Bangalore Page

The city of Bangalore is the 5th largest in India, the fastest growing city in Asia, and the capital of the southern state of Karnataka ("Lofty Land"). Bangalore City, as it exists today, is a comparitively new city (by Indian standards). It was founded by Kempegowda I in 1597. However, the region itself was home to another town which came to be called "Hale Bengaluru", or Old Bangalore, when the "new" city came into existence. The origin of its name is controversial, and the most popular story is that it was christened by Veera Ballala, a local chieftain, in 1120 AD and it is the anglicized form of "Benda-kalu-ooru". This translates as "The Place of Boiled Beans", and was chosen to honour of a dish of boiled beans an old woman fed him when he lost his way hunting in the forest that was cleared to establish this city. The controversy exists because the name "Bengalooru" from "The Town of the Burned Forest", which refers to Old Bangalore, appears on a Mauryan empire milestone dating from 850 AD. Evidence of much earlier settlement, including Stone Age implements, burial mounds, and Roman coins have been unearthed sporadically.

Bangalore was ruled by local chieftains of Yelehanka for most part, until it was captured by Shahaji Bhosle (Shivaji's father), for Adil Shah of Bijapur in 1638, who subsequently gifted it back to him. The Marathas ruled Bangalore for 50 years, until Aurangzeb (the Mogul emperor) captured it in 1687 and later sold it to the Wodeyars of Mysore in 1690. The Wodeyars ruled Bangalore until 1831, when the British East India Company took over its administration, and ruled until 1947, when India became Independent. In the meantime, the British established a Cantonment just east of Bangalore city in 1809. Bangalore has grown so large in recent years (the fastest growing city in Asia) that it has swallowed Old Bangalore, Kempegowda's Bangalore, and the Cantonment, which now form the core of the city. Its outlying suburbs have absorbed neighboring towns such as Kengeri and Yelehanka as well.

Its colonial legacy, among other things, includes a blood-red High Court building, the West End Hotel, a clone of the Windsor Castle, and copy-cat Anglican churches that wouldn't look out of place in the Midlands . Bangalore was known throughout India for its Englishness, mainly because of its cooler weather, the "English vegetables" you could (can) buy here, roses, its once large but now overwhelmed Anglo-Indian population, its tolerance and indulgence of Western lifestyle, and the pub culture (which has earned it the kitschy name "Bar-galore").

Bangalore is blessed with a salubrious climate, situated as it on the Deccan Plateau at an altitude of almost 1000m. It is surrounded by granite-topped hills and fantastic boulders that are scattered haphazardly in its vicinity. It is watered by the Arkavathy and Vrishabhavathi rivers and is famous for its flowering trees. It was once called "The Garden City", "The Air-Conditioned City" and a "Pensioners Paradise". People lived on wide shady shady streets in beautiful bungalows (few still survive):

It is still famous for its fruits, vegetables, flowers (especially roses, marigolds, and the Mysore jasmine) and its flowering trees.