Bangalore, Once
#33 - The lost cultures of the city
This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers Group. Each of us examined the concept of ‘BANGALORE’ through our unique perspective, distilled into roughly 500 words. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.
The culture of Bengaluru has shifted. These last few decades have turned Bengaluru into something I don’t recognize. For someone who grew up here in the ’90s and 2000s, the change isn’t just visible. It stings.
Maybe I’m just a sucker for nostalgia. But I remember a different Bangalore. It stood between old-world charm and inevitable change. You could feel the city holding its breath. The greens diminishing.
Culture is an important thing, it is what makes great cities. It evolves and erodes. One of the lost cultures of this city are its vataaras.
A vataara was a row of small homes within a shared compound. Red oxide floors. A courtyard. A single water source like a well or a tap. A toilet block. A landlord who lived in the big house, running this fiefdom.
Growing up, Ganeshana Maduve1 was one of my favorite movies. The film opens with a voice narrating a vataara on Ranga Rao Road, near Basavangudi. The voiceover is set to the poem of Punyakoti. You could sense the irony.
What makes the movie a cult classic even in today’s time was its honesty. It showed what vataara life felt like. The gossip, the chaos, the jokes told across walls. Every house had its own quirks. The combined space that forced people to talk. To interfere. To help.
I lived in one. For a while, it was home. You heard a spoon drop. Smelled what was cooked two doors away. The sounds of the pressure cookers and transistor radios. Saw the fights. Saw who cried. No privacy.
These vataaras were all around in the then-small city—Malleswaram, Shankarapuram, Basavanagudi, Rajajinagar, Vijayanagar, etc. Now, these places are vanishing. Rightly so. It wasn’t ideal; it had its chinks. The owner being a kind of overlord and the tenants, the subjects he ruled. The owner held the first-use rights to water, electricity, and by extension, the quality of life of the tenants.
The vataaras have now given way to multistoried buildings, apartments, and what not. Sometimes, when I pass those old neighborhoods, my eyes search for them. Most of them are gone. Similar to the grounds we played in. The corners where we waited. The neighborhoods have changed beyond recognition.
The doors painted with Naale Baa to scare away the ‘spirits’. This folklore has its own wiki page now. The iconic single-screen theatres like Kapali in Majestic, Cauvery near Sankey Tank, are gone too. The music scene, the winters, the lakes. All gone. This cultural shift happens whether we like it or not.
I can claim that we now have more startups calling Bengaluru home than there are trees left at Margosa Road and Sampige Road combined.
A city evolves, finds its rhythm. I just hope that my city breathes again, takes it slow. I don’t know if this is still home. But I know what home once felt like.
Giddy up!
Avinash.
Ganeshana Maduve movie on Youtube
You can explore other posts from this series following the links below. Give it a read.
Looking Down over Bengaluru by Vaibhav Gupta, Thorough and Unkempt
Blossom Book House, Bangalore by Rahul Singh, Mehfil
A Walk, A Pause by Mihir Chate, Mihir Chate
Bookless in Bangalore by Vikram Chandrashekar Vikram’s Substack
Bangalore: A personal lore by Siddhesh Raut, Shana, Ded Shana
My love story with Bengaluru by Rakhi Anil
Bangalore Down the lane of History by Aryan Kavan Gowda, Wonderings of a Wanderer
Nagar Life by Nidhishree Venugopal, General in her Labyrinth
Belonging by Shruthi Iyer, Shruthi Iyer
The Street Teaches You by Karthik, Reading This World
The Wild Heart of Bangalore by Devayani Khare, Geosophy
A Love Letter to Bangalore by Priyanka Sacheti, A Home for Homeless Thoughts
Movie Dates, Bangalore and Them by Amit Charles, AC Notes
Between Cities by Richa Vadini Singh, Here’s What I Think
A Haven? Awake in Bangalore, by Lavina G, The Nexus Terrain
My love affair with blue skies by Sailee Rane, Sunny climate stormy climate
A City That Builds Belonging by Sathish Seshadri, Strategy & Sustainability
There and Back Again by Ayush, Ayush's Substack
I knew about this type of housing before but not that they are called vataras or that they were once popular in Bangalore. Even as the rational part of my brain scoffs at any tendency to wallow in nostalgia, I feel it rising as I read your words.
Not kidding, your description in the beginning straight away reminded me Ganeshana Maduve. Also, Naale baa. Too good. I hear you. Keep writing. Keep going. #Chennaghelidhri