by M.L. Krishnaswami

The old Halladakeri is now renamed Mahaveernagar and all the broken tiled roof houses have been demolished and in their place, modern constructions of two or more storeys have come up. The whole area is inhabited by Rajasthani and Sindhi Merchants and gives an entirely new look. A Jain temple has also come up in the area and during early mornings, one can see worshippers — both men and women in their traditional religious dresses — making a beeline to the temple.

A month or so back, in the early morning hours, a having dropped my wife in the suburban bus stand, I decided to park my car on the eastern wing of Irwin Road, opposite the Wellington Lodge and then proceeded to take a stroll along the stretch of road in between the Suburban Bus Stand on the East and Ashoka Road on the Western side. It is about a kilometre or a little more long and was way back called by a peculiar name “Halladakeri” or a street with lot of pits, I do not know why and how?

This Halladakeri, about 60 years or so ago, was dotted on both sides by old tiled roof houses and some of them nearing dilapidation with broken walls, ramshackled in nature, and with low doorways of wood with very small openings in the walls — an apology for windows also of wood. Most of these houses were inhabited by Brahmins and some of them were occupied by a few other people who sold butter, oil etc.

Towards the Circle near the Mysore Bank and Central Police Station — now called Nehru Circle — there was a Choultry by name ‘Jaggulal Chathra,’ a very big building (single storey) built of thick mud brick walls and with tiled roof, I do not remember exactly. If I am not mistaken, this Choultry belonged to members of the Sindhi Community who were a small minority in Mysore in those days. This Choultry building is still there — unused and unkempt — like an ageing elephant in distress. Let it be. If my memory is correct, the small by-lane housing the Jaggulal Dharmashala — that was its real name — was called ‘Hamsarajagalli’, whatever it means or refers to I do not know.

Apart from the above, the old Halladakeri is a remnant of the past. It was early morning when I strolled through — about 7.30 am — and not many people were on the move. There used to be a Ganeshothsav celebrated in a grand scale for about a fortnight or so and, if I remember correctly, one gentleman by name Murthy was in charge of the arrangements for the festival which included very good music programmes in the evenings by well-known musicians of the day who were specially called from Madras, Andhra and, of course, a few local luminaries. Orchestral music was not much in vogue those days and it was perhaps due to the patrons who lent their ears to classical variety and encouraged it.

The Brahmin houses were mostly occupied by Palace Priests who were held in high esteem by the community. Along the road was living one family which was related to our family by four generations backwards. I remember visiting this family for taking part in some ceremonies in those houses. I also remember one old lady by name Kuppa Chikkamma living there and who happens to be the grandmother of the famous Kannada poet K.S. Narasimhaswamy of Mysore Mallige-fame.

The above are only memorabilia now:

The old Halladakeri is now renamed Mahaveernagar and all the broken tiled roof houses have been demolished and in their place, modern constructions of two or more storeys have come up. The whole area — or practically the whole — is inhabited by Rajasthani and Sindhi Merchants and gives an entirely new look. A Jain temple has also come up and early mornings, one can see worshippers — both men and women in their traditional religious dresses — making a beeline to the temple. The road, small in width — hardly 20 to 25 feet or so — reminds me of the Girgaum Road or Kalbadevi Road, both very busy commercial centres of Bombay, with the only difference, this is more a residential area, with only a few business outlets here and there. Strangely and to my utter surprise, in the midst of all the above developments on either side of the road, I saw the old business establishment of Someshwara Steel Traders run jointly by M/s Somanna and Brother. This is like an oasis in a vast desert. May I say, ‘Hold on, Mr. Somanna’ who is a good friend of mine?

On another day, I took a stroll in a locality enclosed in a quadrilateral shape made up of Hundred Feet Road in the North, Thyagaraja Road on the East, Vanivilasa Road in the South and lastly D. Subbaiah Road on the West. This area is intersected into two parts as Chamundeshwari Road and Narayana Shastri Road. Incidentally, Narayana Shastri Road is named after the grandfather of the famous T.P. Kailasam and a fairly big building belonging to the above Narayana Shastri has since been demolished and a multistorey structure is in place now.

The area between Thyagaraja Road and Soppinakolada Beedhi (the road that runs North at right angles to the K.R. Police Station on V.V. Road) is dotted in the north by two or three Agrahara’s which are endless housing schemes built and gifted by the late Maharaja to needy citizens and these are intact even now with more or less the successors of the original owners in occupation.

Beyond this is the Sunnadakeri which has also maintained its original shape with small houses and shops with independent water and electricity connections. Only Soppinakolada Beedhi (now called Renuka Temple Street) is slowly undergoing change with neat housing complexes coming up in place of old houses.

The stretches between N.S.Road as above and Diwan’s Road from double tank side to Chamaraja Double Road has a cluster of housing appendages, very small in size and with poor ventilation and with a majority of housing units depending on street water taps for their water needs. Just behind the now closed (perhaps) Kiran’s Nursing Home, I saw a group of houses where the womenfolk have to make do with street water taps for washing utensils and clothing, as also bathing their small kids in the open. This is really a miserable sight and reflects poorly on our civic responsibilities. The population in this section is composed of backward class Hindus and Muslims living side by side since generations. The situation above needs redressal urgently.

Muharram is a great festival of the Muslims and a number of pendals used to come up in the area where the deities were kept and worshipped. Even Hindus would participate in this festival and the last day function saw the bon-homie of the two major communities in a large measure.

In the above quadrilateral area the redeeming feature is that Hindus and Muslims are living together for generations and I know this as I was a resident of V.V. Road for a long time. It is heartening to know that there is a small unit manufacturing sandal sticks or agarbathies in this locality and founded by the late M.R. Jattappa, a pioneer in this line and his brand name was ‘Premaleela Agarbatti’, emanating a romantic fragrance to the passers-by all around. This is like a rose flower in the midst of a thorn.

There was also a hair-cutting saloon jointly owned by two brothers by name Shivaram and Govindaraju and this used to be visited by the big-wigs of those days like Professors, Doctors, Lawyers, etc. The major attraction was Shivaram who happened to be the hair dresser of the Palace and who used to talk about his experiences there. This saloon is still there and must have passed on to the third generation now. Half a rupee was the charges for a hair cut and affluent people could shell out a rupee for the same.

Note: My humble suggestion in this connection is that educated and enlightened citizens should abandon the use of their vehicles once in a while and take a walk in the lanes and bylanes of the city, to get a real feel of the development that has taken place over a period of time. This will certainly go a long way in improving the lot of the poor and underprivileged citizens by addressing their problems before the powers that be.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / June 17th, 2014