Across Asia, great cities have seen communities come and go, as the fortunes of states and empires fall and rise. Documenting one such city would be a feat – but Maya Jayapal has done so thrice, with different aspects of Bengaluru being brought to the fore in Bangalore: The Story of a City (1997), Bangalore: Roots and Beyond (2014), and Kaveri: The Journey of a River (2025). Hailing from a Malayali family settled in Tamil Nadu, Jayapal recalled that her first experience of Bengaluru was as a student.
Speaking to The Indian Express, she said, “It was in 1955 when I was around 14 years old… When I came here, I fell in love with Mount Carmel, where I studied for two years. Later, when my husband was posted here in the 1970s, I got interested in its history – mostly the people, who were very friendly, inclusive and accepting. I came back again after my husband retired. Among the cities I have lived in, Mumbai was too fast, Delhi was too aggressive. By then, I got interested in writing, and found that my articles were accepted by the Deccan Herald.”
Jayapal had lived for over a decade in Singapore and Jakarta as well, and they formed the basis for her first books Old Singapore (1992) and Old Jakarta (1993). She had been a part of the Friends of the Museums of Singapore and was trained as a docent to carry out guided tours. The training included archival research, which served her well in her later books.
“But later I noticed that it is the people who make it (the city) – the Chinese who came, the Malays who were there originally, the Indians who came later on… I interviewed many older people which showed me another way of life,” she added.
An opportunity to learn
Jayapal’s journey towards documenting Bengaluru began when Rupa & Co was looking for an author to write about the city. Her name had come up through other authors as someone who wrote about cities, thanks to her prior work on Singapore and Jakarta. Jayapal recalls that while she did not know enough about Bangalore at the time, it was the perfect opportunity to learn more. She said, “I met a whole lot of old Bangaloreans who gave me their ideas about what they loved about the city.”
She added, “The first book was a general history of Bangalore. It followed the pattern which I used for Singapore and Jakarta – who were the original migrants, etc. The second book was about a particular period, the British period. How did they bring in other people? For example, some of the Tamilians who came to Bangalore were brought by the British as gardeners and were the people who are responsible for some of this beautiful city in a way.” Jayapal’s father was in the police service during the British era and was himself also a source of stories from the time.
Homage to father, memoir for grandkids
Her latest book, Kaveri: The Journey of a River, is something of a departure from existing patterns. “It was written partly as a homage to my father. He is one of those who promoted a love of the language without meaning to. He never liked my ambition to be a writer. He was very farsighted and wanted us to be independent and didn’t think you could make money as a writer. He was right in that, but I loved what I was doing… It was a personal memoir in that I also wrote it for my grandchildren, to give them an idea of what my life was like.”
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But even as time chips away at Bengaluru’s history, Jayapal is certain that it still has its place. She said, “I think you need to find what was there so you can see the shadows, the far-reaching influences. Churchill’s life here, or others associated with Bangalore – you need to find the history of a place, whether it remains or not. We should also say what it is like now, but it is the atmosphere that is evocative of a particular time or era, and history is very evocative.”