Bangalore has been said to originate when a king passing through the forests was fed a bowl of boiled beans called ’ Bende Kal’ by an old woman so he named the village ’ Bende Kalooru’ or the ’ city of boiled beans’ in English. With the arrival of the British its name was changed to ’ Bangalore’ . It was where the Maharaja of Mysore had a palace known as the Bangalore Palace in the present Palace grounds now host to several exhibitions such as the Bangalore-IT.com. It is also the scene for a mango mela during the mango season where several mango vendors and customers buy and sell on a large scale. Lalbagh, a botanical park is a creation of Hyder Ali, the father of Tipu Sultan.
It was once called a ’Pensioner’s Paradise’ due to the salubrious climate it once possessed. Located on the Deccan Plateau, it is home to a rapidly diminishing number of flowering and fruiting trees planted during the British Raj along roads and in expansive gardens once surrounding large colonial style bungalows. The age of the houses could easily be determined by the girth of the trees which had their roots in the ground and their branches in the clouds. These sadly have made way for large ugly concrete and glass structures housing offices. The indiscriminate felling of trees can also be seen on the roads where once wide pavements possessing trees from which fruits were plucked are now just a shadow of their original glory, all gone in the name of progress. Large circles filled with greenery at the junctions of roads have also disappeared. The cacophony of traffic has also affected the fauna here with atleast one species of birds, the sparrows finding its name on the extinct species list. The sparrows used to nest in the eaves of houses and hedges surrounding them. Tanks once dotting the city have either shrunk in size or been polluted by sewage or filled up to satisfy the growing city’s real estate requirements.
What was once the Subashnagar Tank now holds the City Bus Stand. The Akkithimanahalli Tank the name which stands witness to the fact that Bangalore has largely grown from a cluster of villages, now holds the Hockey Stadium. Halli means village in Kannada. The list goes on, a silent testimony to man destroying his own enviroment. The reduction in tanks along with increase in the borewells has seen a drastic fall in the water table from 40-50 feet to 250-300 feet below ground level.
The greenery in Cubbon Park the brain child of Sir Mark Cubbon is also threatened by the requirements of man, ranging from traffic movement to buildings. The roads given names of Britishers are part of the valuable history of Bangalore. Each road that is renamed by a politician forces Bangalore to forget its glory and the names associated with it. The politicians claim that British names are unknown to the general public when it is the politicians who should reveal the true history of Bangalore to the public rather than neglect it completely. Whether people like it or not, the British are largely tied up with the history of India and should be given due recognition where they deserve it.
Not many will know that Residency Road got its name from the British Residency which was situated on that road where Sacred Hearts’ Girls High School stands today. The same place also housed a jail for convicts while the site across the road where they were hanged now houses St. Joseph’s College. Mahatma Gandhi Road was originally called East Parade where still stands the East Parade Church. At the end of M.G. Road as it is called now stands the Trinity Church at Trinity Circle which was a garrison church in the old days. Brigade Road was called South Parade, while Church Street which connects it to St. Mark’s Road and used to connect it to M.G. Road but is now cut off by a road divider gets its name as it used to run past St. Mark’s Cathedral. St. Mark’s Cathedral lends its name to St. Mark’s Road as at one time its compound used to run along the road, but now British Library takes up some area between the church and the road. A pub 180 Proof now occupies the place of Tract and Book Society once located on the same road in a beautiful old stone structure hidden now under a coat of paint.
A boulevard still runs along M.G. Road where courting couples can sometimes be spotted. A new addition is the Field Marshal K. M. Cariappa Park created by the Army, adjoining M. G. Road. Few people will know that a large stone building on Residency Road, now housing L. I. C. adjacent to Devatha Plaza was once home to The Reserve Bank of India, and that the present canteen of L. I. C. was once the strongroom of the bank! The bank was surrounded by a very low wall in those days. Cash Pharmacy at the junction of St. Mark’s Road and Residency Road once possessed a beautiful roof until the owner decided to pull the building down but was prevented from acting further by the Bangalore Urban Arts Commission.
Guys and gals before you condemn me as a Bangalorean sponsoring his city please remember that a Bangalorean only could probably give you the lesser known facts of Bangalore.
More interesting facts and pictures can be found on the website run by Ronnie Johnson at Geocities. It is located at https://geocities.com/ronnie.johnson/geo9.htm
Come see Bangalore before it is too late