Residential Area In British Era Bangalore, 1890 Photo
An 1800 photo of a residential area in British Era Bangalore. The photo shows a beautiful neighbourhood in the British Era in Bangalore with huge shady trees and wide roads. Also noticeable is an Indian native in the foreground. Under the British, the Europeans were provided huge bungalows in exclusive neighborhoods reserved for Europeans only.
Some of these were the White Towns in Madras and Calcutta and the European Quarter in Bombay. The British lived it up with liveried servants, bungalows, clubs, and so on. Which also included cooks, household cleaning servants, gardeners, and even horsecart drivers, etc. It was no surprise that a long line of Britishers pushed for a posting to India.
After the initial strangeness of the people and place wore off they settled down to their new environment with ease. Bestowed with colonial bungalows that had commodious rooms with vast grounds for gardening. The Englishwoman or the memsahib never had it better notwithstanding the hot and humid climate. And the usual reptiles and insects that invade the home at regular intervals. There were also the punkawallas diligently hand-pulling the punkahs. Click on the photo for better view.
See my post of a punkah French India Colonial Bungalow With Punkah – Old Photo 1870.
Did you know- that in the early years the Englishmen lived inside the forts of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. It is by the early 19th century that they slowly built residential areas outside these forts.
From the collection- Vintage Oleograph Raja Ravi Varma “Laxmi”., Pune Near Mumbai – Old Print 1875., Fishermen’s Catamaran In Madras – Old Postcard 1905