Enigmatic India

Wednesday 7th May, Bengaluru, South India

We’ve actually left Bengaluru after 4/2 days (4 days me/2 days J) of very gentle exploration of this massive city.

Bengaluru is home to somewhere between 12 and 14.5+ million people, depending on who one talks to and where one goes for information. It’s the 3rd most populous city in India.

Its “modern” history goes back to the 1500s, when the feudal ruler Kempe Gowda established a mud fort which became the basis of the modern city of Bengaluru. The name Bengalooru goes back to the 9th century, although the British anglicised that (I guess during the Raj), and in 2006 its name was changed (back) to the Kannada spelling (Kannada being the official language of the State). Kempe Gowda is honoured with a massive (unmissable) statue near to the airport which bears his name.

Others forces captured it from Kempe Gowda’s successors in the mid 17th century, and seemingly not long after that the Mughals captured it and sold it to the Maharaja Wodeyar of Mysore. A couple of Wodeyar generations later it would appear to have fallen back into Islamic hands, with Tipu Sultan being the ruler/administrator, this control having been wrested from the Maharaja of Mysore (the Wadiyar family from earlier days).

Sultan Tipu was an influential figure in the late 18th century. I hadn’t previously been aware that there had been much Islamic influence this far south – I had previously thought that such influence was mainly restricted to the Moghul rulers in the north.

Tipu had had a retreat in the Nandi Hills some 60 klms from Bengaluru where, in fact or in myth, he pushed enemies off the side of the cliffs in what is now known at Tipu Drop. (We visited this on day 1. It’s a place of some historical significance, but I found it underwhelming overall.)

Enter the British East India Company, and the 30-year Anglo-Mysore wars from 1767-1799 (some of the Tipu Drop victims were Brits, I gather). At the end of the 4th Anglo-Mysore war (during which Tipu Sultan was killed), the British returned control to the Wadiyars (Maharajas of Mysore), and Bengaluru was part of the Princely State of Mysore until all the changes around independence in 1947. (We are visiting Mysore in a few days, and will get a chance to visit the old Mysore Palace, official home of the Wadiyars, all being well.)

We visited:

• the Bengaluru Palace commissioned by the Maharaja in the 19th century (on land previously owned by the Rev. John Garrett, the first principal of the Central High School in Bangalore) as his northern retreat

• Tipu Sultan’s Palace (1778-89) in the city and his summer retreat in the Nandi Hills, and

• the houses of parliament for the state of Karnataka

Some photos follow:

We had a fascinating walk through the Bengaluru markets, not far, I think, from the mud fort (“pete”) built by Kempe Gowda which marked the centre and start of the modern city of Bengaluru. Lots of photos, most of which I’ll spare you from, dear reader:

History aside, I found Bengaluru a fascinating place. Not far from where we were staying was the Airlines Hotel restaurant. Whether there actually was a hotel I never did find out, but the food at this outdoor eatery was fabulous. We went there both nights. The patronage seemed to mostly be young professional folk. Not far from that was a very upmarket wine bar/restaurant, the sort you’d find in any modern city. And car dealerships of all sorts. Old, unkempt buildings alongside very modern ones which would be at home in the CBD of any Australian city. In 2023 the Bengaluru metro area had an estimated GDP of some USD360 billion. Industry includes IT and aeronautics/aerospace and many others. It’s probably not a place I’d rush back to, but I’m glad we had a chance to look around.

We had a foray into the rug-buying game, and the next week will determine whether we’ll proceed or not.

I’m drafting this from the train from Bengaluru to Coimbatore, our next stop. The train is whizzing past a diversity of neat rural Indian towns and villages (and some not so neat), stopping occasionally at the bigger places. The farms I can see look well structured and organised. India is an enigmatic place.

I'll close with a clip from yesterday's Times of India. It's not a particularly positive story, but it does give some sense as to the compexity of said enigma, specially in the modern professional city of Bengaluru ...