The long and the short of a road

The long and the short of a road
Deccan Herald

The short stretch of little-known Subedarchatram Road packs a long and fascinating history.

Subedarchatram Road. What a long name. But the road is not that long. This road in the Gandhinagar area is a small stretch of an arterial road of great importance connecting Kempegowda Circle to Ananda Rao Circle and from thereon to the rest of the northern parts of the City like Seshadripuram and Malleswaram.

Army ranks

Subedar, havaldar, risaldar are all ranks in the Army from times immemorial. If you pass through this road towards Ananda Rao Circle, a little farther away you come across a Risaldar Street. Beyond Maharaja Mills, Malleswaram Circle, Sampige Road, Indian Institute of Science at the end of Yeshwantapur, there was a Subedarchatram Road and a choultry bearing the name of Subedarchatram, some 30 years ago.

Founder of the City

Probably this road was so long from Majestic Circle to Yeshwantapuram once upon a time. And the name must bear some relation to the Kempegowda’s army. Kempegowda, founder of Bangalore, must have put up barracks in some parts of the town and named the streets after the ranks. Later, on the new administrators of the times and their enthusiasm to rename the localities and streets after new heroes of the day must have taken toll of this street and torn this into pieces. Majestic Circle has become Kempegowda Circle today and as the road stretch shortened so also has the name been shortened into S C Road.

Apparently, when the late Maharaja of Mysore Jayachamaraja Wadeyar arrived in Bangalore from Mysore by train, he preferred to reach Bangalore Palace on horse back taking this very road.

The road had two-way traffic till the eighties. After the grade-separator work started in Ananda Rao Circle, this road was made one way.

Landmark

The most important land mark of this road till today is the Annamma temple. Annamma is a grama-devatha. The grama devatha is a Goddess who sits at the entrance to the village to protect it from evil sprits who sneak in as plague, cholera and other epidemics.

Even today, every Tuesday and Friday the crowd of worshippers here is so huge that the police have a tough time in controlling them. Every new-born child is brought here before the first birthday to be blessed by the Goddess against ill-health and particularly measles.

The Goddess is so important in the heirarchy of temples, that weeks before the Dharmarayaswamy Karaga starts, the priest who dresses as Draupadi and carries the Karaga has to offer prayers here. Even after carrying the Karaga, before reaching the Dharmarayaswamy temple, he has to visit this temple. This is the tradition followed even today.

In the last two decades, the face of this road has changed beyond recognition. The small mud and limestone buildings have been demolished and multistory buildings have started coming up. Even the centuries old temple pond is closed and new shopping complexes have come-up.

The Modern Hindu Hotel, which stood the test of times during Sir M Visvesvaraya’s time, has made way for a multi-storey complex called Brigade Plaza.The other landmarks of the street are Triveni, Aparna and Kapali theatres which are permanently exhibiting Kannada movies and Movieland which exhibits all South Indian language movies. The road is decorated with colourful festoons whenever a new film is released and invariably there will be a mad rush for these movies.

The street had shot into media prominence when a former Prime Minister drove a tractor on this road after performing pooja in this temple to appease farmers. A PIL was filed in the High Court.