Monday, July 30, 2018

GHEE CENTER GHEECENTRY IN BANGALORE

Not many in Bangalore would have heard about a place called gheecentry..it is presently taken over by the Khadi udgyog board and comes near a place called Kothur adjacent to Tin Factory on the Old Madras Road.

The history of Gheecentry can be traced to the Second World War when Italian Prisoners they say were brought to Bangalore by Plane and housed in large halls in the area opposite to the Indian Telephone Industries Main gate and now in the hands of Indian Oil Corporation.These halls are not to be seen now possibly demolished in 1980 or so.

As I mentioned some where the key residential settlements of the English in Bangalore was in Bangalore East not far away from this place.

What is this Gheecentry..I came to know when I visited this place was a center where Ghee was produced using Italian prisoners for English use using Milk supplied by local vendors.

As a child I ventured into this place inspite of caution from some local grown-ups who told me that the place was haunted.All that I saw at that time was dilapidated buildings ,large trees and broken glass ..wood ..and pebbles.

It appears to me that these prisoners were brought to this place in chains and made to work hard and any rebellious of these prisoners hanged to death on these large trees which explains the possibility of Ghosts and the rhetoric there-of.With the exit of the English the entire place went into ruins now to be put to use by the Government..

Sunday, July 29, 2018

METRO LINES OF BANGALORE

Metro services comes into the city of Bangalore some two years ago with the first Metro service from Mysore Road station (near Nayandahalli) to Byappanahalli. Metro in Bangalore city as of now is partially underground but most of it above ground.The above passenger route is called the Purple line.

Almost an year after the above service was commenced the Green Line was commissioned which takes one for Yelacherahalli on Kanakapura road to Nagasandra on Tumkur road.

The Purple line and Green line have a common station which is the Kempegowda Station also called Majestic.One can interchange from the Purple Line to Green line and vice-versa at this station.It is slightly confusing but talking to one of the Staff the route to the platform can be obtained.

The Metro in Bangalore like most other cities in the World is used by populace going to work and could be jam packed at peak hours but is still a viable alternative.The Sangolli Rayanna railway station is the City railway station.The purple line travels along this route.


Sangoli Rayanna on whom the Metro station for city railway station is named.

The technology that the Metro uses is fairly advanced.Yellow colour bus bars feed 750volt DC to the motors on the Metro  through brushes that skirt or contact these buses.The greatness of Bangalore Metro is that most of the pilots are very young people with relevant technical qualification who handle the system.I just had a bad experience once with the doors refusing to open for some ten minutes creating anxiety but the alert staff attended to the situation and set it right.The 750V DC is fed at various points by possibly 11 kv AC lines that step down and rectified to DC using thyristors.

The Metro system of Bangalore basically interconnects four highways.The Purple line connects the Old Madras Road to Mysore road  and the Green lines connect the Kanakapura Road to the Tumkur Road. 

Some of the key destinations on the Purple Line are as follows; Byappanahalli,Ulsoor,Mahatma Gandhi road,Vidhana Soudha,KempeGowda,City Railway Station,Vujayanagar to Mysore road.

Some of the key destinations on the Green Line r Nagasandra,Peenya,Yeshwantpur,Malleswaram,
KempeGowda,Chickpet,Lalbagh,Jayanagar,
J P nagar to its final destination.

Travelling few times on the line will customise a person to the system.Most Metro stations are well connected by BMTC bus services.

Extension of metro from Mysore road station to Kengeri starts functioning on 30th august 2021..inaguarated by Hon. Chief Minister Shri. Basavaraj Bommai on 29th August.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

ORIFICE METER AND VENTURI METER IN FLUID MECHANICS

Measurement of flow is a very important part of the study of Fluid Mechanics.There are various kinds of fluids and flows ,but for relatively non-turbulent flows an Orifice Meter or a Venturi meter is used. It is the same principle used in Sphygmo-manometers used by doctors to measure blood pressure.

Orifice meters use deliberately created pressure difference to measure flow. Orifice or a small circular congestion is created within the flow conduit.As flow counters this congestion pressure on the flow side will increase and the pressure after the orifice will decrease and this difference in pressure measured by a Manometer gives an index of flow.The congestion created by a Orifice Meter is high blocking flow itself and in such cases a venturimeter is used. Venturi is some form of two inverted conical structures which creates a pressure difference but at the same time does not inhibit flow.



Pressure drop from the  edge of the cone to the centre of the device is measured to establish flow.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

BANASWADI IN BANGALORE

How this name Banaswadi came upon this small hamlet is a matter of conjecture the word sounds more Marati to me but was a often spoken after village or town of  Bangalore city with an Ayyappan temple somewhere in its midst and various roads criss crossing the sometimes busy area.





Banaswadi can be accessed from Ramamurthy Nagar from where if would be two kilometers and also from Ulsoor lake via Cox town and Cooke town.There is a military garrison in Banaswadi called as  Banaswadi Garrison.




Banaswadi is more known from past times for a Hanuman temple which exists there frequented by many abd a Banyan tree and there is a huge flyover near this place that leads to Ulsoor lake.Banaswadi  has a railway station along the Yeshwantpur corridor of railways and this railway station is increasing in prominence.

Frazer town now known as Pulikeshi Nagar,Cooke Town,Byappanahalli and Ramamurthy Nagar are all neighbouring places of Banaswadi.

WAYANAD NEAR BANGALORE

There is a less known tourist spot near Bangalore, more precisely near Mysore.It might be wrong to say less known as by the day many people are becoming aware of this Tourist destination.




Wayanad till the 18th century was less inhabited and the name Wayanad comes from Wayal-nad which means a land of many feilds.Wayanad has a very ancient history less discussed which links it to the Jain religion..this needs more research but possibly Jain monks took to this place for stay and penance.Wayanad is adjacent to Kodagu or Coorg and many roads link  Kodagu with Wayanad.

How to reach Wayanad? Take the Ooty highway from Mysore that goes through Nanjangud and then into a place called Gundlupet..at the Gundlupet check-post turn right into the Bandipur forest. Some one and a half hour journey from Gundlupet one reaches SultanBattery a key town in Wayanad.

The total travelling time from Bangalore to Wayanad could be some six hours or so.Sultan Battery ,Mananthavady and Kalpetta are the key cities of Wayanad relatively close to each other..there are many tourist spots in Wayanad which are less glorified by general public but none the less formidable.There are many smaller towns in Wayanad too like Vythiri and Panamaram.

WODEYAR / WADIAR THE ROYAL DYNASTY OF MYSORE

The Wodeyars also called the Wadiars are the royal clans based in  Mysore whose geneology encompasses various ethnic segments presently dominated by possibly Rajasthani descent.The growth of the Wodeyars could be traced to the fall of the Vijayanagar Empire in Srirangapattana.

My speculation is that the earliest Wadiars had some links with the more powerful Kolathiri dynasty of Malabar and in principle could be some form of an offshoot. I was planning some time back to dedicate a full fledged Blog to the various aspects of the Wadiar dynasty.

Kindly explore the exact dates but Raja Wodeyar is the founder of this dynasty in the mid seventeenth century based in Srirangapattana who took control of the Srirangapattana fort and conducted the administration there upon and even holding Dasara  processions at the present location of the daria daulat palace.The Dasara processions were imported into the Deccan mainland from the customs of Malabar.Many Wodeyar kings thereafter ruled over this feifdom which must have been a relatively small kingdom but none the less prosperous with agriculture flourishing in the Cauvery river basins.

For nearly forty years upto 1799 the Wodeyars were dethroned from power and confined within the Fort ,some of them as ordinary citizens with limited privileges and others in formal bondage.These forty years saw a transformation from the basic lines on which the Wodeyars conducted themselves by becoming more friendly with the various communities that helped them during their bondage.Note that there was a harlem in Srirangapattana that housed destitute women who belonged to various ethnic groups in the country and the uncertainty surrounding the various English upsurge from time to time made many feel anxious.

In 1799 the kingdom was handed over to the Wodeyars by  Arthur Wellesley to the Wadiar queen and Mummadi Krishnarajendra Wodeyar who was a small boy given the title of King who would operate under the aegis of Dewan Purniah.

Again from 1825 to 1875 the direct rule of the Kingdom was taken control of by the English..and from 1875 to 1947 various Wadeyar Kings were at the helm.The most recent of these Monarchs are Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar who ruled upto 1940 and thereafter by Jayachamarajendra Wadeyar.

The Wodeyar dynasty of Mysore have no doubt left a legacy in this part of the World largely in the fields of Education and their synergy with the English and team work led to harmony on one side and development of unprecedented kind on the other.

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

MANGALORECITY:MANGALORE AS A CITY

It might seem amusing now that in 1982 when I was asked to appear for counselling at present day NIT Suratkal I did not know where it existed and later was told it was in Mangalore also called Mangaluru in the vernacular...my earliest visit to this city was in 1982. Of late I visit the city on Holiday.




Many must be wondering how to reach this place.It is some 350 kilometers from Bangalore on the Arabian Sea coast by bus ..the bus traversing through Kunigal, Hassan and Sakleshpura and would take around 9 hours.Also note the place is accessible through many other points like Madikeri. Mangalore has an Airport which is connected to cities both national and international.There are many private buses that commute between Bangalore and Mangalore.

The State bus stand at Mangalore exists at a place called Lalbagh. Mangalore has typical coastal weather and has heavy rains during Monsoon.The city of  Udupi is some sixty kilometers from Mangalore along the sea coast.Mangalore has many beaches and one of them seen at Panambur on the Mangalore- Udupi highway and is said to be a violent beach with water currents and many are advised not to swim there.

One of the key temples in Mangalore among others is the Mangala Devi temple few kilometers from the city close to a place called Bolar..The name Managaluru is attributed to Mangaladevi Goddess.


  


Mangalore was called possibly Majarur in the past and was a key trading center in association with Elimali the modern day Ezhumala on the Arabian coast and was for many years under the dominion of the Kolathiri kings of Malabar before if fell into the hands of the Ikkeri Nayaks and later into the hands of the Mysore Kingdom. The language Tulu spoken by a large section of the populace has some similarity with the language spoken in Malabar.


What does the city of Mangalore look like...In the past it was a simple fishing village before the Portuguese influence gave it a more westernised colour and tinge possibly in the early decades of the seventeenth century establishing Churches and Educational Institutions.

The basic framework of Mangalore emerged from around a circular road that can be traced even today..the circle formed by Light House Hill Road to Pandeshwar to Mangaladevi to Kankanady and Valencia to the Bijai Church and back to the Hampankatta circle through Jyothi circle.This was the major through fare through which the city breathed since time immemorial and various institutions of significance emerged alongside this circular stretch. Bunder which was the port of ancient times fed economically this "Economic Circle" if one may call it. Within this circle were arterial roads which can be seen even today one of them being the road through Falnir and even the Balmatta road.



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Monday, July 23, 2018

ULSOOR LAKE BANGALORE

I thought of writing something about this lake.....I have mentioned it several times and the modern city of Bangalore as we see today has grown around Ulsoor lake though many may be unaware of it.

Bangalore was originally an agricultural township which needs to be emphasised and large ponds or lakes were dug every two to three kilometres to harvest rain water.The place where Mayo Hall stands today was once a lake.Paddy was extensively cultivated around these lakes which had waterways into the feilds and even conduits from one lake to another to handle water from excessive rain fall.How different the city looks today?

There were hutments close to these lakes where small villages thrived..and near such hutments came temples and with temples came festivals and processions an important component of the heritage of the city. Ulsoor known as Halasuru was one such hotspot. Incidentally the present Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Teresa May visited the temple at Ulsoor during her visit to the Country.It is possible her great ancestors lived close by in places like Cox Town and had some affiliation with the temple.

Ulsoor was an important epicentre of Bangalore owing to the large temple and pond that existed within its confines and was a town of concern.When the Anglicization of Bangalore began in the late 18th century  Ulsoor and its lake became a key sphere of activity with the Ulsoor lake being fenced and being used for aquatic training by the Madras Sappers...and there upon with the passage of time miles and miles of circumference began to be encroached by humanity and a large metropolis as we see today takes shape.

The earliest formal settlements to arise around this lake is Cox town where the English settled and adjacent to it is the Coles Park and Frazer town ,Banaswadi still further and Cooke town..diametrically opposite to which emerged the offices of English administration..the South Parade..which was a Parade ground in South India for English soldier recruits  and other roads like the Infantry road and the Cavalry road and even the Brigade road....note these are all military terms.

Some the areas in the vicinity of the lake in clockwise direction would be Cox town, Ulsoor,Shivajinagar and may be Munireddy Palya.

The lake is well maintained by the Government now  and has a  island in its centre and some of the age old English offices can be seen within its boundaries and two more islands on either side.These three islands make this lake unique.

How to reach Ulsoor Lake?Trinity Circle on M G Road is a point from which the lake is some walking distance.The Ulsoor Gurudwara is adjacent to this lake and Aurobindo Ashram is on the other side.Trinity Metro station is close to this lake.


Wednesday, July 4, 2018