Monthly Archives: January 2014

While walking through the poky alleys of Shahpur Jat, Nisha Aggarwal chanced upon the shops housed in dilapidated buildings, and peeped into its rustic history. She shares her experience as she pulls Shahpur Jat  out of the clutches of time.

Two moving needles of a clock contain the most powerful invisible phenomena inside, they move within their periphery repeating the same path, but make us sense the change in whole world outside. This invisible vigor is ‘time’ which becomes visible in the form of change; in us, and in our surroundings as well.

We take pictures of ourselves, of everyday happenings and places around. Afterwards we feel, think, juxtapose and sometime enjoy the changes time brought to us, by looking at those pictures. Pictures are not only clicked by camera, human memory also does the same.

It may be my definition of ‘nostalgia’ or these days I sense it strongly whenever I come to Delhi. With every visit to Delhi I try to touch the bygone, perhaps to know what the changes time has brought in me. When I feel everything is same like it was, I feel happy and when I sense the occurred changes, I feel the ‘progress’ of time but both the things bring an ‘autumn’ pleasure.

I can add an ‘anecdote’ to this ‘autumn’ pleasure. Few days back, after a friend’s suggestion, I was re-visiting the lanes of Shahpur Jat, in South Delhi. I could see the newly opened spaces and could sense the increasing rents of floors. Shahpur Jat is an old urban village settlement and provides good spaces on rent. A lot of art students, artists and designers take this bustling creative den to make their studios.  A place with troubled lanes, filled of ‘labor class’ has become the interest of ‘elites’ .I felt it necessary to go in its history by talking with few of ‘elders’ of the place.

Shahpur Jat in South Delhi is a hybrid village enclosed within two of South Delhi’s most up-market areas, Asiad Games Village and Hauz Khas. It is listed in Lal Dora areas of Delhi. It has missed the trendy touch of city architecture, yet captures the essence of a city. The veterans of the village say it was founded around 10,000 years ago (8,000 BC) by a Hindu King.  He set up a fort and palace there. But 5000 years back, ‘Pandavas’ (of Mahabharta) took the stones of that fort to built their Capital ‘Indraprastha’ few miles away to the place. The excavations in the Old Fort Area confirm the belief that Purana Quila was built on the site of ‘Indraprastha’.

In 11th century AD, Tomar (Hindu Jat Clan) ruled Delhi. In 12th century AD, Prithviraj Chauhan was the ruler until his defeat.  13th century AD replaced Hindu rule by Muslim rulers. Mughals ruled Delhi in succession starting from Qutab-ub-din to Khilji and Tughlaqs. In 1303 AD, Allau Din Khilji conquered almost the whole of North India, he erected the First Muslim City of Delhi- ‘Siri’ on this site. Siri was a fortified city built on a large scale with places and other structures and had seven gates to enter or exit the city. Though the remains of only southern gate has found but it is said that the main palace of the fort was very beautiful and profusely decorated with precious gems and stones. Nothing remain of them except parts of its wall, a mosque and a structure called Baradari. Today Shahpur Jat has Tohfewala Gumbad Masjid and ruins of domed structure belonging to Khilji period.

Delhi passed on to the hands of the British in 1803 AD. It was only in 1911, when the capital of British empire was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. During this period, 900 years ago the modern history of Shahpur Jat starts. This was the time when Dagar clan from Indri ( a village in Haryana) shifted to Shahpur Jat area. The fertile land and their agriculture skill helped them accumulate wealth in a short period of time. this attracted Panwar clan and other castes to the area. By then this area was called Shah (wealth) Pur (colony) Jat (a clan),meant a locality of the rich Jats and acquired the name ‘Shahpur Jat’.

This time Shahpur Jat had farmlands spreading from Hauz Khas and Andrewsganj to Greater Kailash and Malviya Nagar. The move came up in 1978, when Government acquired the lands from most of the Jats by paying the sturdy compensations to them. On these acquired lands posh colonies of Asiad Village, Panchsheel Park and Hauz Khas were raised. The Jats with their compensation money expanded their small open houses to cramped up, matchbox like haphazard concrete structures. The multi-stories houses were coming up now. Slowly when the place emerged as the centre for basement workshops and its migrant population bloated, the ex-farmers discovered gold in real estate. The landlords created virtual acres by raising floors on their houses, which they rented to tailoring units. The big fortune came with the arrival of boutiques at the turn of the century.

Today, Shahpur Jat has over a hundred stores of Indian and European fashion, art cafes, book stores and home decors. Few art galleries has also opened up. The designers or artists living here are not notably rich, but they are comfortably creating their art and engaged in the process of their employment. But a large number of stores are shifting their location to Shahpur Jat, from Hauz Khas Village and Khan Market following NDMC crackdowns and high rents. The entry of such gazebo stores seems impatience to grow commercialization. And Shahpur Jat is lifting up as a new alternative space for everything trendy, a status usually reserved for Hauz Khas Village.

Still a majority of the designers and the residents want the village to stay the way it is. Larger crowds and bigger brands may rob the ‘hybridized’ charm of Shahpur Jat, and quiet working spaces of the artists. But people of Shahpur Jat reject the possibility of its fate like of Hauz Khas or Khan Market because of the Jats. The Jat owners in the past 15 years have never sold a single property outside their community, but have only let out spaces on rent. They have also refused all liquor licenses which is why there is no bar and pub is seen in the locality.

Inspite of all the ‘elite’ changes,he unplanned multistory buildings hiding the sky to eyes, the overhanging wires, the peeping eyes of mannequins through the glass walls of designer’s shops, and a mix crowd of animals and human (of all classes including the foreigners) both.

The remains of the Old Fortified history still stand tacit imbibing the whole story of change within. A cyber cafe opened in a senile house keep its artistic value. A closed up Government school just near the entry of Jungi House seems distant and detached from all the capitalist forces of the place. I feel the growing ‘art’ of economy (of landlords, tailors, designers and all the ‘artists’ living here) has found a place to survive which has once enjoyed the royal patronage and today enjoying the status of ‘alternative’ but still a maze. I would conclude with the words of Sam Miller, the writer and historian while standing atop the ruins of a tomb, taking a walk around Shahpur Jat, ‘Art lives to survive only when it has a purpose or when it’s in the middle of nowhere.’

Subhra Mazumdar reviews the book ‘Learning from Mumbai: Practicing Architecture in Urban India’ which not only explores Bombay’s true character by taking you back to the Gothic era but also accentuates Mumbai’s essence by adding contemporary magic to it.

The city of Bombay or Mumbai has held a fascination not only for fortune seekers and cine aspirants but also for students of architecture. They flock to the city charmed by its Gothic accents, its ability to house twenty million spirited inhabitants, thereby juxtaposing the historical and the contemporary into an urban milieu both innovative and daring. The current volume, Learning from Mumbai: Practicing Architecture in Urban India’, is the experience of its authors, who had first come in contact with the city as students at the JJ College of Architecture and have recently returned from Amsterdam with a view to compiling a quantitative data base on the city. The final outcome of their labor has yielded a series of essays by the city’s leading architectural practitioners, besides an over view of the historical face of the city. Different though, has been their experience of living and interacting with young Mumbaikars who form the bulk of the population of this ‘young’ city, where the average population is under the age of 30.

The initial part of the volume deals with Mumbai’s statement architecture held up for consideration within a contemporary context. The keynote article by Rohan Varma traces the city’s beginnings from a cluster of seven islands occupied by fishermen communities to its steady rise and prosperity into a mega city of today. The essay by Charles Correa, also included in this segment on Mumbai’s historicity deals with its arterial lifeline, namely its unique transport system, fed by trains and buses that carries its millions Another interesting take of this segment can be explored through the writings of Rahul Mehrotra who has examined the innovative use of spaces, taking into context the erstwhile mill complexes of the city. His interesting conclusion – by default, the private sector is determining the emergent form of Mumbai – shows a fundamental shift from the earlier scenario when the government of the time was the chief architect of its planning and delivery process. In this tendency to ‘clean it up’, the city is faced with an awful disjuncture according to these city framers. His suggestion of developing the city’s eastern front holds water, as it appears to be a crucial zone for transforming the city, rather than the cosmetic development of old mill lands.

And moving away from the grass roots of this planning of the city’s living spaces is the suggestion for its luxury segment which according to Steven Buenda (he heads a plan for developing a new business district in Wadala), still turns to foreign sources for its ultra luxury sky scrapers and airports. But the greatest learning experience for this Dutch architect has been to understand the need for communication and networking as clients here weigh a project’s worth with similar samples in other Indian cities as opposed to foreign cities. Thus it is the ‘organic city’ concept that he has found most useful and gladly shares his thoughts with his readers.

As for Mumbai’s iconic architectural name, Hafeez Contractor, who too has shared some of his thoughts about the city in this book, it is the finding that only 150sq km is the land given to human occupation in the city for the rest of it is swallowed up by mangrove forests, a national park and railways tracks is a startling fact finding snippet for most readers. That is why for him the city’s landmark distinction is not the predictable Taj or the Chhatrapati  Shivaji Terminus but “ the achievements of those people who built their lives from scratch.”. Naturally his priorities are not impressive landmarks but the basics of a toilet, running water and food for his Mumbaikar.

This in a way is a priority for other architects of the city too, such as Sushma Deodhar who has worked extensively in both the private and
government sectors. Her solution naturally is the exploitation of the current floor space index. But her master stroke is her placing a finger on the resilience of the city where a calamity is simply a shift from routine rather than a crippling shock wave. This concept finds favor in the next contribution by Adrienne Thadani who creates balcony gardens of organic vegetables and herbs to fight toxicity in the city’s vegetable supplies.

Besides such success and personal stories that the book contains, there is an academic element introduced through the writings of professors and veteran practitioners, such as Abhijit Mandrekar., P K Das, and Rajiv Mishra. Naturally their solutions lie not in the blueprint but in the classrooms, which as Prof Rajiv Mishra points out becomes the unique selling point of an institution. For Abhijit Mandrekar, it is the academic over emphasis that irks and for P K Das it is his emphasis for creating open spaces in the city that wins attention. Other portions of the book have touched upon stray attempts to beautify the city with street art, in the Wall Project or the charm of the city’s sea front.

Making the volume a must-have is this plethora of images that captures the city’s character from numerous angles rather than duplicate images of people emerging from overcrowded trains. The volume is lightweight literally, and academically interesting. Instead of putting in reams of labored writings on the technical aspects of architectural practice, it puts together snippets on the subject of Bombay, garnered from conversations with several personalities of the city. Its photographers, though have stepped out f the main arteries and captured those familiar faces of the city, looking out of a balcony in a derelict building, a sense of ownership and association writ large across the faces, or else the happy faces of its slum dwellers who can teach the world a thing or two about common living with a smile.

All this and more, makes the volume a ready reckon on the city for whosoever may be interested in knowing the real Bombay, a Bombay that has grown, and yet oriented itself to every age and necessity with charming ease.

Clyde D’mello makes you remember the by gone era while capturing the perpetually changing nature of Bangalore.Seeing Bengaluru through the eyes of Bangalore he connects the dots retaining its contemporary essence.

Bangalore is an ever-changing city that has captured the imagination of many who would love to visit the city as well as those who have lived in it, “lonely Planet” the magazine has rated Bangalore 3^rd amongst 10 cities in the world worth a visit. However, to what extent? I remember a Bangalore where the winters would be cold enough to wear layers and layers of clothes especially in the months of November, December, January and the summers would be cloudy with short bursts of sunlight, now and then with a slight drizzle- the perfect English town weather.

Elders of a bygone era would remember Bangalore as a place of built houses in a 30/40 or a 40/60 site with ample amount of space for everybody in the family. In addition, were rows of trees, with parks in certain nooks and corners that were aligned to the footpath to bring in a welcoming feel to any given time or space within the city. Elders remember Bangalore to be a place of apple Orchards and grape vines in Cubbon Park (Bangalore is still one of the major wine players in the nation).

The city was based on the Bangalore fort which was founded by Kempegowda 1(the Vijaynagara period) in the 16^th century, that became a stronghold for Tipu sultan against the British and after the takeover by the British Bangalore became larger (The establishment of the cantonment) even the name got changed- from Bengaluru it became Bangalore, recently it again got changed from Bangalore to Bengaluru.

But progress has come in, Bangalore now is a city laden with malls, flyovers, congested traffic, Asthmatic attacks, Apartments, a ring road and to add to that an extension road. These go towards Mysore – the neighboring town (NICE road), and an outer peripheral ring road which connects to Tumkur in the north all with Hosur in the south Magdi roughly in the west and Devanhalli in the east, all of which belongs to Bangalore rural sector ( which connects the “progressed” section of the city from other parts of the State(Karnataka) and the nation (here Bangalore to Mysore).

Bangalore as a map has been ever changing never at rest. There was a time where the extent of the city was limited to Cox town, Malleswaram, Baswangudi and Kormangala tank (East, west, North, South){it was a Cantonment in every form}  the city has been ever changing and in every three to six months a new Bangalore is formed.

Locals who have the habit of travelling outside the city never recognize it once they are back, a sort of shock takes over them.

The recent addition to the brand of Bangalore is the IT  sector aka Silicon city, which has made Bangalore to be one among the rich and costly cities to live in the nation, And with the addition of the outer ring road to facilitate the travel to these sectors the Bangalore that was, became no more. Those who are a part of the fringes of the city also feel alienated because of the addition of an Outer- Outer ring road as well as the establishment of the Metro station, which is again a recent addition to the Bangalore map.

Bangalore at one time was called the Garden City due to its large sized parks, rows of trees on the footpath or pavements, but now due to the construction of flyovers and Underpasses to facilitate travel and to “ease traffic” the amount of trees or even gardens to that matter are reduced to patches in and around Bangalore. The changing weather is noticed predominantly due to the city having an altitude of around 920 meters above sea level as well as pollution and global warming issues, which are affecting the climate drastically an older generation, would remember of a Bangalore being pleasantly cold and would complain about the climate now from then as it changes from year to year.

The city is or should I say was dotted with lakes, but due to the ever increasing population lakes were taken over by the BBMP (BRUHAT BANGALORE MAHANAGRA PALIKE aka Bangalore metropolitan corporation) and by reclaiming the land came in the addition of apartments to support the ever increasing influx of people from different parts of the nation.

Well enough of complaining!

A person from another country or from within the nation, visiting Bangalore would definitely fall in love with the place, this is due to the fact that Bangalore still has a charm, a CHARM of the old welcoming space even after the cities ever changing map, its weather still bearable ( but while standing over a house full layer of pollution). The outer ring road connects to most of the cities desirable spots, Hebbal a stop along the ring road connects to both the centralized bus stand – Majestic as well as Kempegowda international airport. Krishnaraj Puram connects both to Indiranagar which in turn connects to Brigade road ,Mahatama Gandhi Road which is one of the major hang out spots of urban Bangalore. This in turn connects to Shivajinagar bus stand which is the second centralized bus stand in Bangalore which connects to the cantonment section of Bangalore  having most of the English names like Cox town , Frazer town , Parade Ground etc. dotted with military grounds and barracks across cantonment. Going back to Indiranagar would connect you to Marathalli, Whitefield and Kormangala (places well known for having offices of the IT sector. From Majestic bus station is Banshankari which in turn connects to Kengeri a further point on the ring road which also houses The Bangalore University. It is only because of the local transportation system of which I am talking is the bus route, is Bangalore well connected. Thus making a full circle of the city during the 90’sand early 2000’s.

Plus everything is within reach one does not need to travel from one end of the city to another to fetch-let’s say WATERMELONS, or even clothes to that matter everything in Bangalore (like how it was in the old days) is now within the reach of the public because of progress i.e. change brought within the city to sustain its growing population.

Yet it is within this gamut of the city where areas that were once easily recognized are now alien due to the ever-changing map of Bangalore, for eg. Kamanhalli was just a row of houses in mains and crosses and just in a few years it has become what Indiranagar was 8 to 10 years back an on the road shopping mall- no longer the quite town that it used to be.

Yet the idea that proximity makes less of congestion still prevails in Bangalore this can be seen with the dotting of Flyovers in and around the ring road yet due to the lateness of construction and availability of materials, by the time the flyover is constructed the traffic is already increased sevenfold.

Bangalore is thus an interesting city never at rest with its ever-growing map and as it increases in space, it forfeits its serenity form the influx of the populous with apartments and malls or as a friend of mine would say

“You either beat the city or join the city- the rush is part of the experience”

Celebrating the “old” , the place “that was” through his words, H.A. Anil Kumar finds and relives Yeshwanthpur in the new Bengaluru

The conductor took five paise each, from both my friend and myself, gave back one-five-paise, tore a ticket into two and distributed it between us. It was a Saturday afternoon, we were studying in the primary school and it was a regular Saturday-discount for us, while travelling from Malleswaram to Yeshwanthpur (north of Bangalore), in the early 1970s. Only one eyebrow of the bus conductor – ‘Shivajirao’ written on his badge — was all that was visible on his forehead, which went missing for a while, later. After a couple of years, he, the now superstar Rajnikanth, reappeared as the poster-villain in the Kannada film ‘Katha Sangama’! He was our conductor in route no.1 and 14, in Bengaluru.

Occasionally we classmates would walk between these two points, from our school to our respective homes, not because he had quit ‘conducting’ his transport profession. This ritualistic, weekly-once walk via the Indian Institute of Science campus (begun in 1910) was meant to pick up gulaganji seeds, seemingly lacquered red-black in appearance, in order to make costly-looking beads that would be pierced through a thread. These seeds can be picked up even now, under the lush green trees of IISc campus. Entering and emerging out of it, now, even after four decades, seems like passing through a frozen time. If pollution is the first thing that one smells (literally) in today’s Bengaluru, it is ‘nostalgia’ that one does with IISc. The city around it has changed, or would it have remained ‘as-it-is’ even if the city wouldn’t have changed?

Institutions are supposed to be the first to change; and change the city around it. Here is a case wherein it is preaching the city that not-changing is the best way to change! Yeshwanthpur, to the north-eastern part of the city and just outside IISc, is the only space that seems to have learnt a lesson or two from this scientific institution’s scientific outlook. It is like a mom learning from her kids, since it is so old that they have found 300BC Roman coins in Yeshwanthpur, the location carries a seemingly-Marathi-name and is older to the ‘ITised-Bangalore’ by at least 1200 years.  At the same, they say that in another fifty years Mexico and Bangalore—both — would be deserted due to lack of water sources! If that is the case, IISc and Yeshwanthpur would be the two places that would yet outlive the city.

My birthplace was in a village outside Bangalore. My parents moved into the city to educate us; and now my village is part of the larger-Bangalore. This poses a philosophical paradox: I was an outsider to Bangalore, from a place which is Bangalore now. Paradoxes never let you settle; and settle at a place with singular identity.

We settled down in Yeshwanthpur, went to school to the next-town called Malleswaram, to a Brahmin-Convent, where one could learn English without the fear of being baptized into Christianity. The famous Himamshu School — which looks the same even now, from outside – was a poor man’s (child’s) equivalent to ‘convent education’.

In a way I am an old-Yeshwantpurite. The Vidhyarthi Bhavan known for dosa and Kannada literary personalities’ regular visits; Dewar’s pub wherein the British would pour a drink to the Indians who were made to compulsorily wait outside its doors, the Kothas Coffee powder shop in Malleswaram, the Kohinoor chai shop in Brigade road, the Boulevard on M.G.Road, Ramakrishna Mutt in Hanumanthanagar, the garadi manes (fitness gym with local and Vijayanagar flavor), the Koshys café – all in all, still exist and frame a different Bengaluru with Yeshwanthpur at its top. ‘Bengaluru’ is the foundation upon which a mindlessly inarticulate architectural disaster called as ‘Bangalore’ was construed. Yeshwanthpur was and is going to be a part of Bengaluru, arguably forever.

The day when Dr.Rajkumar, the Kannada film superstar of five decades, passed away, a non-Kannadiga art gallery owner and wife to a famous artist, born and brought up in Bengaluru, asked what is so great about him. Someone asked her to wait for another twenty four hours. There were seven people dead by the time the stalwart was put to rest (2006), when the burial procession went through Yeshwanthpur and through fan-frenzy-madness, despite a prediction of it! All of us knew for sure that that would be the last time some ‘one’ captured the imagination of the city, enmasse. In fact the coffin with Raj Kumar’s body went missing for an hour; and – realistically and metaphorically — was retraced amongst the fans, by a comedian, inside the Bangalore Palace, belonging to Mysore Maharaja, near Yeshwanthpur! This dear locality of mine is a site wherein a comedian heroically recovers the missing body of a hero, after the latter’s natural demise, from the Maharaja’s abode, in (the time of) a democratic State. This reality is so analogous to all multiple-dimensions that Yeshwanthpur – an old Bengaluru premise — has gone through.

I had seen Indira Gandhi give a talk and the goggled Mysore Maharaja on a horse in Yeshwanthpur near the current road transport office at Yeshwanthpur in 1970s. The only change is that the office was an open field, then, meant for such political and bureaucratic affairs. Even now, two BMW cars find it difficult to cross each other in these streets, without side stepping the other’s legs or rather wheels!

Yeshwanthpur is that part of Bengaluru that refutes metamorphosis of any kind. This is true despite the fact that the biggest Metro of the city (Orion mall) is located just outside it. The single screen ‘Gopal’ film theatre which would charge not more than rupees five for a balcony ticket then, though charges 100 rupees now, is still intact, both as a memory and a reality. The barber used to make his client suspend his legs into the dry ditch, make him hold the mirror in one hand and an umbrella against heat in the other, while giving him a close shave or a haircut. No doubt that the umbrella was not meant for the client. This was in front of the location’s prime spot: the government school and next to the railway lines. These still do exist, despite Yeshwanthpur railway station having become a nationally familiar railway-stop. It’s easier to pick up a railway ticket to wherever from here rather than at the city-central station; and only Yeshwanthpur-dwellers know it!

The roads at Yeshwanthpur are as narrow as it was four decades ago, the market is still lack luster, the smell of the old oil shop is intact, and the garbage is almost nascent. Between 1970 and 79, we had changed eight houses within this locality. And recently when I took a stroll throughout, I found out that none of the houses existed, neither were they demolished and built over! There were additions upon old constructions, like plaster molds upon wounded limbs. The wound remains and the mound camouflages. The smell of the chai shops, the afternoon heat of asphalted rustic roadside, the samosa-chai-shops, the small arrack shops (local pubs), the half-lit-electric-bulbs, the dull rainy evenings — all in all do exist, despite the onslaught of LED colour televisions, small-malls and urbanism all around it. Yeshwanthpur is the place inside the metropolis-Bengaluru, which makes you feel that you are at its margin, at the rural-Bengaluru site.

In the 80s, the famous Mangharam’s Biscuit Factory to the east of Yeshwanthpur was attacked. The huge bus loaded with varieties of Christmas biscuits, to be transported to Bombay, was emptied by the localities. It was so because it seems the localites who were promised with jobs inside the factory (for having pledged their land to the factory) were kept waiting for too long. When I returned from school, from Malleswaram to Yeshwanthpur, my locality was full of biscuit packs – in the dustbin, hay stack, under the bed, above the roof – in the most unpredictable sites. The next day, a relative who had legally brought glucose biscuit from the shop was also arrested, along with all men above 18 years, from this place and were stationed at Yeshwanthpur police station, which is still intact!

Most of those arrested were my relatives, by blood or by friendship. Some have gone, others remind of those who have left, just like Yeshwanthpur. It has withstood the onslaught of the neo-capitalistic IT globalization of Bangalore, like the Gauls resist the Romans in Asterix comics. It has evolved in such a way as to not to change easily!

When I recently went into a small shed-like samosa-chai shop at Yeshwanthpur, the old 70s songs were being placed. The ambience of the smell, sound and space were intact. Earlier those were contemporary songs from the radio. Now, the owner had gone out of his way to buy a DVD consisting of those old songs. There was someone like me; both of us knew that here is the place within Bengaluru wherein two varying times (and nostalgia in-between) co-exists. He was one of those guys who had pledged their vast lands at Yeshwanthpur, to a landlord, just for the temptation of regularly eating masala dosa and coffee, in the 50s!