Bangalore has history

My history with Bangalore had been very nice. Until I moved there, that is. I used to visit my friend who lives in Kadugodi. We go out walking around malls, pubs, restaurants and cafes - he always tells me how Bangalore is a city that lacks history; unlike his beloved Bombay where he lived for 1 year. Over 90mls of OldMonk, he relives his suburb commutes from Thane to Airoli, eating cheap and tasty vadapavs, rainy nights near marine drives. I'd been to Mumbai once- when he was there; I went for a wedding and I explored the city with him. No, too exaggerated - I visited the Gateway of India, saw that railway station from RaOne. What else, that's it. I think I had a Pav Bhaji. Had a good time, but the city is as unfamiliar to me as when I studied stuff about it in 6th Std Social Studies or when I saw The Company or Kakkakuyil.

Rode my RE 350 to Bangalore from Thrissur on the 29th of March. Left work at 03:30 and reached Salem around 9PM. Ordered in from Burger king and watched a little of the movie Bharatanatyam before I dozed off. Woke up around 4:30 - 5:00 next day and started again around 6. I reached Kadugodi at 9 AM. Apart from the sweltering heatwave I suffered in Palakkad (revisiting the moment I can feel it inside my eyesockets), the journey was overall very nice.

Homesickness always hits me like a crippling condition. I'd tried Kochi for a while. Moved back after 2.5 months. I never stayed there for more than 3 days. I go Monday morning, I'm back Wednesday evening. I go the next morning, and I'm back on Friday night. I lived looking forward to weekends. The last few weeks I was there, it felt really nice - knowing that I'm moving back and stuff. By then I had my faculties to myself, it hit me that I never tried to make the new place my home.

Now, Bangalore.

This city just used to be malls, parks and pubs for me. Now it's a place where I live and work. Would I choose to be back in Thrissur? Uhm,, Yes. Ofcourse. But something has changed, perhaps very internal; I don't feel crippled/miserable (as often) while I'm here. Maybe Kochi did its part help me grow; maybe Banglore is more familiar with my friends around. Whatever it is, I feel much better. Except maybe for days I have to go to the office. I used to ride to work around 20-25 mins. Now it takes me 40 mins to cover my 5.7km commute - I now travel by metro. I rode my bike back on Apr 30 - I hated the traffic so much that I did it out of spite.
Nevertheless, the city is offering me something now - the joys and sorrows of living alone, new friends, new culture, and many other stuff to explore.

Which is why I am trying to give back. When my friend said Bangalore lacks history, I didn't think twice. Just took it for a fact and nodded. At the time I was reading The City of Djinns. William Dalrymple writes about his life in Delhi in the 1980s. How the city was home to many generations, getting built, destroyed and then rebuilt. From Indraprastha to New Delhi - there's rich and profound history. Many many stories, traces of evidence of which one can see even now. I finished the book finally, recently and I was looking for something else and it occurred to me - why don't I learn about Bangalore, which apparently lacks history and would thus be easier to cover. I started googling and anyone who knows about the city and its history what I must've felt at that moment. My lazy Mumbai-lover friend was way too caught up and never risked anything to think beyond the traffic, noise, pubs and concrete jungle that laid before him.

The city has way more history than meets the eye.

I won't pretend I've become some kid of authority on it. But neither am I the guy who thinks Bangalore was founded sometime around when Infosys was. Anymore :)

Turns out Kempe Gowda built a mud fort here in 1537. That's before the British even had a proper foothold anywhere on this subcontinent. Before Shivaji. Before Aurangzeb tore things apart. The Wodeyars, Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan  the city passed through hands like something genuinely fought over.

People say Tipu called it Bengaluru; but there's a story that dates back to the 12th century that claims that a king who was on a hunting trip passed by a hut which was occupied by an old lady. The king exhausted from the hunting spree was served a pot of benda-kalu (boiled beans). The grateful king called the place benda-kalu ooru. Yet another story about the war of Bengaluru is inscribed somewhere in the Parvathi Nageshwara Temple in Begur, apparently dating back to 890CE.

To call a city that got it's name over 1000 years ago is... for the lack of a better word - lazy.

And the British came and did their thing. The Cantonment came up, Civil Lines, the whole colonial grammar of wide roads and clubs and churches that you still see in Ulsoor and around MG Road. The city was essentially two cities for a long time. The pete - the old city, the market city, Chickpet, Balepet, all those pets and then the British side, clean and planned and deeply uninterested in what came before it. It would really feel like two cities.

In Lalbagh, there's a rock that's 3000 million years old. There's a sign that says it. 3000 million. The Deccan Plateau under your feet is some of the oldest exposed rock on earth. 

My friend will probably not read this. So I can be carefree with my words. Bombay has its history, absolutely. The docks, the mills, the whole convulsive story of it. I'm not arguing with that. I'm saying he looked at this city for 4 years and still decided it had nothing to say. That's not Bangalore's failure.

I still hate my commute. I still miss home in that way that doesn't fully go away, just gets quieter on good days. I still don't fully know what I'm doing here or how long I'll stay. But I'm curious now. That's new. Kochi never made me curious; it just made me count down. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that it was way too close to home, so I could just count 90 minutes and I'm back in my bedroom. Nevertheless, now I'm far away - 9 hours ways but I find myself taking wrong turns on purpose, walking by old temples in the pete area that have been standing for centuries and wondering.

Kempe Gowda, they say, climbed a hill and saw where the city should go. Built four watchtowers at what he imagined the limits would be. The city swallowed those towers and kept going. One of them is in Lalbagh. Another is on a hillock near Ulsoor. I haven't found all four yet.

That's something to do, I think.