Books about Bengaluru

I’m coming to the end of 4.5 fantastic months in Bengaluru as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar. This was my first time in India, and I did a fair bit of reading, both in advance and while here, to learn about the city. I also did Kannada classes and cultural preparation with a colleague at my university who is from Karnataka; that was invaluable. The following books also helped.

The Bangalore Detectives Club, by Harini Nagendra

I found this delight by searching for “Bangalore” in the catalog of my local public library in the U.S. It follows Kaveri, a young woman in the 1920s who has just moved to Bengaluru from Mysuru following her marriage to a doctor. She loves mathematics and, as you might guess from the title, solving mysteries. I read this book and eventually all three sequels (the last purchased from Sapna Book House after arrival here). I appreciated the use of occasional untranslated Kannada terms (e.g., akka), which helped me practice them and learn a bit more about how they are used in context. (In my experience terms like akka are used here today even in English sentences.) I picked up a lot of other cultural knowledge from these books, including foods (each book includes recipes), how they are combined, and when they are eaten, and a bit about architecture and clothing (though that has changed since the 1920s). I also picked up a bit about the geography of the old part of the city. The best part, though, is the connection to the natural world — the trees, the moon, the weather, they all play a part. The author, it turns out, is an ecologist who grew up in Bengaluru and has lived here most of her life. It shows. When I see a rangoli or a papaya plant, when I drink filter coffee, when I eat lemon rice, when I see the moon, I am reminded of specific moments in these books.

Miss New India, by Bharati Mukherjee

This was another book from my local public library, which I read after the first of the detective books. It too follows a young woman, but she moves to Bengaluru alone, from far away (from Bihar, in the north), in the midst of the tech boom. The author was born in India but lived in Canada and the United States as an adult. The book takes place in India (mostly Bengaluru), but some of the characters have lived in the U.S. It made a nice counterpart, in various ways, to the detective books.

The Unforgiving City, by Vasudhendra

After reading some books in English, I wanted to read a book originally written in Kannada. This brought me to Vasudhendra and this short story collection, translated to English by Mysore Nataraja. This book was not available at my local library or even at the big university library where I work, but I was able to get it via interlibrary loan (thanks, NYU!). It was completely different from the two books above and almost anything else I’ve read. Magical realism is one phrase that comes to mind. Modernism is another. Neither is quite right. Another comparison, for different reasons, would be Charles Dickens — the stories have a strong social consciousness, and they embrace coincidence and improbability. At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found it wonderful in the original sense of the word. The “unforgiving city” of the title is Bengaluru, but some of the stories take place in other parts of Karnataka. I read those too. And now I have picked up a copy of Tejo Tungabhadra, a Vasudhendra novel that I’m looking forward to.

Becoming Bangalore: Stories that Shaped a Hometown, by Roopa Pai

This book I bought after arrival in Bengaluru and read bit by bit from February to May. It’s a collection of newspaper columns Pai wrote for the Bengaluru edition of the Hindustan Times, from 2021 to (I think) 2024. It was published just before I got here and has a wonderful recency to it. Each column is paired with an extra paragraph or two from Pai (new for the book) and some kind of postscript, typically a few letters to the editor from people who read the column. They are arranged by season, so that all the summer columns are together, regardless of the year she wrote them. (Check out the interior of the dust jacket for a beautiful representation of the seasons.)

One thing I loved is that Pai assumes an audience of insiders. If you are reading it, you must be a Bengalurean. From the letters to the editor, we see the audience is a wide one — people write in from all over. Some of the people writing in from Bengaluru have not lived here long. This fits just fine Pai’s conception of who belongs to the city. Her own history in Bengaluru is a long one (like Nagendra, she grew up here), and many of her stories reflect that — they connect to the schools she attended, to neighborhood rivalries, to buildings remembered but gone. But she also shows us five centuries of Bengaluru as a gathering place and crossroads. She shows us how some newcomers became old-timers, how others shaped and were shaped by the city, then left. She teaches her readers about Bengaluru’s multicultural heritage and invites all of us to share in it. It’s a wonderfully generous book, very much worth reading.

Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future, by Harini Nagendra

On the strength of the detective book series mentioned above, I bought Nagendra’s scholarly book about Bengaluru. It did not disappoint, but I also haven’t finished it yet. I put it aside when my stack of scholarly reading related to my own work started to pile up. Still hoping to finish it, though! I would especially recommend this book to anyone with an interest in ecology, cities, or people’s relationship to nature.

Not strictly about Bengaluru: India on a Plate, by Archana Sreenivasan

Officially this book does not belong on this list. It’s about India in general, not Bengaluru. It is a children’s board book celebrating the foods of India, with one for each letter of the alphabet. Our family made it our mission to try every food, and we’re very close to reaching our goal. Many we encountered naturally. We also used Swiggy, a food delivery app, to search for some of the harder-to-find foods. We bought this book in the U.S., and I highly recommend it for anyone teaching kids about India. One thing I particularly appreciated is the attempt to show the diversity of foods in India. Kids growing up in the U.S. might get the impression Indian food is all mango lassis, naan, and chicken tikka masala. This book shows a rich array of food traditions, interconnected with geography, culture, climate, etc. — quite impressive for an alphabet board book!

Not strictly a book: Bengaluru Bengali, by Sawan Dutta

It’s not a book, but I can’t say how I prepared for Bengaluru without mentioning this song. I first learned of Dutta when my Kannada teacher recommended her song on Bisi Bele Bath (also great and Bengaluru-relevant). Her YouTube channel reminds me of the internet’s potential for good, and I don’t say that lightly. The song is catchy and upbeat, and the video features lots of authentic Bengaluru footage. I appreciated this chance to see the city through the eyes of someone arriving here from elsewhere in India. (I did not need a monkey cap, but I’ve mostly been here for the summer. ;))