This is where it all began

This is one of the oldest roads in Bangalore and it dates back to the time Bangalore was founded by Kempe Gowda. This means that the road was formed sometime in 1537 which is when Kempe Gowda is believed to have founded Bangalore.

The road is also the place from where Kempe Gowda harnessed four bullock to four carts and sent them in each of the four directions. Kempe Gowda constructed towers at the four places where the bullock stopped.

The place where the journey of the bullocks began is also part of the road, but Bangaloreans seem to have forgotten this romantic slice of their urban history.

The road was also the place which divided the erstwhile Peta or Pettah into different localities and each locality was populated by a different trading community. Thus we had bangle sellers concentrating in Balepet, rice sellers and commodity sellers in Akkipet and other communities occupying different areas which radiated from this road such as Chickpet (small market), Nagarthpet which houses craftsmen, Tharagupet which mainly dealt in grains, Sunkalpet (limestone sellers’ market), Kumbarpet (potters’ market), Gollarpet (cowherds’ market).

During the Adil Shah period when Bangalore was under Muslim rule from 1638 to 1687, Shahaji had his beautiful palace at Chickpet, which is just off this road. His two sons from Jijabai-Sambhaji and Shivaji and his son from Tulabai Mohite-Ekoji all lived and played in the vicinity and honed their skills in guerilla warfare and statecraft here.

A large number of Marathi speaking people migrated to Bangalore and occupied high positions under Shahaji who was the Governor of  Bangalore province. These people settled in Pettahs around this road and they were instrumental in pushing back Kannada and making Marathi the main language of Bangalore and also the administrative and political language of the province.  

After the Mughals conquered Bangalore in 1678, they too made this road an important thoroughfare and the Mughal Commander Kasim Khan or Quasim Khan occupied Shahaji’s palace in Chickpet. The Pettah area soon the birth of a new language and this was a mixture of Marathi, Urdu and a little of Hindustani. This new language came to be called Rektha and it rapidly spread to north India, particularly in Mughal Delhi and Nawabi Lucknow.

Once the Mughals sold Bangalore to the Wodeyars, the road was repeopled by Kannadigas and the old fort of Kempe Gowda repaired.

When Bangalore passed into the hands of Hyder Ali (1721-1783) and Tipu Sultan (1750-1799) sometime in 1758, the road once again became an important throughfare and two of  the many gates of the fort opened onto the road-Yelahanka gate and Ulsoor or Halasoor Gate .

The vast open space adjacent to the road also saw the British camp there during the third Anglo-Mysore War and finally overcome the forces of  Tipu Sultan. The area commenced from what is today Ulsoor Gate police station-Corporation and extended upto State Bank of Mysore or SBM or Mysore Bank Circle.

After the fall of Tipu in 1799, the road was once again part of Wodeyar Kingdom. It slowly began taking the shape of what it is today and by the turn of the 20^th century, it looked almost as it is today.

This is Avenue Road, which once led directly from the fort towards the Sampangiramanagar tank. One of the intersections of the road is Doddapet Circle and this is believed to be the exact spot where Kempe Gowda harnessed four bullocks and sent them on the way so that he could subsequently demarcate Bangalore’s boundaries.

A little away from Doddapet circle and in preset day Chickpet was the palace of Shahaji. Unfortunately, the building did not survive and we have only Maratha and Adil Shah accounts of Shahaji and his family living in the palace.

Hyder Ali is believed to have camped here in the vicinity around 1758 and forced the Marathas to retreat from Bangalore. The Marathas too camped here when they took Bangalore from the reigning Wodeyars of Mysore under whom Hyder was a mere commander.

One of the heroes of the Indian War of Independence, Tatiya Tope, took shelter in the Kashi Visvesvara temple which is at the junction of Chickpet and Balepet. The Venkateshwara temple was built by Chikadevaraja Wodeyar more than 300 years ago. This is the only temple in Bangalore to display the names of people who helped build the structure and endowed it.
The Anjaneya temple at SBM Circle and Ganapathy temple, which is of recent origin, are important landmarks.  

However, today not much of  the past remains on the road. Though it is named Avenue road, there were hardly any avenue trees and it is a mystery why this road was so named.

The road today is a buyer’s delight offering everything from stationary to books, card board boxes to old and antique items, craft materials, jewellery, textiles, plastic goods, silk sarees, sweets, electronic goods and many other commodities at wholesale rates.                      

Avenue Road stretches from Mysore Bank Circle to City Market and the narrow road is clogged with street vendors, hawkers, push carts sellers and whole sale and retail dealers.

All the pettahs were linked to Doddapete road or avenue road which is more than a kilometer on length. The meandering road measures 4.8 metres to 7.5 metres.

Another landmark on the road is the Rice Memorial church. It was built in 1852 as a memorial to Rev Benjamin Holt Rice (1814-1887), who came to India as a missionary. His son, B.L. Rice is known for his magnum opus, Epigraphia Carnatica and the Mysore Gazetteer.

Avenue road is today among the busiest roads of Bangalore. If students and academicians frequent it for second hand and rare books, old timers throng the area to shop in their favourite shops, while women in thousands frequent the busy lanes and bylanes around Avenue Road looking for gold and ornaments.

There are scores of shops and establishments which are decades old and they sell a range of products. A stroll down the road is nothing but a walk down memory lane.  

Shahaji and all his sons

Scores of people, including historians and heritage buffs of Bangalore, are aware of the Bangalore’s rather close association with Chatrapathi Shivaji (1627-1680) and his father, Shahaji Bhonsale (1602-1664).

There are Maratha, Adil Shah, English, Dutch and even Mughal  records that speak about the Marathas in the Deccan, including Bangalore, and their wars. We have in earlier posts such as “The little known brother of Shivaji”, “When a language was born in Bangalore”,  “The palace of Shahaji”, “When Marathi displaced Kannada as the language”,  taken you to the history of Bangalore and the domination of the Marathas in and around Bangalore for almost half a century.

But what many do not know is that the Maratha association of Bangalore is not limited to Shahaji and his son Shivaji.

Infact, Bangalore perhaps could be among the handful of cities and provinces that saw all the sons of Shahaji-Sambhaji, Shivaji, Ekoji or Venkoji, Koyaji and Santaji or Santoji- either staying or ruling over Bangalore. Apart from Shahaji and his family, there are other Maratha heroes who bonded with Bangalore and this post is about them.

Shahaji and his two wives, the legendary Jijabai-the first wife and Tukabai, the second wife, lived in Shahaji’s palace in Chickpet for several years. It is in Bangalore that Shahaji ensured that the ten-year-old Shivaji was trained in warfare and statecraft along with his elder brother Sambhaji and younger half-brother Ekoji or Venkoji.

Shahaji was perhaps the first Maratha and definitely among the first in the period to realise the effectiveness of guerilla warfare. He imparted this training to all his sons, including Shivaji who seemed to be fascinated by the magnificent horses that his father reared.

Shivaji saw from close quarters the life and style of  the Bangalore court and came into contact with the people, who told him stories about the Vijayanagar empire which existed a little less than six decades before his birth.    

Shivaji was also married a second time in Bangalore. He took Soyarbai Mohite as his wife on the insistence of his father. Contemporary Maratha records speak of Bangalore being dressed up for the wedding and the couple being taken in a procession on a caparisoned elephant.

It was in Bangalore that Shahaji decided on bifurcating his jagir. He decided to let Sambhaji retain Kolar, he kept Bangalore for himself and allowed Shivaji and Jijabai to return to Pune and govern the Maratha territories from there.         

It should be remembered that the Marathas first made their first foray into Bangalore sometime in 1638 when Shahaji Bhonsale and Ranadullah Khan, both frontline commanders of the Adil Shahis of Bijapur, laid siege to Bangalore. Shahaji married Tukabai in Bangalore sometime in the 1630s.  

The then Adil Shahi Sultan, Muhammad Adil Shah, who succeeded Ibrahim Adil Shah, was not particularly happy about the prospect of another Hindu Kingdom replacing Vijayanagar which had been decimated by a confederation of Muslim states in the war of Talikota or Rakasa Tangadi in 1565.

Kempe Gowda was the ruler of Bangalore and the Bangalore province was attracting attention for its wealth and prosperity. Another province, Sira or Shira near Bangalore and now in Tumkur district was also emerging as a powerful entity. The Wodeyars of Srirangapatna and the Palegars of Chitradurga and Bedanur were also asserting their independence.

The Adil Shah was naturally concerned about these political developments. After the fall of Vijayanagar, his kingdom had extended upto the borders of the once invincible city of Hampi and now his southern most province was being threatened. It was then that Muhammad Adil Shah decided to reign in the Hindu states.

The Adil Shah had a galaxy of outstanding commanders in his service and the best among them were Ranadullah Khan and his protégé Afzal Khan and Shahaji.

All the three marched towards Bangalore. Ranadullah Khan permitted Shahaji to take the honors of subduing Bangalore, while he asked Afzal Khan to subdue Sira. While Shahaji gave an honorable exit to Kempe Gowda, the third, and also allowed him to retain Magadi and Savandurga, Kasturi Rangan, the palegar of Sira was not so lucky. He was lured to the negotiating table under false pretences and killed in cold blood by Afzal Khan.

The Bijapur Sultan gifted Bangalore as a Jagir to Shahaji who in turn began governing the new province which comprised the regions of Doddaballapur, Kolar, Sira, Kanakagiri, Hoskote and surrounding regions.

Shahaji asked his son Sambhaji, the elder brother of Shivaji, to govern Kolar. Unfortunately, Shahaji had little time for Bangalore since he was busy with the frequent military expeditions.

In 1648, Shahaji was called back to Bijapur and imprisoned for a short while. He was released and the jagir of Bangalore restored to him. The Adil Shah forces then attacked Bangalore which was under the command of Shivaji’s elder brother, Sanbhaji (not the Sambhaji who is Shivaji’s son). Sambhaji valiantly defeated the Bijapur contingent.  

However, Shahaji lost interest in Bangalore soon after his release and pitched camp at Kanakagiri. By then, Sambhaji had been slain in the battle to regain Kanakagiri which had revolted against the Adil Shah. After Shahaji's death in 1664, his second wife's son, Venkoji or Ekoji (1626-1687), became the Jagirdar of Bangalore.

Contemporary Maratha accounts portray Ekoji as weak, selfish, and extravagant and one who failed to understand the local conditions. Alarmed over repeated raids of Mughals and wary about Shivaji, his half brother, Ekoji decided to sell off Bangalore and settle down permanently at Tanjavur. This was sometime in 1675.

Shivaji came to know of the step motherly treatment that Ekoji had meted to his beloved Bangalore where he had stayed for two years (1640-1642) and where he had married. He marched against Ekoji and occupied his father’s jagir in 1677 comprising Bangalore, Kolar, Kanakagiri and forced Ekoji to come to the negotiating table.

Ekoji wrote to the Adil Shah Emperor complaining against Shivaji but the Emperor wisely refrained from interfering in what he called a family dispute.   

Shivaji forced Ekoji to sue for peace and he kept Doddaballapur, Chikaballapur and Kolar under his control even as he magnanimously returned Bangalore to Ekoji. He dictated the terms of an agreement that he had arrived with Ekoji whereby he made sure that Ekoji’s wife, Dipa Bai, would receive Bangalore as Choli Bangadi or pin money.

Santoji, another half-brother of Shivaji, was part of  Shivaji’s victorious Deccan campaign. He was subsequently rewarded with the province of Vellore and surrounding areas to rule. Santoji defeated Ekoji in two battles.     

Unfortunately, Bangalore’s gift as Choli Bangadi did not last long. Shivaji died in 1680 and Ekoji in 1687 decided to retire permanently to Tanjore to found the Maratha line of Kings. He entered into a pact with the Wodeyar King, Chikadevaraya, for the sale of Bangalore for Rs, 3 lakhs but before the transaction could be completed, the Mughals under Kasim or Quasim Khan and Shivaji’s son, Sambhaji, marched towards Bangalore. If Quasim Khan came with a large force to Bangalore from Golconda, Sambhaji marched with his dedicated army of Marathas from Ginjee. However, the Mughals beat the Marathas to Bangalore and captured the city. The Mughals held Bangalore for some time, there is confusion on whether our City was under the Mughals for three days or three years,  before selling it to the Wodeyars for Rs. 3 lakhs sometime in 1690. Sambhaji then went back to his stronghold of Ginjee, now in Tamil Nadu.

Coming back to the Marathas in Bangalore, Ekoji is remembered even today for his donation of Medaraninganahalli village for maintaining the Kadu Malleswara Temple in Bangalore. Apart from this structure, there is no other monument connected to the Marathas today in Bangalore.

Shivaji's death and the Mughul conquest of the Bijapur kingdom in 1686 exposed Bangalore and surrounding areas of south Karnataka to the Mughuls. Ekoji arrived at a pact with Chikkadevaraya Wodeyar (1645-1703) to sell Bangalore for Rs. 3 lakh. But before the sale was finalised, Sambhaji, the son of  Shivaji, from Ginji and the Mughals under Aurangazeb (1658-1707), from Golconda, marched towards Bangalore.

Khasim Khan then sold Bangalore to the Wodeyars in 1690 for Rs. three lakhs, while retaining Sira and surrounding areas which became a part of the Mughal province.  

Rajaram (1670-1700), a younger son of Shivaji, stayed in Bangalore around 1690 before he escaped from the perusing Mughals to Ginjee. Decades later, the Marathas under the Peshwas captured Bangalore along with Kolar, Hoskote and other places from the Wodeyar King. The Peshwas in 1770 felt that they had a right over Bangalore, Kolar, Mulabagal, Hoskote and surrounding places as it had been a Jagir of Shahaji. They also felt that the Jagir belonged to them as they had been rightfully conquered first by Shahaji, then by Shivaji and later ruled by Ekoji.

It was left to Hyder Ali to drive out the Marathas from Bangalore in 1773. Hyder and his son Tipu Sultan held Bangalore till Tipu’s death in Srirangapatna on May 4, 1799.

Strangely, even after 1799, the Maratha fascination for Bangalore did not end. Ramachandra Pandurang Tope better known as Tatya Tope (1814-1859), one of the heroes of the first war of Indian Independence, stayed at a temple on Avenue Road near Balepet Circle, Chickpet in Bangalore for some time