Bengaluru from a bus window
The initial few minutes inside 356J gives us the vibes of a school excursion. Historian and conservationist P L Udaya Kumar is also thinking of his school days.
“In the ’80s, I had to travel from Rajajinagar to Pallavi theatre (now demolished) to go to school. It was a short and straight route, yet I had to change two or three buses to reach St Joseph’s Indian High School. Buses were usually packed, and children were pushed around. We were often on the footboard, praying that we reach school safely,” he recollects.
The BMTC bus, on its way to Electronics City from Yelahanka New Town (5th Phase), isn’t crowded. Passenger numbers have come down since the pandemic broke out in March 2020.
“This used to be a packed route,” says conductor Jayaram, as he gives us each a Rs 30 ticket to the last stop. “Many patients go to Nimhans and St John’s Hospital. We also had regular commuters going to a garment factory in Electronics City,” says the 47-year-old.
The encyclopedic Udaya begins his trivia game right from our boarding point.
“About 1,000 years ago, Yelahanka Nadu was an administrative division that belonged to the Vijayanagar Empire. It was the capital, and Bengaluru was just a part of it,” he says.
A corporate employee for over three decades, Udaya got involved in a heritage conservation project three years ago. “Bengaluru has inscriptions that date back a thousand years. Sadly the stones are disappearing,” says Udaya, now working on a project with Mythic Society, which is a 105-year-old building on Nrupathunga Road, and works in the areas of history, archaeology, linguistics, folklore and associated subjected areas in the indic region.
We go past Rail Wheel Factory (formerly known as Wheel and Axle Plant), and Mother Dairy, two of the important landmarks in Yelahanka. “Many workers of the plant came on cycles. Milk tankers would go to different areas from Mother Dairy. Earlier, milk was delivered in bottles. Then there were vending machines, and now we get sachets.”
We take the flyover and on our left is the Jakkur flying school. “Bangalore has a rich flying culture. People with flying licences come here to fly their two-seaters and gliders. Once it was Capt Gopinath’s Deccan Aviation hub,” he says.
The conversation moves on to architecture and education when we spot the sprawling campus of GKVK, University of Agricultural Sciences, on Bellary Road.
Two varieties of mango — Arka Anmol and Arka Puneeth — are grown on the campus.
In the ’70s, when India was out to achieve a green revolution, many agricultural scientists from America came and worked here. To make them feel at home, their living quarters were built in the American style, he says, pointing to the quarters on our left. You get a glimpse of a Californian suburb when you peer out.
As we cross Ballari Road, he talks about Shivaji Military Hotel in Byatarayanapura, not far from the bus stand. “It is famous for its biryani and has branches across Bengaluru. Many later eateries are modelled on the 91-year-old restaurant,” he says.
We are on the Hebbal flyover, and the traffic is a crawl. You can’t miss Hebbal Lake, although the landscape is now dotted with huge buildings. This was just a long highway stretch leading out of Bengaluru and towards Hyderabad before the new airport came up in Devanahalli in 2008.
“This lake is at least 1,300 years old. It helped people grow rice and wheat. Not many know that during the year-end, birds from Europe and north Asian regions come to the lake to escape the harsh winter there,” Udaya explains.
Among the buildings at the agricultural institute, one houses a store selling bakery items. “All the products are made by students doing a bakery course on the campus and there was a popular shop selling their products,” he says.
The HeadQuarters Training Command of the Indian Air Force, which you see on your right, was a firing range in pre-World War times. Manoranjan, the cinema hall next to the headquarters, has disappeared. A sign of Covid-19 forcing the extinction of single screens, we understand. “It is sad that they brought it down. I have seen the best English movies here in my youth. A ticket was just 25 paise,” recalls Udaya.
The bus travels past Palace Grounds, sprawling across 450 acres. Caught in litigation, it remains free of concrete structures, a lung space in the heart of Bengaluru.
The palace is modelled on the Windsor Castle in the UK. The grounds are now used to host weddings and teach horse riding.
The luxury hotel Windsor Manor brings to memory Kamal Haasan’s cult classic ‘Pushpaka Vimana’, the silent film made in 1987. A parable about money, love and life, it was shot inside the hotel, and on the bridge you see from the window.
Sivananda Store is the name of the next bus stop, and it is named after a grocery store and flour mill in Sheshadripuram, a leafy neighbourhood named after Sheshadri Iyer, dewan for the Mysuru maharajas. We then see Freedom Park, a space that once housed Central Jail, shifted to Parappana Agrahara, on Hosur Road, in 2001.
Nrupathunga Road is home to UVCE, Bengaluru’s first-ever government engineering college, Reserve Bank, Martha’s Hospital, and a complex of court halls, has an interesting past. “It was called Cenotaph Road, built in remembrance of a British army officer. Sometime in the ’70s, Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj staged a protest and sought a local name, leading to a change honouring the great Kannada king Pulikeshi II, also known as Nrupathunga,” he says.
Daly Memorial Hall, a lecture hall, stands tall. “Greats like Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, and C V Raman have given talks at the 105-year-old building,” says Udaya.
The bus heads towards Nimhans, built on land donated by the Mysuru king Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar. It was earlier called ‘hucch asspatre’ (mental hospital) and bus route number 4 used to ply there. “It’s a great institute for research and treatment. People come from all over India, and even Bangladesh,” he says. Till the ’60s, areas beyond Nimhans weren’t considered Bangalore. “We came on school excursions to see Bangalore Dairy near here,” he recalls.
In the ’90s, Madiwala and Koramangala saw a new wave of migration from the north. It has companies like Accenture and Bosch. People tend to forget it also has some hoary temples that date back to the 12th century,” he explains.
Electronics City is the final point of the journey. “People are now in a rat race and don’t care for the city,” laments Udaya. Infosys is sandwiched between Togur and Hebbagodi, both of which are human habitations at least 1,100 years old.
“Infosys is more famous because it is synonymous with a new idea of Bengaluru. If only the new citizens valued the city’s heritage, we wouldn’t see waste dumping at the Hebbagodi lake,” he says.
People who write about Bengaluru, especially in English, don’t understand the spirit of the place because the inscriptions and the historical records are in Kannada, says Udaya.
The journey comes to an end after a little over two hours. The 54 stops have told us how Bengaluru can be historically as proud as any other city in the world.
Who founded Bengaluru?
Bengaluru existed even before Kempegowda, although the founding of the city is often attributed to him.
“The Someshwara temple in Madiwala houses a 1,248 CE inscription in which the name ‘Bengaluru’ is mentioned in Tamil. The first recorded mention of the city is in a 900 CE Kannada inscription at the Begur Panchalingeshwara temple. Begur is 2 km east of Singasandra on Hosur Road. Kempegowda established many petes, which grew exponentially, and he is credited with founding the city, says Udaya.
The first mall?
Forum is said to be the first mall that came up in Bengaluru. Or is it? The Jayanagar Shopping Complex, bigger and better planned than most malls that came up later, was built in 1976. “The Hoodi santhe, which has a rich history, is perhaps the oldest big marketplace in Bengaluru,” says Udaya.
BL Rice, the ‘bili Kannadiga’
Opposite the ITC Windsor Manor is the Rain Tree, a lifestyle boutique. This was where a great British scholar and archaeologist, who documented the history of Karnataka and worked for the Kannada cause, lived.
“He documented 8,000 inscriptions in the Mysore region, and was fondly called ‘Bili Kannadiga’ (‘white Kannadiga’). He spoke Telugu and Tamil as well,” says Udaya.
First flyover, traffic signal: A Bengalurean’s throwback
As we alight from the bus in Electronics City, mountaineer Vasumathi Srinivasan quips, “The ride did not feel too long.” She was lost in time, that’s why.
She was born in 1953 in Shankarapuram and grew up in Basavanagudi, so every turn evoked memories of old Bangalore.
“When the first major flyover was built in Bengaluru (in 1999, say experts) — the Mysore Road flyover, my mother, sister and I took an auto to go and see it,” Vasumathi, now 68, says.
Similarly, she went to visit the first traffic signal that came up at N R Square in 1963, and the first suspension bridge at K R Puram in 2003, which she had seen “in foreign films”.
As we cross Koramangala, she recalls it was a suburb with farms before it turned into an IT hub. “Neither did old Bangaloreans have friends there nor would autos go there. It was desolate!” she says.
Till the late ’70s, cycle owners needed a licence — a round, metal token bolted on the handle. “I had to once pay a fine because my licence was missing — somebody had stolen it,” says Vasumathi.
Nobody wore helmets or took driving classes. Traffic was sparse till the early ’90s.
When Vasumathi went to book a Luna (moped) in 1971, the sales manager said he had never booked it in a woman’s name. She eventually got a loan of Rs 2,500 (the price was Rs 3,500) and paid a monthly EMI of Rs 91.50.
Thanks to her cousin, ex-Captain-turned-aviation entrepreneur G R Gopinath, Vasumathi’s mother became one of the first few people in Bangalore to sit in a helicopter, which took off from the Jakkur flying school, she shares. During college, Vasumathi got the chance to see the gliders fly and ride in micro-light flights.
Vasumathi recalled taking morning walks on Palace Grounds, her friendship with the maharaja’s daughter Meenakshi Devi, who she went to Mount Carmel College with, and also getting a ride in “the maharaja’s car.”
‘Retain the city’s character’
The bus journey was also bittersweet. Vasumathi lamented the loss of the 100-year-old George Oakes Building on Hudson Circle. It was a venue for movie screenings, better known as Badami House.
Vasumathi, however, didn’t regret that Bengaluru has changed a great deal. She said, “Cities have to grow. They will get crowded. There will be more apartments. We have to accept the change. It’s on the civic authorities to provide amenities but also retain the character of the city. They should have built satellite towns outside the old Bangalore.”
“Corruption has increased now... Drains had stench then and even now,” she pointed to her pet peeves.
Longest bus route
In 2005, BMTC launched, it claims, the longest bus route for any city in India, covering 117 km. Starting from Banashankari, Bus No 600 and 601 would connect residential and industrial hubs like BTM Layout, Electronics City, Attibele, Sarjapur, Dommasandra, Varthur, Whitefield, Hoodi, K R Puram, City Railway Station, Kalyan Nagar, Hebbal, Kengeri, and Kathriguppe. It has been discontinued.
Currently, 328HY bus route from Yelahanka to Attibele is the longest. In 93 stops, and 3 hours 15 minutes, it covers 74.8 km.
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