The Bangalore years: From naked country to garden city

The Bangalore years: An exhibition that traces the city’s history
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: On Wednesday, casual visitors to Lalbagh were taken by surprise as a couple of Central Government cars zipped across to a halt by the Glass House. Union Minister for Tourism Renuka Choudhary was on a lightning visit to the exhibition titled Deccan Traverses: From Naked Country to Garden City.

The exhibition, organised by Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, puts together the results of their four-year-long study on the history of Bangalore. The city became global as early as in the 1970s.

So say the findings of Mathur and da Cunha. ‘‘We speak now about globalisation. Bangalore was on the international map as early as the 1790s. The baseline for the great trigonometric survey of India was drawn through Bangalore,’’ says Mathur.

On display are survey maps, route maps, sketches and other documents along with detailed text, explaining the growth of Bangalore through the 1800s. The tank system and the network of streams connecting them, the tableland nature, the fence that surrounded the town – thus goes the story. ‘‘It is a landscape of Bangalore that we unearthed in the last few years,’’ says da Cunha.

The documents on display tell you that the tableland was but ‘naked country’ and that vegetation was brought here from other places. ‘‘Even the raintree that we associate so much with Bangalore doesn’t really belong here,’’ says da Cunha. Mathur says they want to show it is no longer foreign and is very much part of what the city is.

‘‘Bangalore is at a historical moment currently. It could grow into an international city with no character. That’s what everyone is saying now – let’s make it another Singapore,’’ says Mathur. But their attempt, she says, is to try and retain (and build) the character of the city.

Mathur is associate professor at the Landscape Architecture Department, University of Pennsylvania. Da Cunha is an architect and city planner and also teaches at Parsons School of Design, New York, and University of Pennsylvania.