Title | : | Becoming Bangalore |
---|---|---|
Author | : | Roopa Pai |
Release | : | 2025-01-17 |
Kind | : | ebook |
Genre | : | Travel in Asia, Books, Travel & Adventure |
Size | : | 17841644 |
What makes a city uniquely itself? Is it its geography, history, location? Is it its leaders, aspirations, demographics? Or is it a palpable spirit, wrought of a combination of all these, that seeps into the soil over centuries, and charges the air, infecting residents and visitors alike? Two decades of exploring her hometown - and reading, writing and talking about it - has convinced Roopa Pai that the last is true: cities are neither born nor made, they become. In this collection of evocative essays, she trawls the city's history to tease out bits of the Bangalore jigsaw - a scientist's quest for excellence, a maharani's foresight, an entrepreneur's vision, a chief minister's ambition, a writer's pride in his language, and more - in an effort to trace the genesis of the liberal soul of the metropolis and its ability to offer inclusive, creative, laid-back spaces amid its frenetic growth. What emerges is a fascinating mosaic that reveals how a little sixteenth-century settlement on a hill became India's most charismatic city. |