Passage to Bangalore then and now

Passage to Bangalore then and now
Deccan Herald

Corporate travel into the City was as interesting then - if not more - than it is now.

Just as we are seeing a rush of corporate visitors to Bangalore now, the scene was no different in the late 1800s. At that time as a pre-eminent military base and with the monopoly of the East India Company ending, commercial opportunities opened up for military supplies, construction material, luxury goods, fashionwear and so on.

European businessmen quick to exploit the virgin market, made their passage to India sailing around the Cape. The carriage journey from port to Bangalore was no less adventurous: Thick forests with cobras, black panthers and dacoits. Despite such challenges, the enterprising businessmen made it here to establish product and services.

Corporates who came to negotiate with the Army were accommodated in comfortable messes. The others had to stay in hotels or as paying guests. These sloggers in the tropics were famously referred to by Noel Coward as ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen in the mid-day’.

The star stay

A snobbish address of the day was Bronson’s Gothic-style West End Hotel close to the offices of Attara Kacheri. The hotel set in a sprawling bungalow had a main building with rooms, a separate dining hall, billiard tables, livery and stables. The rooms were well-furnished and had English commodes, bath-tubs and running water. The West End, a ‘First Class’ hotel, came with a matching royal tag of Rs 12 per day, meals thrown in.

Another ‘First Class’ hotel was the expansive The Central. Its compound walls stretched from Sydney Road (now Kasturba Road) to Lavelle Road on the East and the Savoy Hotel to its West. “It was at one stage the Mudumbai House,” remembers H N Ramakrishna, “But over the years it became The Central and later The Grand.”

In the 1960s, the USIS put up the Circarama in its premises where we school students were taken to see this film technique that used nine cameras for nine huge screens arranged in a circle.

We were bowled over by the huge geodesic dome and the 360 degrees action of roller coasters, Niagara Falls and other scenes that came alive from America the Beautiful.

Though we didn’t realize it then, the long driveway that took us to The Central’s main building was in fact a mere shadow of its old grand self. Inside were signs of decadence: Cobwebs on the high ceiling roof, dusty chandeliers, and an abandoned grand piano.

Night life

Speaking of the hotel, says old-timer Eugene Richards, “In the 40s, I found a rare, old sheet music of Charles Harris’s After the Ball of 1892 vintage. Late night people at The Central, often roaring drunk, sat at the keyboard to try their hand at the chorus. Most times these ‘tommies’ got shouted down and one thing would lead to another and soon there’d be a brawl. The military police would rush in and break up the party.”

On one memorable crowded night a tipsy young soldier sitting with a “middle-aged woman of ill-repute wearing scanty clothes,” got annoyed with a waiter and showed his displeasure - some say to impress the lady - jumped up on the table, grabbed the waiter’s hand and bit it. “As you can expect, confusion and mayhem followed.

The ever-alert Cubbon Park police came charging in wielding batons and blowing whistles to put everyone in the cooler!” laughs Eugene.

With such bawdy goings on, it wasn’t long before the establishment packed up. And to think in its halcyon days, The Central was a highly respected, deluxe hotel.

The budget experience

A time when budget travelers who couldn’t afford pricey hotels like the West End, The Cubbon, Hotel Royal, and The Prince, turned to PG accommodation such as Ascot, Melrose, Loralai and Beresford Lodge.

These offered ‘large, bright and airy rooms comfortably furnished’, ‘moderate terms’, ‘excellent cuisine’ and ‘electric lights’!

If you had kids, some owners wrote to tell you that they had ‘no objection to them being take in, as long as they were well-behaved’.

Singles mingle

But not all visitors arrived with family. So where did the singles mingle? The present Commissioner of Police’s office, Infantry Road, was once the popular Cubbon Hotel with suites of bachelor’s apartments, bar and a ballroom, dining hall, and carriages on the premises.

Corporates who came here seemed to make the most of their visit, be it business or entertainment. Week days were strictly work.

Evenings, particularly weekends, were the time to put aside the quill pen and business documents and chill! The sports-minded golfed at the BGC or went for a chukker in the Agram Polo Grounds where there was every likelihood of encountering a Second Lt. Winston Churchill of the 4th Hussars.

With time, party animals had tantalizing options in Bangalore’s glittering nightlife: Dancing at the convivial Baccalas (the present Deccan Herald office) or hanging out at Brigade Road’s eclectic piano bars or at posh and sexy places such as Adelphi Shades, Elysium and New Inn “where attractive women often waited at the tables,” notes the eminent historian-writer Fazlul Hassan, “for chance company.”