Tota

Cultivating Histories

My paper aims to understand, through the Real Estate development and sale trends in Bengaluru, the historical significance that the Gardens have had in the development of Bengaluru. It also aims to unravel how Gardens came to being synonymous to the real estate development in Bengaluru today. Developers like Puravankara, Prestige & NCC have constructed residential communities in the outskirts of this City, having large lawns of finely cut grass, channels of water flowing through the spaces, large planned landscapes that are clearly demarcated from the walking areas. Furthermore these are sold as amenities, required for a ‘luxurious’ lifestyle. All of this is within the boundaries of the gated communities. Most of these ‘natural landscapes’ are pre decided entities of the space. The space in itself is the recreation of an idea of the Garden City1 . There has been a value through history that has been placed on this by various associations that have been formed. To understand these associations it is necessary to look into the historical references and contexts of Gardening in Urban Development in Bengaluru. The objective is to understand the basis for naming Bengaluru as The Garden City: Is the city promoting the idea of Gardening through these endeavors or of the city itself by the historical back up it has. I want to make a simple claim here that – like most occurrences in a contemporary scenario the addition of Garden landscapes to the ambience of a space comes from various contributions of it in the history of this city. With this I aim to establish the existence of a background to the practice that has built an aspect of the identity of Bangalore.

Figure 2: Growth in Urban Density of Bangalore ( Google images)

The various contexts given to the idea of the Garden City is discussed by Ebenezer Howard, Walter Creese, John Hannigan, William Morris and Bellamy, who are known thinkers on the idea of Urban Development. The idea of the Garden city isn’t static in nature, and Gerd Bayer in her article has managed to bring about the various discussions revolving around the idea of the Garden City.

1 A look into 20 th century Bangalore (as it was named then), “always ends up in talk of a salubrious environment, sprawling residential localities with palatial bungalows, tree-lined avenues, the odd car on the squeaking – clean roads, and so on”. i But towards the turn of the century Bangalore saw a forthcoming change that took over its space. James Howard Kunstler had predicted the situation of a contemporary urban city. “His "drive-in utopia" describes the result of a development that had been gathering momentum throughout the last three decades of the twentieth century and into the Twenty-first”. (Bayer Gerd 2007, 361) According to Ebenezer Howard 2 this was possible through the development of the Garden City. The “Garden City” was a “practical manifestation” working around combining new settlements with its core being the rural green belts. ( Gossup Chris 2006,1) According to him this idea was modeled to eradicate the disadvantages of either the town or the rural as individual entities and provide an ideal living, travel and working aspect for the new-formed communities. A working model of this idea can be seen in recent constructions of Puravankara, NCC, and Prestige etc. and recent strategically placed developments near the Outer Ring Road.. However when the aesthetics of these spaces are brought forward there is cohesiveness in the history of Bengaluru that ties up to what the Real Estate Market sells today.

Under the Mughal reign from 1526 to 1857, came the introduction of a new context to the open landscapes present in Bangalore. "Then" says Babur, "in that charmless and disorderly Hindustan, plots of garden were laid out with order and symmetry, with suitable borders and parterres in every corner and in every border rose and narcissus in perfect arrangement." ii This resulted in the indo-islamic Gardens, the likes of which are found in the Lalbagh Botanical Garden, which was due to the mutation of the idea of the Islamic Garden of precision, discipline and organization with the overwhelming existence of the Green Landscape of Hindustan. Motifs of the Mughal Garden landscape that could be transported through the hilly Central Asia Terrains to the flat land wide expanse of the Indian Landscape were the “irrigation system which, linked to the fourfold plot, produces a formal geometrical grid pattern capable of indefinite extension; also, the disposition of the garden on terraces and disparity in level between the elements of the grid and the flowerbeds they enclose.” 3 The Mughal gardens works on two levels, visually on the higher level, it stretches across as a green carpet and sensually on a lower level, providing shade and refreshment. Walking into spaces like Puravankara showcases these two levels of the Garden Landscape. The central Garden when viewed from the higher floors is a pattern designed to work for the eyes as a ‘garden view’ from balconies. When one moves lower into the lobby area the garden comes to surround the individual, which is an extremely relaxing element in the harsh climate of Bangalore. Another important element of the Mughal Gardens is their Water System. In the Gardens of Central Asia, due to the hilly terrain there was a natural slope along which these gardens were planted allowing a gravitational flow of the waterways to cater to the needs of the plants, which today are an integral part of the aesthetics of a Real Estate Project. The practicality of the gardens of

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Ebenezer Howard, author of Tomorrow: A peaceful path to real reform (1898), speaks about the idea of the Utopian City where man and nature live together harmoniously. This publication led to the formation of various Garden Cities like the Letchworth Garden City and the Welwyn Garden City.

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The description of the Mughal Gardens is mentioned to make point of the similarities and differences the fusion of the Mughal Garden with the Hindustan Landscapes had to the Indo-Islamic Gardens the Mughals may not have sustained in the Real Estate whether commercial or Residential areas due financial problems. The idea of Puravankara Venezia or Puravankara Palm Beach might be to imitate and recreate the theme of the landscape of Venice or of a beach boulevard, but the process in itself (i.e. of recreation) caters to the idea of the Mughal Gardens being a piece of paradise, a space or recluse and retreat for the public from their day to day experiences. A space recreated in a foreign land to allow people to be transformed to an enclave4 , separated from the outside world, visually, sensually, experientially. The creation of such enclaves marks a clear boundary for those within it and the outside world. This idea of recluse was still open to the public; a change in this ideal is noticeable with the control over India switching from the Mughal to the British Raj in 1857.

Gerd Bayer points out the irony of the events that took place post industrialization in colonized spaces. The city was evolving more from an accretion of difficulties than from a successful formulation of new principles" (Creese 1966, 69) In Bangalore, the advent of the British Era brought about a similar chain of events. Owing to the rapid growth, they (i.e. the British) had come to have cities encompassed within green belts, which in essence demarcated the rural from the urban, thus have a vast availability of landscape. The British moved to India to get away from the pressures that Industrialization had placed on their land. This marked a turning point in the literary review of India as a nation. What they saw was nostalgia in those who lived in India for their homelands, was not the picture that had been created in Britain, it was because of the recreation of the homelands in this foreign land to feel more at home, that the Indians saw the need to have dense urban landscapes. It was but a mere mimicry of the land they had once had, and that was being developed on the basis of nostalgia and expansion. The reason of focus on Bangalore is not only because it was a part of an entire nation that came under the British Raj, but also because of its climatic advantages. With its comparatively cold climate, the colonizers that moved here felt more at home than in the lowlands of India, which faced harsh, hot climatic conditions. Thus these garden landscapes created around the houses of the British in India, specifically Bangalore became synonymous to the hierarchy of social systems, away from the heat, dust and indigenous people. Symbolic of the status of the family that owned that land, Indians who had the luxury then, benefitted by making it a part of their personal residencies.

With the increasing population in the past three decades with the IT Boom came a space crunch which made this

market move away from urban spaces to the outskirts. To create an enclave that separated the community within

these gated spaces from the outside community allowed these themed spaces to become synonymous with social

stratification. Similarities in aesthetic values to that of the Mughal Gardens can be seen. Even though there are

loopholes in the development pattern these housing societies follow, recent developments in the environmental

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a portion of territory surrounded by a larger territory whose inhabitants are culturally or ethnically distinct. (Wikaepedia) aspect of these Gardens are looking to bring in a new context to the idea of the Gardens. The self sustaining nature of this over whelming population in such small spaces, quite ironic to the idea of vast enclaves, is cultivating innovations such as Terrace Farming, Organic Plantations, Community Farming, self initiated plantations in the balconies given by the residencies. Bringing the green into the house is what people are looking at doing. The analogies drawn are of a personal sense; to understand the ‘natural landscape’ that sits in this community gated societies. The idea of beauty that stems from the Mughals, the status that the British brought to the Gardens and of the old elite of ‘Bangalore’s culture. These claims come from the historical evidences and similarity in design patterns that have been followed today in the Real Estate Market of Bangalore.

i

J. Y. Suchitra and Nandakumar C. K. “Pensioners' Paradise to IT: The Fallacy That Is Bangalore”. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 43, No. 3 16-17. 06-08-2015.

ii Dickie James and Zaki Yaqub. “The Mughal Garden: A Gateway to Paradise”. Brill. Vol 3 128-137. 25-08-2015.

REFERENCES

Bayer, Gerd. “Travelling Urban Utopias and the Birth of Suburbia.” Journal of English and American Studies 361-­‐377. 20-­08-­‐2015.’

McCulloch, George. “University of Wisconsin Press.” The Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics. Vol 23, no. 2 236-­237. 25-­‐08-­‐2015.

Thomas, David. “ Royal Geographical Society” The Geographical Journal. Vol 129 14-­‐24. 25 – 08-­‐ 2015.

Dicki, James and Zaki, Yaqub. “ Brill” Muqarnas. Vol 3 128-­‐137. 21-­‐ 08-­‐ 2015.

Fishman, Robert. 1946. Urban Utopias in the 20 th Century. USA, MIT press.

Kenny, Judith. T. “Taylor and Francis” Annals of the Association of the American Geographer s. Vol 85 694-­‐ 714. 26– 04-­2014 Nair, Janaki. (2005). The promise of the metropolis : Bangalore's twentieth century. Delhi ; Oxford : Oxford University Press