Category Bangalore Pete
THE AMRIT MAHAL-Bullish About Battles
I saw a magnificent bull standing in busy Taramandalpete the other day. While my overseas visitors were thrilled with the unexpected opportunity to photograph local transport, I was struck by this happy coincidence. Despite name changes, rusty signboards here continue to call the area Taramandalpete. The name comes from another time in city history, and this nonchalant bull […]
Where There’s a Will-BK Mariappa’s Hostel
Nobody, not even those connected to his legacy really know what prompted a young man named BK Mariappa residing in Nagarthapete to suddenly write his will and testament at the age of 35. The document was completed around the 4th-5th of March, 1914 and the codicil was annexed on 8th March of the same year. Instructions were […]
Boarding time, 1911
Two boys whack a table tennis ball across a shiny red oxide floor right above the Karur Vysya Bank on Avenue Road. Dharmaprakasha Sri SV Sreenivasa Setty watches them from a portrait on the wall. He wears the Ganda Berunda, a bejewelled two-headed eagle, the symbol of the Mysore Maharajas that is now the official state […]
Rukmini Hall-The call of the peacock
The first time I saw a hand woven, pure silk Molakalmuru sari, I could almost see the peacocks dance on the pallu and border. After obsessing over it for a few weeks, I decided to track it down in Bangalore’s busy silk market- Chickpet. Plan B was to hotfoot it to the weaving centres in Molakalmuru […]
Nagarthpete-Another food street
I trot purposefully from the busy Chickpete-Doddapete junction on Avenue Road down towards Nagarthpete, following the path taken by one of four legendary bulls that were let loose here by Kempegowda I, the 16th century founder of Bangalore. It would have pounded furiously down this road centuries ago, heading, like the others, in the cardinal directions […]
Seethaphone Company- A long playing record
I travelled through time when Srinivasa Murthy cranked up his vintage HMV suitcase gramophone one balmy Friday afternoon. As P. Kalinga Rao (accompanied by Mohankumari) began to sing `Baraiyya Beledingale’, the dusty room spun at 78rpm and came to rest in another century. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru began a fervent speech and I was in 1962. […]
Password “Tipoo Sahib”-II
(A continuation of the account of the Bangalore Mutiny, 1832) According to the court martial report Mohammed Yacoob, private, Shaikh Ahmed, private, Horse Artillery, Yacoob Khan, private, Horse Artillery, Shaikh Jaffer, private, 48th N.I, Honoor Khan, private, 9th N.I, Shaikh Mohammed, private, Horse Artillery were to be shot to death by musketry. These sentences were […]
Password “Tipoo Sahib”- I
The men slipped through the shadows like wraiths. The silent Bangalore Pete (pay-tay) offered no resistance at that late hour. A quick knock and then they were locked in a tight huddle. The plan was outlined in whispers by Hyder Ali Khan, a button-maker who called himself Nawab. It was simple but bold. At the stroke […]
Placing Bengaluru 