Steeped in antiquities

Steeped in antiquities
Deccan herald

People often confuse Museum Road. Even the autorickshaw drivers, sometimes get confused. It is not the road which runs along Visvesvaraya Technological Museum and the Government Museum. They are on Kasturba Road.

Museum Road snakes from M G Road (near Kumble Circle), cuts across Church Street, brushes past Madras Bank Road, intersects Residency Road and finally joins the Brigade Road near the Ashok Nagar Police station. It is a good two-and-a-half kms longs.

There was a museum along this road and it was shifted to its present site on Kasturba Road way back in 1887, but the name persists. New structures which have come up on this road have been named as Museum Inn, Museum Terrace and Alpha Museum. Some years back Museum Terraces made headlines when former test cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin and Sangeeta Bijlani’s apartment was raided.


The road is steeped in heritage, traditions and antiquities. The Premier Book Shop is near the beginning of the road. It was established in 1971 and is hardly 600 sq ft. It is crammed with books on a variety of subjects.

St Joseph's Boys' High School, located on this road, was formerly knows as St Joseph's European High School. It was founded in 1865 to educate European and Anglo-Indian families. The entrance to the St Joseph’s Evening College is also located on this road close to Residency Road.

Like other prestigious road, Museum Road has its share of restaurants and hotels. Hotel Gautham has been there for quite sometime, while Museum Inn is comparatively new. The latter has speciality restaurants like Angeethi (Indian), Bamboo Shoots (Chinese) and Tavern on the Inn (pub). The Only Place, set up three years ago, serves European, steaks and sizzlers, burgers and desserts in a old style tiled-roof structure. It was originally located in an old house on Brigade Road, shifted to Mota Royal Arcade, where it operated for eight years under Haroon Sulaiman Sait. The tradition is continued by his son Shoaib Haroon.

Just outside the restaurant is a trendy tiled-roofed and glass-covered showroom simply called, Magazines. It displays a wide variety of discounted magazines from UK and USA.

Mr Haroon recalls that opposite the present Museum Inn, there used to be Gem Supermarket, established in the 1970 and was the first supermarket in Bangalore in the true sense of the term. This supermarket is no longer there as also the garage beside it.

As this is being written, there a huge vacant and fenced plot (opposite Museum Inn), which means that very soon Museum Road will witness another concrete structure.

Close to the vacant plot are two stone bunglows and an old-styled bungalow, which is said to be a part of the property belonging to the India Garage. Another antique building is the resident office of the Senior Superintendent of Post Officer, Bangalore East Division. Meghasandesh, the residence of the Chief Post Master General is also located next to it.

There used to be an old bungalow, which housed the Lumbini playschool. There is a new modern structure in its place. Even the old Christian Children’s Fund building has a new modern structure. Several new swanky new buildings have either come up or are in the process of coming up. Nostalgic old timers despair as the new replaces the old.