A Bengaluru train ride back in time

It’s a mouthful, but the name of Bengaluru’s main railway station recalls an early 19th century military leader from a village about 480km northwest of the Indian city who fought the British and was hanged for it. Standing under the Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Bengaluru station’s awning on a recent chilly Saturday morning, invoking his name feels apt for a trip down memory lane, the goal being to explore the city’s colonial railway history. A major junction, the station is always swarming. But platform six is relatively calm as I join a small group that has gathered for a day-long train trip, with a walk, hosted by the Bengaluru chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), an NGO with UN consultative status that works to protect India’s natural and cultural heritage through volunteer-run chapters. We board the Bengaluru-Kolar Special, bound for four British-built stations that went to ruin but have been painstakingly restored by Intach. As the train picks up speed it passes through neighbourhoods waking up to the weekend, but quickly the urban sprawl gives way to farmland: stands of swaying marigold and chrysanthemum plants, coconut groves, orchards and grape vines. Intach convenor Meera Iyer uses the time to give a brief history of Bengaluru and sets the scene for the line’s existence. (The NGO runs occasional public tours and private group tours.) The central part of the 81km line was laid as narrow gauge in 1915 for the transport of passengers and goods on a thriving commercial route, says Iyer. It was later expanded to broad gauge and extended to Bengaluru, at one end, and Kolar, at the other. Many of the line’s stations trace their history to around this time but have been neglected. Four years ago, Intach embarked on a campaign to restore four stations in collaboration with South Western Railway (the jurisdictional authority) and with the help of local communities and businesses. We are about to see the results. Dodjala is the first, but the stop here is brief, allowing just enough time for us to get out and realise it is unlike the regular brick and cement stations we have so far passed on the line. A stone facade and a sloped roof are clear indicators of its ancestry. Back in the coach, Iyer passes around photographs of the restoration process. Devanahalli and Avatihalli stations look similar to Dodjala. They are all small, with a little hall that acts as a waiting room, a storage room and a ticket office. A mix of colonial and local traditions, thick, solid stone walls support gabled roofs of Mangalore tiles (a baked-clay type that was introduced in 1860 by German missionaries) laid on wooden rafters held by metal bars, with overhangs resting on stone columns. A stand-out feature is the monkey top, which is commonly found on Bengaluru’s colonial architecture: spiky elements protruding from sloped roofs above windows and elsewhere, probably designed to deter monkeys. The best station is saved for last. It is at Nandi Halt that passengers alight for an ancient temple complex or a hill station once used as a summer retreat by British officers. We leave the train and head into the eponymous village, in the Nandi foothills. At its heart is the Bhoganandishwara complex, a showcase of Dravidian temple architecture. Historians estimate the complex grew in sections, with the innermost dating back to the early 9th century. However, it is the outer parts, built by Hoysala and Vijayanagara kings (11th-17th centuries), that are magnificent. Bhoganandishwara is a vast amalgamation of running pillared verandas, small shrines surrounding the central Shiva sanctum and topped by gopurams (pyramidal structures common to South Indian temples), performance areas, a marriage hall and an enormous sunken public water tank. Almost every surface is adorned with exquisite carvings, embellishments, sculptures of dancing nymphs and panels carved with stories from the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Nandi village is ranged around the temple complex, its streets and alleys packed with houses standing cheek by jowl. A hum rises from reeling machines and activities related to silk-yarn production. It is common to find households here that have been involved in silk production for several generations, some tracing their ancestry back to the time of Tipu Sultan, a late-18th-century ruler who was not only a proponent of sericulture, or silk farming, but also mounted a spirited fight against the British, bringing them almost to their knees. It is this kind of history and heritage that Intach hopes to archive and present in displays at the restored railway stations. We head back to Nandi Halt station. It is a much bigger building than the other three restored stations, rectangular with an arched entry passage flanked by what were probably waiting rooms. The ticket counter is tucked away in a corner and dispenses something of a rarity these days: “Edmondson” rail tickets; old-fashioned, pre-printed tickets named after their inventor, Thomas Edmondson (1792-1851), of Manchester, England. Iyer and her team walk us through the station building, weaving around the handful of regular train passengers, explaining the restoration process, which included the procuring of wood for the rafters and attempts to recreate the mortar used in the initial construction. “We have retained the original materials as much as possible, like the stones and Mangalore tiles,” says Iyer. “There is minimal intervention and changes have been made only where the structural integrity required it.” As we head back down the line, Intach co-convenor Aravind Chandramohan details a few more of the NGO’s plans: “Dodjala station has been made into a gallery space with some railway heritage photos displayed. We are planning a silk museum at Avatihalli station.” A historical interpretation centre is planned for Devanahalli, due to a nearby fort and it being Tipu’s birthplace, and Bengaluru’s first railway museum will one day add to Nandi Halt’s appeal. As the train rumbles back into Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna, it feels as though Intach’s plans represent a fitting use of those spaces.

A Bengaluru train ride back in time

A journey into the colonial past visits four restored railway stations on the Bengaluru-Kolar line