Flux of Time

This afternoon, I went to Blossom Book House on Church Street after a gap of some months. Felt like visiting an old love, but it was an effort to rekindle the old magic. Has the book-buying experience changed? Or have my circumstances changed?  Blossom Book House, Church Street, a sanctuary once, an old love now I first discovered this bookstore about 13 years ago, in 2002, when it was a small one-room store in Brigade Gardens. When I was working as a sub-editor in a newspaper on MG Road, I'd end up at Blossom during the famed 5-6 pm 'thindi' break. Blossom was a sanctuary for me. I didn't have too much money to spend, but would end up buying a nice second-hand one for about Rs 50, and come back to the desk, in time for the post 6 pm rush. Work on the State Desk was dull and dreary sometimes, and we had to edit poorly written copies or make page after page on old systems that often hung! And the endless translations from Kannada to English. Going to Blossom bec...

What Plagued India and Bangalore in the late 1890s August 12, 1898, Bangalore: A servant of the railway superintendent arrives in Bangalore from Hubli. He is inspected and tests confirm that he has the plague. That becomes the first reported case of plague in Bangalore*.  Later, the disease gains epic proportions, taking lives of thousands of Bangaloreans. Reports suggest that there were over 10,000 deaths between September 1898 and March 1899*. Gippsland Times (Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Thursday 1 December 1898, page 3 National Library of Australia Where it came from It was in China that the third big plague outbreak in recorded history occurred in the 1890s. This plague devastated many parts of India. A WHO report puts that figure at over six million between 1898 and 1908.  In the Bombay Presidency It is now believed that the first cases of plague occurred in Bombay as early as March, 1896. However, the first cases were reported near the docks ...

From Italy to Kengeri: The Thread That Binds So, I was randomly surfing the internet last night, and one thing led to another, and I found out that a certain Italian gentleman called Signor De Vecchi is linked to Kengeri. What? An Italian and a suburb of Kengeri in Bengalooru – what’s the connection, you might wonder. It was Signor De Vecchi who tried to revive the silk industry, and got the sericulture community together in 1866. He started a filature unit back then, in a bid to add sheen to the silk industry. Kengeri, a hobli (cluster of hamlets), was a well-known centre for sericulture during the time of Tippu Sultan. Tippu is credited with bringing sericulture to Mysore state. Kengeri’s silk industry flourished as well. By 1866, over a good half a century after the death of the Sultan, several experiments in sericulture were in progress in and around the country. According to the book/report, ‘On the Silk Culture in Southern India’ by M M MacKenzie, published 1870, (the...

#SundayStories If you have lived in Bangalore or visited the city, am sure that at some point, you have made a trip to Lalbagh. I have many childhood memories of the beautiful gardens, the floral clock and the flower shows. The history of this beautifully laid out gardens has always fascinated me, and I have always looked around for interesting stories around this lung space of Bangalore. In fact, there are hundreds of stories revolving around the green legacy of the city. The nurseries of Siddapura still thrive, actually, a reminder of the city's green legacy. Anyway, one interesting reference to Lalbagh comes from The Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener, Country Gentleman, Bee-Keeper and Poultry Chronicle . (Volume XIV., New Series), published in London, 1868. Under the sub-heading, ‘Bangalore Horticultural Fete’, the journal describes the Fete held in Bangalore on December 31 st , 1867. “Inside the show of Flowers, Vegetables, and Fruit, and especially th...

No, this is not about cricket, although cricket is a constant presence. Some days I could be watching it, some days not. But it is there. Like music, like the smell of jasmine or ‘agarbathi’ in the bylanes of Bangalore. Or even the loud ‘soppu’ cry of the vegetable vendor pushing his cart in my city. My mind goes back to a winter’s morning in the city. I remember waking up at 5 am to watch a test match between India and Australia. Must have been early 2000s. I had set the volume on the TV really low. There is a certain guilty pleasure in switching on the TV really early in the morning and listening to the commentary at a really low volume. It is intimate and conspiratorial, almost like the commentator is talking exclusively to you. I don’t remember much of that winter morning except that it was an Ind-Aus test series. But what I distinctly remember is the lunch hour of that test match, by which time my parents were up. And I remember drinking my mom’s trademark strong coffee. The...