Frazer town is full of hidden surprises. The more I discover Frazer town and it’s little yummy bakeries and tea houses, the more I want to document it. It isn’t a surprise to find an old Bangalorean bunglow on it’s roads – like the one that Peter Colaco talks about in his book Bangalore: A Century of Tales from City and Cantonment. Most of the times commercial buildings and apartments have risen in what once used to be spacious green homes. Some bungalow owners have managed to secure their space in the city by allowing their large courtyards to be used as commercial buildings while retaining their homes. I discovered one such, close to my workspace, surrounded by tall buildings but still managing to have a little space to grow it’s own curry leaf tree. Squirrels scurry around on it’s terrace in the mornings, and cats find a cozy spot when the roof gets warmer.  Bangalore can be so beautiful, sometimes.

Sunday Jam at Planet M on Brigade Road is a monthly jamming session held on the first Sunday of every month. It’s a nice initiative by Freedom Jam where upcoming bands, solo artistes and anyone with a passion for music get together and use the facilities and equipment provided to experiment and perform on stage. The audience usually happens to be the friends and families of the performers and some casual shoppers who happen to stroll in. I’ve been at a couple of jam sessions there and managed to sketch (because Gautam performs there sometimes, and his Guitar teacher John performs every month).  This time, particularly on the request of some of the folks who happend to see me sketch last evening- I decided to put them up on the blog.  This is the first time I’m sharing sketches of people – any resemblance to anyone is purely coincidental!

One of the  surviving and well maintained bungalows in Bangalore, it exhibits artwork from some of the famous artists of our country, including Jamini Roy, M F Hussian and Tagore. From what I read in the Citizen Matters, the Manikyavelu Mansion once belonged to the royal family of Mysore. It was later owned by a mine owner, Raja Manikyavelu Mudaliar and then taken over by the Government of Karnataka in the late sixties. In the eighties, the Ministry of Culture received it in order to set up a modern art museum.

It’s a pleasant place to spend your time, if you have a couple of hours on hand. Getting to explore the bungalow while exploring different art work is an added bonus! The fee is a mere ten rupees and the coffee at the canteen is good. What is heart warming is that a building like this was saved and used for an excellent purpose, and this is one of the most admirable examples of what our city can do – progress while still saving our heritage.

While waiting in a queue early one morning outside the ration card office in Ulsoor with my husband, I noticed this beautiful, old faded house. I pulled out my sketch book and started sketching this view with the only writing tool I had at that time – a Reynolds ball point pen. I managed to do only a portion of the drawing, and when the queue moved, I had lost the view of the house. This evening my husband and I went back so that I could complete the sketch, and to our surprise found that the house was in fact, an unused wedding hall(choultry)!

The hall built in the 1930s, lies at the junction of St John’s Road and Gangadhara Chetty Road close to the RBANMS grounds. We walked around the building to find a stone plaque on the compound wall of this house that dates the Gangadhara Chetty Road to 1927. Although the choultry has been abandoned for quite some time, the ornate compound, tiled roof and beautiful monkey top remains intact, occupied by squirrels and birds. The building is much more beautiful than this sketch shows, the faded yellow of the walls and brown wood work looked gorgeous in the light of the setting sun.

The owners of this building still live in a set of small quiet houses behind it. Apparently the building land was leased by the famous Rai Bahadur Arcot Narrainswamy Mudliar (founder of RBANMS institutions) to the current owner’s grandfather, who built this building. It was initially occupied by a printing press whose name is painted on the front wall of the building –  Sundaram Press Publications, and was later converted into a wedding hall. The family hopes that the building, now a part of a trust, will be saved and used before it decays.

Vegetable vendor in Gandhi Bazaar

Sunday morning vegetable market at Gandhi bazaar. Nice warm sun and cold air. Different shapes of  reds, greens, oranges and yellows shining in the sun, waiting to be sketched. My back basking in the warm sunlight – sketch book and pencil in hand. Avarekai, bendekai, badnekai, moolangi, eerulli, uLi tomato, batani, tondekai, seeme badnekai, nimbe hannu, sapsige, palak, menthya. Menasinkai, hoov kosu, yelekosu, delhi carrot, beans, double beans, southekai. Fresh smell of ginger, pudina and lemon if you really tried. All in neat piles in brown cane baskets on upturned KMF crates. Towards  the end of the sketch, a red chilli had appeared in the nice shiny heap of green peas – the most prized vegetable of the day. The vendor thought I had stared at his vegetables enough, and I thought that it was a subtle indication for me to leave

The chimney of the Mysore Lamps factory rising up above the trees beyond the railway tracks is an indelible image from my childhood memory. Living in Milk Colony beside the 17th cross bridge for most part of my growing up, I have memories of cycling with friends on our BSAs along pipeline road until we reached the railway tracks. We weren’t allowed to cycle up to the Yeshwantpur main road – the Mysore Lamps chimney marked the end of how far we were allowed to go.
Their really simple logo – ‘ML’ in a serif font within a circle – brings up memories of bulbs bought from the kaka shop – bulbs wrapped in serrated cardboard covers.

The Mysore Lamps factory was established in 1936. It was the sole supplier of all the 90 thousand odd bulbs that lit up the Mysore Palace.   It must have been a grand sight back then – to have a well lit factory chimney that could be seen from far away – a sure reason for pride for the people that the factory employed for decades. The factory was shut down a couple of years ago due to heavy losses, and the nearly rusting chimney has been dwarfed by the new monstrous concrete structures in the neighbourhood.

Soon, the chimney may disappear as well – since the Government has decided to use the factory space for Government offices. Many citizens would like to see the green cover maintained and space used as a public park.
I secretly wish though that whatever decision is taken, the Mysore Lamp chimney would be retained to mark  it’s once bright history.

This is a sketch of our local iron woman’s most prized possession – a  beautifully made heavy brass-bottomed iron box (an istri pettige  made of brass or hithaale) that she found in Shivajinagar. The red wooden handle against the contrast of the blue paint of their iron-cart and the gleaming brass body caught my eye.   The pin on the lid is loosened and lifted to fill in hot coal on the inside. 

Her family used most of their savings on it – Rs. 3000 (Three thousand Rupees) which is quite a heavy sum to pay, considering that the modern electrical iron boxes used in our homes come at about one-third the price. She believes that the heavy brass bottom makes even the toughest of the creases disapppear with less effort. As with most mobile iron  carts, she starts at one end of our road in the morning and delivers the last set of hot pressed clothes by sundown.  Lifting this up is not an easy task - my guesstimate is that it weighs more than 5 kilos!

The Bangalorean Monkey Top is very characteristic of the old Bangalorean charm. It is an iconic representation of the city’s architectural heritage, and any Bangalorean given a chance would like to have one adorning her own house.

The special thing about these monkey tops are that they are made ornate with vertical slats, having special designs at the end of each slat. Why are these called monkey tops? T.P.Issar in his book on Bangalore,  “The City Beautiful”, says that these ornate sun shades on windows, “became a favourite perch for the frolicking monkey.” This must have been true when land in this city once upon a time was sold in acres – huge bungalows built in the midst of manicured gardens and trees would have monkey tops such as these adorning the windows, and probably the frolicking monkey as well!  Nowadays, with land becoming scarce and high rise apartments becoming the norm, monkey tops are something of a luxury.

I suppose that the vertical slats were earlier made in wood, like this bungalow, but now, when made to order, they are made in metal. On enquiring at a metal work shop in Malleswaram, I found that to have one such made would cost between Rs 1000 to 1500.

This window is of the lone unoccupied bungalow on C V Raman Road – nestled between the IISc Post office and the J R D Tata Memorial Hall.  The security guard was kind enough to provide me a tin can to sit on and sketch. Another place in Bangalore to admire  such beautiful work is the Taj West End Hotel on Race Course Road.

The sketch of the Bull Temple or the Basavana Gudi was one of the first out-door sketches that I did. The sight of the leaves of peepul tree dancing in the breeze against the majestic backdrop of a temple gopuram has always had me transfixed. This is what I have tried to capture here .

Apart from learning how not to be affected by curious onlookers, it also gave me the confidence to sketch difficult subjects like temple gopurams. I have definitely been a little impatient with the details in this one.

The Bull Temple situated on Bugle Rock is one of the oldest temples of Bangalore, constructed by the founder of this city , Kempe Gowda.  The Kadlekaayi Parishe or the ground nut fair is held every year in December.

So this time around it was the massive old sturdy building that I had noticed in Shivajinagar – the board said,  “Government Composite Telugu School”. I found it funny that a Telugu school existed in the heart of Shivajinagar, the area being predominantly occupied by Muslims and Christians. I went there on Saturday morning hoping that the school would be open – and that the surroundings would be conducive enough for sitting and sketching. Anyone who has walked through the unpleasant streets of Shivajinagar would naturally understand my concern:) To my surprise, the school compound and the ground was quite clean, and there was a beautiful gulmohur tree under whose shade I was able to sit quite comfortably, shielded from the traffic and smells outside.

The school building is quite an imposing structure built  entirely of stone. The friendly head-mistress of the school claimed that the structure was over 100 years old – which meant that it was probably built in the then Cantonment area, during the time that the British troops were present. I am no architecture student, but the curves in the structure indicated an Islamic style, while the stone structure somehow reminded me of Christian structures such as Christian schools (like St.Josephs), the army canteen on Cubbon road and churches of Frazer Town. This had me thoroughly confused about the origin of the building. I was told that it might be possible to trace the previous owners by checking official records in Mayo Hall – which I hope to pursue someday. The carvings of two flowers and a bud ( is it the  Fleur-de-lis?) at the main entrance –  which is definitely not an Islamic motif -  has made me even more curious about the building’s history. 

Previous to the Telugu school which occupied the place in 2004, this building housed several other schools and Pre-University Government offices. It was also once upon a time a remand home for women! I do hope that someday I can make time to find out more about the story of this mysterious building.

The worry with lesser known or lesser celebrated structures is always that it is easy to be wiped off – rumor has it that the building would be razed down to make way for parking lots. For one, I hope that it is just a rumor, and even if true, I hope that our officials have some sense to maintain the structure and work around it. A dignified structure such as this one truly deserves to be prevented from being erased from the ground and from our memories.