Book review: Becoming Bangalore by Roopa Pai

BECOMING BANGALORE, Hachette Books is the most delightful chronicling of a city ever. It`s a compendium of essays from Roopa Pai`s ongoing newspaper column  on Bangalore; compact, engaging, insightful 600-word passages that pack in much information to  both educate and entertain the reader.

Things I learned after reading the book:

*Why Bangalore`s trees bloom in all seasons.

*How the Bangalore Brinjal was born.

* Who Whitefield is named for… and no, it`s not for the white and Anglo-Indian settlers.

*Why the Aryabhata, India`s first satellite, was famously transported on a bullock cart, and the Bangalore connect.

*How Basavanna was an iconoclast before that became a thing.

*How Bangalore was Bangaloring 120 years ago! This has to do with the citizen`s deep love for trees.

*How Thomas Edison`s General Electric came to the ooru in 1902.

*How Bangalore`s climate is somewhat Italian in character…yes, really!

* How we are definitely the OG café society. Every heard of the Hindu Coffee Club?

* How a newspaper that is veritably a Bangalore institution came up on a former dance hall.

*What old Bangaloreans meant when they used the word `dakota…` and it`s only indirectly connected to the aircraft.

* An early description of Kannada Nadu in the `Kavirajamarga.`

*How you can tell a group of Kannadigas from other Indian groups when travelling abroad. So, OK, that’s a joke but a telling joke.

*What Winston Churchill did here in town, apart from racking up an unpaid bill at the Bangalore Club.

*What cheetahs did in a sporting arena between Domlur and Austin town, back in the 1800s.

*How the city rode the electronics wave…back in 1954!

* How once Christmas, carol singing, the Nativity play were all Bangalore things, not merely Christian things.

*The Indian Pale Ale`s Bangalore connect.

*How Bangalore accounts for a whopping 90% of avarekai bean production.

*How Bangalore`s reading legacy dates back to 1905.

And, as the saying goes, much more. Basically, this book which combines charm and humour, is a keeper for both the historical anecdotes and   the lovely illustrations by Priya Kuriyan.

Now, it is my theory that every Indian has some kind of a Bangalore connect, past or present. Therefore,  this book is ideal for…every Indian, of course!

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