Saturday, September 24, 2011

sightseeing

   Yesterday was the big sightseeing day: more than six hours walking around the city (and for the entire day I noticed only six non-Indians, five of them in one group). You can see so much on foot! Of course, it helps to have a good map (contra Lonely Planet, the Tourism Office map is not adequate. For one thing, it has the airport in the wrong place, since it dates from 2004, before the new airport was built!).  Street names missing on map, and few street signs, but luckily many friendly policemen and others to ask for directions. (Everyone looked askance when I said that I was walking, though: see the following post for a possible explanation.) Of course I did go out of my way in places, but since the goal was to see the city, not keep to a timetable, that was all to the good.
    I set off through the surprisingly quiet neighborhood along one side of the Club (the main gate fronts on a turbulent thoroughfare), Lavelle Road, then an equally surprising stretch of clean, wide, smooth sidewalks and upscale enterprises (Vital Mallya Road---not to be confused with the Vital Mallya Road that intersects it at a 45-degree angle to it: what does the postal service do?), along Cubbon Park--then back into the honking, racing maelstrom, even on a Saturday. I plunged across a traffic circle and into a side-road: no buses, less noise, but no sidewalks either, and quite a few cows (though there are cows on the major roads occasionally, in the heinous traffic).
   Just when I thought I was lost, the white minarets of Jamia Masjid floated above the dingy skyline, and I carried on past a lengthy row of machine-parts shops. The mosque is massive, but entirely hemmed in: there's even an elevated roadway swooping along its south side. (I wonder how the city's Muslims felt about that construction project.)  Although not quite as white as it seemed from a distance, it's pristine in its surroundings, and delicately carved all over, in cake-icing style. The twin domes, white balloons, are hidden in the centre, visible only when one's standing in the shadow of the express skyway.
    Then on to the summer palace of Tipu Sultan, son of Hyder Ali: his main palace was outside Mysore, the seat of his kingdom, and at the time I imagine that Bangalore was a pleasant village. The palace still has a little oasis of green calm about it, and it doesn't overawe, being a moderate-size symmetrical wooden building, open on two sides, with a forest of tall pillars making a cool audience-chamber on each side. Once every interior wall and ceiling was covered with fine, colorful, floral and geometric patterns, like a Persian carpet, only faintly visible now. The Venkataraman Temple is next door, white outside, and full of elaborate carvings within. The Sultan was apparently quite tolerant, and the temple's bronze column is supposed to have saved his life by deflecting a British bullet, so I suppose that the proximity of the infidel temple wasn't too offensive. There were services going on when I arrived, with gongs, chants, and occasionally what sounded like a shofar. On the way to the Sultan's palace I'd wandered into a market and a couple of minor temples, with many cows lounging about, and even more buses.
     It was a bit of a slog to the Bull Temple and the Dodda Ganesh Temple beside it, but they were both interesting (though the bull was more comical than imposing). Worship and commerce jostle each other in these places, as vibrantly as they must have done in the cathedrals of medieval Europe.
     After a few wrong turns I reached the Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens---and made a circuit of this beautiful and impressive park, trying to exit in the right direction. The varied plantings, the Tank (its water green rather than blue), the many strolling couples and families---even the adivasi [tribals] camped in a corner---made a peaceful respite. Finally, a last hectic mile back to the Bangalore Club, a shower, a lot of liquids, and a rest day today . . .

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