Who moved my Bangalore?

May 01, 2015 08:42 pm | Updated 08:54 pm IST

Bangalore rests on two pillars — the past and the future. The present moves between the two in the form of frustratingly slow traffic. Perhaps no other Indian city, not even Calcutta, evokes as much nostalgia among its loyalists as Bangalore, because so much has changed — and so fast.

The change is apparent to even a rank outsider like me, whose first visit to Bangalore took place as recently as the summer of 2005, and who, during his eighth or ninth visit in the summer of 2015, finds the city altered beyond recognition. If not for the handful of colonial-era stone structures (one of them now serves as Hard Rock Café) that still adorn the erstwhile cantonment, I would be wondering where I am.

Memories of the maiden trip remain fresh. It was a pleasure to walk on M.G. Road: stately establishments on one side and greenery on the other — and one could walk on both sides of the road. The flow of traffic was smooth. People stopped by at pubs on their way back home. One did not even need a fan, leave alone air-conditioning. My host during that visit lived in Cox Town, and one evening as some of her friends got together in the balcony for a drink, blankets had to be pulled out — this was June.

Today, fewer people give their address as Cox Town or Frazer Town or Benson Town: you think twice before accepting dinner invitations because most people you know now live either in Whitefield or Yelahanka or hitherto-unheard of places such as Doddanekundi or Sarjapur Road. Traffic has become another name for stationary. Air-conditioning is a must. Good-old pubs are closing down and reinventing themselves as socials (to draw families during afternoons) and mini-breweries (to serve fresh home brews). Leafy neighbourhoods have become throbbing commercial centres. Handsome homes in downtown Bangalore are fast making way for restaurants, boutiques, luxury hotels and high-rise residential complexes. Above all, the average Bangalorean is no longer the quintessential south Indian alone: he could also be hailing from Patna or Allahabad.

The fashion sense of its people is among the very few things that remain intact. It was among fashionable people, in Church Street Social, that I met Krishna Kumar the other evening (I had visited the same place in 2005, but back then it was a pub, Night Watchman). Krishna Kumar is a true-blue Bangalorean, 43 years old, one of the numerous restaurateurs to benefit from the IT boom that led to the crowding of the city.

“Growth is good,” he told me over beer, “the more people come to Bangalore, the better it is for my business.” Twenty years ago, he along with a partner started a four-table Chinese restaurant on Cunningham Road; today they have 20-plus restaurants across the city and are planning to open branches in other states.

“Hasn’t the growth changed Bangalore?” I asked him.

“Change is inevitable, you see. But yes, the change has happened too fast. Only until 15 years ago, when the four-table restaurant was all I had, we would play cricket on Cunningham Road on Sundays — so deserted would it be. Today it is impossible to cross the road. My daughters, who are 15 and 12, have not seen that Bangalore,” he said.

Krishna Kumar is now building a farmhouse 70 km from the city, where he plans to spend the weekends with his family to give the girls an idea of what Bangalore was not too long ago: quiet, unhurried, traffic-free.

***

There still exist places, even though their number is fast shrinking, that preserve the old charm of Bangalore. Koshy’s is one of them. I walked into the restaurant one drizzly evening and ordered a beer and looked around. Old furniture, young patrons, evergreen menu: indicators that a place is still in demand. An elderly man on the next table ate what looked to me like steak, deftly using fork and knife. He seemed a regular, someone who has been coming to the restaurant for decades and probably eating the same dish — and maybe occupying the same table.

As I sat watching him, three other elderly men from another table, having finished their meal, got up and headed to the exit. On their way out, one of them paused at the next table, tapped the steak-eating man on the shoulder and said, “Hey Ashok! Good to see you! Stay well, keep coming back, don’t miss.”

Keep coming back. That was his way of saying: keep that Bangalore alive.

Bishwanath is a Senior Deputy Editor of The Hindu

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.