JOIN USA house called Kumara Park
Quarantines, isolation and disinfection are now part of everyday vocabulary thanks to Covid-19. But a visitor from the past, specifically from 1898, would find things chillingly familiar.
That was the year a disastrous plague epidemic hit Karnataka. In Bengaluru, apart from arranging quarantines, segregation and disinfection, the Mysore government also established new residential layouts to mitigate crowding in the city. This response was as quick as a draw by a Louis L’Amour hero. The plague came to Bengaluru in August 1898. The very next month, the government began notifying land for the new Basavanagudi and Malleswaram extensions. One of the many people behind this efficiency was the able administrator, Sir K Seshadri Iyer.
Seshadri Iyer was Mysore State’s longest-serving Dewan. When he assumed this office in 1883, he was given accommodation in a bungalow on Palace Road (an apartment building now stands there).
In 1897, Seshadri Iyer relinquished that house and moved into his own palatial bungalow which he named Kumara Park, after the village of Kumarapuram in Palakkad that his ancestors called home.
The bungalow was to one side of the sprawling grounds which extended to over 100 acres, beyond the railway line on its west. There was a flower garden adjacent to the house, accommodation for staff, some sheds, and a vinery. The rest of the land was largely filled with trees.
Seshadri Iyer retired in March 1901 and passed away six months later. He was cremated on the grounds and Kumara Park passed to his sons. In 1918, the Mysore government bought the house and converted it into a guest house for important guests of the state.
The extensive grounds were under the management of the Superintendent of the Government Gardens. A crew of watchmen, peons, cooks, and other service staff managed the house itself. But that did not prevent the theft of trees or even the occasional quarrying of granite in some of further reaches of the vast grounds.
The supervisor at the bungalow could only wring his hands helplessly because ‘the bungalow being situated far out of the town, it was difficult to induce servants to live in the outhouses!’
Over the years, several distinguished guests have stayed in Kumara Park. One of the most famous was Mahatma Gandhi, who stayed here for three months in 1927 while recovering from a bout of ill health. Gandhiji loved to walk around the gardens. Every evening, he conducted prayer meetings under a tree in the grounds, meetings which hundreds used to attend. This tree and a small memorial marking the spot are now in the grounds of Hotel Lalit Ashok.
The dismemberment of the grounds of Kumara Park was planned in the 1920s itself, when the government decided to create more sites for housing. The City Improvement Trust Board laid out Kumara Park West extension west of the railway line in 1947. Gandhi Bhavan was opened in 1965. Hotel Ashok, now Lalit Ashok, was commissioned in 1971. Kumara Krupa, as the complex is now better known, occupies 14 acres today.
Heritage building
The heritage building is one of a clutch of grand and stately houses in Bengaluru that were built by Dewans, constructed of stone and quite lavishly ornamented. As TP Issar says in his book The City Beautiful, Kumara Krupa dates from a time when ‘ornamentation was considered an essential part of architecture’ and is one of Bengaluru’s ‘graceful and perfectly composed creations.’
In his list of iconic buildings prepared for the Bangalore Urban Art Commission in 1985, architect and professor KN Iyengar highlighted the building’s ‘many fine details like the piers, jalis, parapets, window decorations, vases and merlons on parapets.’
The stately, two-storey house has a distinctly Indian look to it. The east-facing main entrance has a pillared porch leading to a large-pillared verandah. The ground floor is relatively plain. On the first floor, the rectangular windows are emphasised with ornate chajjas or projections, each adorned with trefoil merlons topped with vases at the corners, a decorative scheme echoed on the balconies’ parapets. Jalis or perforated screens above the multiple entrances and some of the first floor windows also add to the ‘Indian’ character of the building.
Kumara Krupa originally had a large dining hall, a puja room, bedrooms and an underground cellar. Some of these have been modified and expanded to suit its function as a guest house.
In February 2019, the New Kumara Krupa State Guest House opened next to the heritage building. Some of its 180 rooms are open to the public.
However, in a throwback to the turbulent times when it was first occupied by Seshadri Iyer, one wing of the Kumara Krupa guesthouse, with 100 beds, is to act as Covid-19 Care Centre now.
(The writer is the Convenor of INTACH Bengaluru Chapter)