The air was clean, the sky blue, and the temperature moderate when we arrived in Bengaluru, the Garden City and former hill retreat where people had vacationed from bygone times. But why was the place so damned crowded? Traffic was a cacophonous nightmare with tuk tucks, cars, busses, pedestrians and cattle merging and blending around each other on roads that had long outlived their capacity. Thank God, the gasoline fumes were at least unleaded.
“Everything was salubrious, sir” the taxi driver explained, “until about the year 2000, when the IT business boomed and everyone came here from everywhere for employment.” That would explain it, for the communications part was excellent – right from the international terminal at the airport that was built for expansion into the 22nd century; it was cavernous, with dozens of immigration terminals and about only half a dozen requiring use for the paltry number of aircraft arrivals. High speed internet connectivity was excellent, and for the first time I was able to conduct an uninterrupted Zoom call and watch a video on my phone, and when my wife had an issue with her Wi-Fi, the technician was at our door before I finished my call for help to Reception.
The downside of the heavy automation was that you could only call for a cab if you had an Uber or other ride-share app account. Even the tuk-tuks were Ubers. Fortunately, there were a few golden oldies who still responded to a good kerbside wave as they sped through traffic; they would do a maniacal U-Turn, holding up the same traffic, and arrive at your feet with a smile. Even getting into Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace, downtown, required an e-ticket purchase; and when my bank required a two-factor authentication that my e-Sim wouldn’t help with, I had to get another tourist to buy our tickets and re-imburse them with cash. And yet, when using tuk tuks, I had to offer my Wi-Fi and Google Maps to the drivers to navigate as they were conserving their data plans. Automation is probably what India desperately needs, given its teeming masses (even the roadside beggars had cell phones), but its implementation is patchy. In other parts of Southern India where we travelled to, cell service blanked out several times.
Talking of Tipu Sultan, the guy I went to research for my next novel, his stamp is everywhere in Karnataka. With a summer palace in Bengaluru, and two palaces in Seringapatam (one completely destroyed), this guy’s spirit dominates this state which was formerly called Mysore. The only palace he didn’t own was the grandest one of all, the Mysore Palace, located in the city of Mysore, which we also visited, and which was the home of the official royal family, the Wodiyars. Tipu and his father, Haider Ali, had usurped the Mysore throne and relegated the Wodiyars to mere figureheads – the reason why he fell out of favour with the people and perished in the final Anglo-Mysore war in 1799. But enough of the history, let’s travel on…
An attraction worth visiting is the gigantic Lalbagh Gardens, built like an English Garden with its tall trees, imported and indigenous, and labelled. Lalbagh is encircled by a pond and a high-traffic arterial road; it is an oasis of respite from the teeming masses, for there were places one could be alone to admire the horticulture and the vast rose garden. The Gallery of Modern Art awakened me to local artists like JMS Mani, a prodigious genius who should rank among the greats, except that he chose to remain in his native state and fell under the hierarchy of Global North-South, where the latter is inevitably forgotten. His definition of naked vs. nude stayed with me: the former is vulnerable and human, the latter is provocative and tempting – he depicts both forms lavishly in his work.
The government handicraft shop boiled down to bargaining. The salesman said, “I’ll mention the discount only after you’ve decided on everything you are buying.” And the manager was having his lunch of rice and several fragrant masala dishes – he invited us to eat with him while the salesman tallied the bill. We politely declined his hospitality, paid, and scooted off with our purchases: beautiful silk scarves at a 15% discount.
Seringapatam, our next stop, once a fort, encircled by three walls and two moats, where Tipu fought and lost his last battle, is now a city that has evolved outside the walls of the old. Our guide was keen to show us Tipu’s other Summer Palace, located outside the fort, a rectangular, two-storey building, laid out lengthwise on a well-manicured garden of several acres; the property, bordered by giant Rain trees, is slowly being encroached upon by the city. The palace’s interior walls are adorned with paintings of Tipu’s many battles and his meetings with foreign dignitaries (the guy was a bit of an egotist). There are no paintings of his atrocities when he had Hindus and Christians decapitated by elephants, eaten by tigers, or when he inflicted other forms of torture on his enemies. Yet he was a brilliant innovator, credited with the first military rockets used in combat. And testament to “victor getting the spoils of war,” the British used his rockets in their subsequent wars, and Lord Wellesley (aka the Duke of Wellington) converted Tipu’s palace to his Indian residence after the despot was killed in 1799.
Tipu’s second palace inside the fort was completely destroyed by the British (only the foundations remain) who breached Seringapatam through the nearby Water Gate (Nixon must be rolling in his grave!). Tipu retreated but was finally gunned down by an unknown British soldier (the subject of my next novel), and a shrine dedicated to him is erected where he fell beside the third wall.
Our last stop in Karnataka was Mysore – a quieter city, traffic wise, and home of the famed Mysore Palace. The highlight was to get to the palace at 7:15 p.m. sharp when the lights would come on nightly – dimmer at first, then increasing in intensity to a shimmering diamond of light when viewed from a distance. The interior of the palace by day is also larger than any of Tipu’s palaces, and more opulent. The royal family was jealous to protect its heritage from the usurper, and there is a gallery of family portraits and paintings of important colonial events; its Durbar Hall is India’s response to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, I thought.
The sandalwood tree (native to this state) is going extinct, therefore handicrafts made from that fragrant wood is locked inside cabinets in the gift shops. There were no ivory ornaments either, due to the move to preserve the elephant population. I bought a small sandalwood camel, inside which was another handcrafted camel (how the heck did the craftsman reach inside?), in the hope that its smell will outlast my life (which it is supposed to).
The final attraction was the giant yellow pyramid that was the Shri Chamundeshwari Temple, where coconuts were being split outside for offerings, and where monkeys and cows roamed freely among bare-footed devotees who lined up inside metal-caged rows to get their turn to enter. I declined – the heat and crowds were getting a bit much for me by then.
And so, we left Mysore, which when viewed from the Chamundi Hills, shows us the old city and the new one, separated by the massive race course where the British gymkhana ran and where the once-in-a-decade Mysuru Dasara festival takes place. Mysore, with its quieter traffic, colonial charm, and abundance of greenery, is more the Garden City than Bengaluru is today.
To be continued…
