Old Bangalore, New Bangalore?

If you’re one of the new settlers in Bangalore, you’re sure to have encountered a lamenting old timer complain about how Bangalore has changed for the worse. Worse still, if you’re idea of Old Bangalore is MG Road/Mayo Hall or Commercial street. There, you’ve ticked off a true Bangalorean. Watch him/her go off – “you don’t know what old Bangalore is…”

We’ve had this debate many times over with friends/office colleagues. For true old timers, Bangalore is what comes after MG Road – Malleswaram, Rajaji Nagar, Vijaya Nagar, Basavangudi, Chamrajpet and the works. That for them is the essence of the yesteryears.

Since the time I came to this city in 1999, it has changed so much. In fact, there is so much change, that once my wife remarked, when will they stop constructing new stuff here?! What ticked me off on this topic was this. After a long time, I finally mustered enough courage to go visit some of the nostalgic spots.

Started off on a bus ride from HAL and got dropped near Millers road at 7:00 pm. Then I walked to Commercial street, did some shopping and then walked to MG Road from there. I was truly hoping to hop into the HOHO service near Com Street, but that didn’t happen, never saw a single bus on this entire trip. Maybe Sunday was a wrong day to be looking for them.

MG Road is a mess now – long gone were the promenades where we used to hang out. That I was prepared for, but the monster cranes and dug up heart of the city I wasn’t. It’s very hard to visualise how this would look once Metro kicks off. Cauvery emporium wore a pale look after the recent fire. I then weaved through the mess and got to an old time haunt – Brindavan Hotel.

 

It’s amazing how this place holds up its own against the onslaught of Modernity. Nestled in a bylane, close to Brigade Road and the new Mall next to that, this hotel continues to serve customers in the only way it knows. There is no attempt to bring any change in its working and its customers are not complaining either. The dosas are just as crisp, lunch just as filling and the service just as quick as it used to be. There are no frills here and no waiting.

Post dinner, I made a visit to Corner House on Residency road. The surprise element was that it wasn’t located where it was earlier. Corner house had turned a corner. It’s now located on bylane parallel to Brindavan. The ice creams were just as good, but somehow the spirit seemed to have been lost.

Corner house itself has grown well beyond Residency road, there are branches all over town. But the place where it had all started wasn’t there any more. Is this taking the heart out of the ice cream?

So there in lies the question on my mind. Here were two old timers – one adapting to modernity and the other staying in its own time warp. Brindavan still appeals to me – for nostalgia’s sake. But how long can nostalgia make business sense? When am I going to frown upon its looks or lack of modern amenities like air conditioning and better furniture. Would the gen-X ever go here? I’m sure they have no qualms going to Corner House. Is it just me though?

Pedal to Fitness

For a while now I’ve been thinking about taking up cycling on a more regular basis. The global price hike on petrol and diesel seem to have setup most other people’s minds on the same road. Or maybe I’m beginning to read these articles now. Like they say, you only see what you want to see. While I was just thinking about cycling to work, my co-worker has already started.

Here are a couple of interesting links I came across, one through the article in rediff.

BumsOnTheSaddle – An apt name for a cycling site 🙂

This website is run by a couple of enthusiastic bikers, who are passionate about cycles. Not my type of cycles since I own the good old Hercules MTB, that was gifted by my wife. These guys are more serious, but they do have very interesting tips on how to do adjust cycles to the right height etc. The best part about this site for me is the fact that its possible to get real good quality imported cycles if you need to , right in the IT city.

The other article was on a slightly different note, it was about being able to rent a cycle at various points in the city. I think that would be real useful in a city like Bangalore. If you think about it, would you not like to rent one around commercial street, brigade road? Maybe park your car at Shivajinagar and then cycle to places around.

Bike Sharing Program Launched in Mexico City

I’d think I will take that kind of option anyday. Try cycling, its fun, clean and your bit of green.

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Power cuts in Bangalore

Here’s one I drew up based on the experience of a colleague. Power cuts were quite frequent in Bangalore this summer and have managed to linger on somehow.

Mon-late in Bangalore

The skies have opened up in Bangalore and so has my blog. I’ve finally mustered up enough time to get started on what has fascinated me for a long time – blogging and Bangalore.

I’ve been here in this city for a good 9 years almost and have been fascinated by its growth, the people and the weather. I’m going to put in my thoughts about this city, its people and its day to day life – from its sidewalks. Let me start off with what I love most about this city – the weather. Its a topic of endless discussions for Bangaloreans.

This city makes you stick to it, its almost never hot and never too cold. Almost thermo-perfect. Its blessed by rains from both the southwest and north east monsoons, which makes it very green, inspite of the best efforts by BBMP and BDA to strip it of trees.

But this year since the beginning of June, 2008, there’s hardly been any indication of rain. I almost thought that we were in for a bad monsoon. For a large number of residents in newer areas of Bangalore, who are dependant on the borewells, its fairly important to get good rainfall that will hopefully percolate in to recharge the supplies. Almost answering our prayers, the monsoon or rather mon-late has arrived.

It poured for a good part of the evening yesterday, everthing looks fresh today. Our apartment has been uncovered from the layers of dust. All’s looking good.

For some reason, the papers seemed to suggest that rains in June have been historically lesser than September/October. I started researching this on the internet and couldn’t get relevant hits in Google, till I finally searched Google directory. Here’s what I got:

http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/grid.pl?gr=N12E077