On the 27th April, 1882, His Highness, Chamaraja Wodeyar, the Maharaja of Mysore, granted 3900 acres of land to the Eurasian and Anglo-Indian Association, Mysore and Coorg, (E&AI), for the establishment of Agricultural Settlements in the Mysore State (now Karnataka State). The Association was then about 170 strong, and is the only settlement in India that European and Eurasians can call their own.
The Village site formed a large circle 1500 feet in diameter with about 25 houses on the circumference and the School, Schoolmaster's quarters, Post Office, Play Ground, and Lawn Tennis Courts in the centre of the circle. Outside the circle there is a place for football and a Cricket ground. A Circulating Book Club is in existence and a Parsonage is being built for the Protestant Church. The Settlement itself lay to the south of a Railway Station, which is on the Madras-Bangalore line, distance 204 from the former and 12 from the latter place.
Till 1980’s the village continued to thrive with no commercialization. IT boom started in India 1990s and with that Bangalore became a center of the IT storm. Karnataka government decided to set up one of the countries technology tech park in this settlement. Soon, the settlement became the home for many multinational IT, BPO & Healthcare, R&D companies like TCS, Accenture, GE, Unilever, GE Medical Systems, SAP, Perot, Dell, Oracle, IBM etc.
Settlement is none other than Whitefield in Bangalore. It is currently an integral part of Bangalore. And it is definitely no longer a sleepy anglo Indian village in the outskirts of Bangalore.
One can still see the remains of the anglo Indian village if one goes to the inner circle area in whitefield. It is a beautiful circle with a huge playground & park in the middle. It has beautiful
old anglo Indian bungalows nicely packed around it. It also has couple of old churches (one of which is built in 1890s) and schools around it. Winston churchil had stayed in one of these bungalows during his visit to India. This is the circle that is referred above in the second paragraph. This place makes an ideal location for a healthy morning jog. Everytime I go there for a jog, i cannot help but wonder the kind of life the anglo indians would have led in their closed set up for almost a century away from all the buzz of city.
The Village site formed a large circle 1500 feet in diameter with about 25 houses on the circumference and the School, Schoolmaster's quarters, Post Office, Play Ground, and Lawn Tennis Courts in the centre of the circle. Outside the circle there is a place for football and a Cricket ground. A Circulating Book Club is in existence and a Parsonage is being built for the Protestant Church. The Settlement itself lay to the south of a Railway Station, which is on the Madras-Bangalore line, distance 204 from the former and 12 from the latter place.
Till 1980’s the village continued to thrive with no commercialization. IT boom started in India 1990s and with that Bangalore became a center of the IT storm. Karnataka government decided to set up one of the countries technology tech park in this settlement. Soon, the settlement became the home for many multinational IT, BPO & Healthcare, R&D companies like TCS, Accenture, GE, Unilever, GE Medical Systems, SAP, Perot, Dell, Oracle, IBM etc.
Settlement is none other than Whitefield in Bangalore. It is currently an integral part of Bangalore. And it is definitely no longer a sleepy anglo Indian village in the outskirts of Bangalore.
One can still see the remains of the anglo Indian village if one goes to the inner circle area in whitefield. It is a beautiful circle with a huge playground & park in the middle. It has beautiful
old anglo Indian bungalows nicely packed around it. It also has couple of old churches (one of which is built in 1890s) and schools around it. Winston churchil had stayed in one of these bungalows during his visit to India. This is the circle that is referred above in the second paragraph. This place makes an ideal location for a healthy morning jog. Everytime I go there for a jog, i cannot help but wonder the kind of life the anglo indians would have led in their closed set up for almost a century away from all the buzz of city.
PS: The Anglo-Indian community in its modern sense is a distinct, small minority community originating in India. They consist of people from mixed British and Indian ancestry whose native language is English.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment