V Narasimhan, architect and urban designer, has revised, edited and enlarged the original edition.

As per Narasimhan it’s a seminal book on the history of the city written in the English language. It traces the tumultuous past of Bangalore in great detail, from its foundation by Kempe Gowda in 1537 to its capture by the Bijapur sultanate and the Mughals, its purchase by Chikka Deva Raja Wodeyar, the wars between Tipu Sultan and the East India Company, and the post-Independence milieu.

About 40 books on Bangalore have been published since and most refer to Hasan’s work, he says. “B N Sundara Rao had written ‘Bengalurina Itihasa’ before 1970, and it was in Kannada,” he adds.

Hasan had published only a few copies and priced it at Rs 25. It was often presented as a gift at Bangalore City Corporation events. Narasimhan says the original is a collector’s edition today and could easily fetch between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000.

Long-awaited project

A random chat with actor Prakash Belawadi set the ball rolling on this project. “Fazlul Hasan had passed away (in 1991) and I could not find his heirs. Luckily, Prakash was acquainted with his children. They were neighbours,” he says.

This was four years ago. The republication entailed enhancing the quality of the photographs — “the book has 20 unseen images of Bangalore”; footnoting minor factual errors; writing an afterword on discoveries made since 1970 — “Now we know the place was settled further back, in the 6th century during the Ganga dynasty”; adding maps and sketches; and redesigning the book (done by his daughter Sarayu).

Narasimhan has already received a pre-order of 1,000 copies. While it will be available from June 19, the 400-pager will be formally launched on June 27, Kempe Gowda’s birthday.

Family speaks

Ameena Shaheen, Hasan’s daughter and the eldest of his children, is happy about the new edition. “People often asked us where they could buy the book. We didn’t have the resources to reprint it. So when Naresh approached us, we were happy. He is as passionate about the city as our father was,” says the retired college principal.

Ameena was 12 or 13 when the book came out. She was one of its proofreaders. “My father self-published the book. He would get the pages printed and bring them home to proofread. I joined him out of curiosity. He was well-versed in English. He would ghostwrite speeches for his colleagues. But I found many spelling mistakes while proofing his book,” Ameena, now 66, says with a laugh. Her father had duly credited her as one of the proofreaders in the book but he didn’t mention she was his daughter. “I think his friends had insisted against it,” she says.

For as long as she can remember, she says, her father was passionate about Bangalore. “He would sing songs on the glories of Bangalore while shaving his beard. Once on our vacation to Narasinga Rayani Peta in Andhra Pradesh, he found a board in a paddy field. Hyder Ali, father of Tipu Sultan, was wounded in a war here, it read. He was happy to find a Bangalore connection. He was a busy man but he stayed up at night to write this book,” she shares.

His obsession with the city started after he moved to Basavanagudi from Tiptur, in Tumakuru district, for his studies. “He found a hero stone in a mango orchard and he wanted to know more. He wrote countless articles about the city’s historical figures,” she says.

Inside the book

It includes an hitherto unseen painting of Bangalore as viewed from the rooftops of the Pete. Also featured are photographs and history of the crack left by a cannon shot on the Garuda Pillar or a mammoth procession in response to the call for ‘Mysore Chalo’. Accounts about a town with massive fort gates and strong fort walls, the treaty between Shivaji and his brother Venkaji, and how the profession of arms was later looked upon as a hereditary calling, among others, are aplenty.

‘Bangalore Through the Centuries’, Metaform Design, Rs 950. Available in stores and online from June 19.