A virtual treasure trove

A few days ago, the post had carried an article on libraries in Bangalore. Today, we are carrying an article on two little known libraries of Bangalore.

One of the library is called the Muslim Library in located in the downtown of Bangalore Cantonment and it is a little more than pone hundred years old.

The other library is in the United Theosophical College. This is considered to be one of the leading theological libraries in Asia. The library has a built-in area of over 43,000 square feet and the air-conditioned basement houses the Archives.
Let us first start with the Muslim Library.
This institution, which is located in one of the by lanes of Shivajinagar completed a hundred years in existence in 1912. It is located in the busy Veerapillai Street in Shivajinagar and it has one of the best and most comprehensive repository of Urdu and Islamic literature and also rare Urdu literary magazines.

It was initially started in a small building on Cavalry Road, now renamed as Kamaraj Road, before it moved to its present premises. The library was set up thanks to the efforts of  businessmen like Abdur Rauf, Muhammad Abdulaziz, Muhammad Saleh Ansari advocate, and historian Mahmood Khan Mahmood.

Among its early trustees was Mahmood Khan Mahmood, the noted author of history of Tipu Sultan in Urdu called Saltanat-e-Khudadad.

The library was a beehive of activity in pre Independence days and poet Sir Mohammad Iqbal visited it in 1929, writer Syed Sulaiman Nadvi  in 1925, Baba e Urdu Maulvi Abdul Huq in 1937, poet Josh Maleehabadi and poet Jigar Muradabadi in 1942.
The library has nearly 30,000 books and two thirds of them are in Urdu. A majority of Urdu books deal with the holy Quaran and there are innumerable commentaries on it.

Apart from the Quaran, there are excellent books on Urdu plays, satire, short stories, Islamic history, travelogues, theology, health, poetry and criticism. There are also many lexicons, novels and books on the history of freedom struggle.

The pride of the library is rare manuscripts in Arabic and Persian. The oldest manuscript is Jamiat Tazeerat by Hafiz Muhammad Maghribi, a Deccani Urdu manuscript calligraphed by Muhammad Ashraf Budhan 195 years ago. A few letters of Tipu Sultan are part of the collection too.

Another institution with an equally hoary past is the ULC library.  The library houses 75,000 books, 672 periodical titles, 420 microfilms of historical record and 23,023 microfiims which includes the Indian census from 1872.

The Archives preserves the original records and periodicals on the history of missions, churches, microfilm / microfiche during the last two centuries.

Some of the rare books are Martin Luther's Commentary on the Galatians in Latin, printed in Basel in 1523; Bartholomew Ziegenbalg's Grammatica Damulica, Hale, 1716 and the Biblia Damulica by Zie genbalg and Benjamin Schultze, Tranquebar, 1725-28.

The library has a Palm Leaf Collection dating back to about 600 years and they are in Kannada, Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Malayalam on subjects as varied as history, poetry, stotras, puranas and  astrology.

The Quadrilateral Goddesses of Bangalore

Last week, my daughters wore woken up from their afternoon snooze by the sound of drum beats. The beats were intermittent: yet they were sounded in perfect unison. The rhythm of the beats compelled my five-year olds to leave the safety of their house and head towards the place from where a cacophony of sounds was coming.

When we reached the Byresandra Main Road in Jayanagar 3^rd Block, we found that the drums were being sounded as part of a procession of garishly decorated floats which was accompanied by a fairly large crowd of villagers or rather rural folk.

The floats, on closer look, were goddesses but none of them were familiar to us. A query to the man leading the procession elicited the answer.

The float was an annual tribute to Bangalore’s oldest Goddesses-the four quadrilateral sisters-Annamma, Patalamma, Gadagamma and Muthyallamma.

All the four plus two others were being taken around in a procession and while Patalamma was from Elephant Rock Road near South End in Jayanagar, the rest were from different localities.

Anamma had come from Majestic, riding in her chariot as behoves an elder sister-you see all the three mentioned above are her younger sisters. Gadagamma had come from Domlur and  Muthyallamma from Shivajinagar.

All four are Grama Devethes and all of them are considered to be pox  healers. The oldest and perhaps the first among the Grama devathe is Anamma.

Anamma stands on Subedar Chatram Road in Majestic and the huge populace that flows by the temple seems oblivious of the historicity of the temple and the Goddess. Generally considered to be patron Goddess of Bangalore, she was right from the time of Kempe Gowda, the presiding deity of Bangalore.

The temple once stood just off the magnificent Dharmambudhi Tank. This tank was one of the outer tanks of Bangalore built by Kempe Gowda. It had an outlet that carried excess rain water to the inner tank of Siddi Katte, which is today’s City Market. (Kempe Gowda conceived the idea of outer and inner tanks to ensure that excess water from outer tanks flowed into the inner tanks.)

Today, neither Siddi Katte nor Dharmambudhi tank survive. The Siddi Katte is now a bustling locality called City Market and Dharmambudhi tank the Subashnagar bus stand.

Similarly, the Patalamma temple too is bereft of the pristine Kanakanapalya lake which today is named as Lalbagh lake. The Laklbagh lake is now enclosed within the walls of the Lalbagh and the Patalamma temple stands just opposite the Elephant rock in erstwhile Kanakanapalya, now Jayanagar 3^rd Block and Jayanagar 2^nd Block.

Patalamma descended from the sky when she saw the present spot. She got a temple built for herself. The temple survives but even the neighbours are unaware of the history.

The Gadagamma temple is in Dimlur, now known as Domlur. It was once close to Challaghatta tank but the waters of the tank have receded and the temple stands near the better known Chokkanatha Temple.

The temple is surrounded by one of the area’s busiest markets. As far as Muthyallamma goes, she is located near the busy Shivajinagar busstand.

If Muthyalamma is the grama devathe (village deity) of the Cantonment, Patalamma is the presiding deity of Kanakanapalya, Gadagamma of Domlur and Anamma or Anyamma, the grama devathe of the City area.

Interestingly, all the four sisters are well-known in the annals of City’s history for curing all varieties of poxes, including plague. Infact, Muthyalamma's history can be traced to the Great Plague of Bangalore that claimed hundreds of lives.

Thus, these four sisters form the quadrilateral deities of Bangalore and this is the tale I told my daughters. Unfortunately, in the rush to head towards the procession, I forget the camera and, hence, could not take any photographs. The procession was being held to herald the birthday of Patalamma and her sisters had come to Kanakanapalya to wish her.

However, I promised my daughters and myself that I would take photographs of the temples and post it along with the article.     

When Elgin passed into oblivion

Almost an year ago, that is on December 29, 2011, a little bit of Bangalore’s heritage passed into the realms of history. The reel life merged into the real life, finally showing that the reel could only imitate real for some time and not for all times.

The reel of  Elgin Talkies, one of South India’s oldest theatre, finally stopped, albeit permanently.

An iconic theatre, the Elgin situated in the erstwhile Blackpalli area which subsequently became Shivajinagar, was a reminder of the once glorious past of Bangalore. But not anymore. The theatre finally shut shop in 2011 after several decades of showing reel life to people.

Apart from being one of the oldest theatre in south India, Elgin has also the distinction of  being run by the same family for the entire duration of its operation.

The Mudaliar family built the theatre in 1896 and remember this was the year that Luminere brothers came to Bombay (now Mumbai) and demonstrated a reel of silent cinema. Since then, Elgin had remained a part of Bangalore’s priceless heritage, adored by the family that built it, revered by the knowledgble film buffs and cheered on by the audiences that came to feel the first hand experience of one of the oldest buildings of Bangalore.

Four generations of the Mudaliar family took care of the Elgin right from its inception by Veerabhadra Mudaliar. The Elgin remained the same till 1996 when it came to be first renovated. Till then, nothing had changed at Elgin and even time had stood still.

Though the viewers came in droves, the seating arrangement which was put in place in 1896 remained the same for exactly one hundred years. It was only in 1996, that new seating made its presence felt.

However, many other things in the Elgin remained the same. The Simplex manual Projector, which is unique because it has an inbuilt audio system, was still being used. It was installed first in Elgin sometime in 1931. The projector needed constant care and spares were available in Bangalore itself.

When the Elgin closed down after one last hurrah at the box office, the projector was still in running condition.

Like its building, the projector too passed into history. And very much like the Elgin, the projector too had its share of  limelight.    

To Elgin goes the credit of being part of Indian film history when it screened the first Hindi  movie ever made-Alam Ara-in 1932.

The projector has screened itself into celluloid history-showing silent films from 1907 to 1932 and later Hindi classics and potboilers.

Unlike the modern projectors, the Simplex manual needs two men to operate. While one person operates the machine for the show, the other has to roll out the used reels back for the next show.

Even today, residents of  Shivajinagar and scores of old-timers recollect how they paid just 60 paise for a ticket at the stalls and Rs 1.95 for the balcony. The balcony was closed a few years ago but the ticket costed about Rs. 25.

When it closed down, Elgin had four shows.
In 1939, the Elgin was transformed into a cinema theatre from earlier being a talkies. Till them it had catered to audiences for plays and dramas.  It was a real treat to watch a movie here as the many small eateries around the theatre had mouth watering food.

Though away from the Gandhinagar crowd, Elgin managed to make a name for itself.