There is something curious about Mysore. For example, look at its air traffic over the past several months—it’s actually increased even in a pandemic. The number of aircraft movements is certainly not jaw-dropping. About 3,513 a year by March 2021 – an average of 10 flights a day. But even then there was an annual increase of 11 percent in a year when almost everything came to a standstill for several months. If you go back further, the current figures are nothing short of a huge leap as not long ago, the Mysore airport, located south of the city’s iconic Chamundi Hill, was dormant. Things are as delightful as can be in Mysore.
Long-time Mysore-based cardiologist K. Javid Naeem and whose histories regularly appear in the city’s top evenings, admit that his prediction made a decade earlier – with no takers for the local airport – was off the mark. He says this is an indication of how Mysore has developed over the years. More likely, to Bangalore airport at least 200 km away – an indicator of the hassle of driving through treacherous traffic. But now there is no looking back for Mysore, he believes.
However, things may still be calm on the ground. “Even today, at peak hours, I can go from one corner of Mysore to another in a maximum of 20 minutes,” says Naeem. It has been a beloved feature of a place where time has its own elasticity – a green house of elegant old buildings where musical evenings are a big attraction, and still a pensioner’s paradise hoping to retire one day. Is. “Every other field has its own Collect (assembly), dance centers and things like that,” says Vikram Muthanna, managing editor of Mysore star. “Ask any hardcore Mysorean you can and he’ll tell you ‘I’m not too ambitious, I don’t want to make too much money. I still want to take a walk on Chamundi Hill or Karanji Lake in the morning. I want peace at 5.30 in the evening’ I can eat my dosa.
This reverence was suddenly interrupted in late August by two violent crimes – the rape of a college student by a group of fun-loving workers near Chamundi Hill, and separately, a robbery at a jewelery shop, During which a resident was shot. “These two crimes have only exposed the vulnerability of Mysore,” says Naeem. He’s not speaking strictly in terms of the city’s crime graph—which he considers moderate—but the arc that the city has explored over the years. Mysore is definitely on the rise. But with all its inherent contradictions. For more than two decades now, it has lived in the shadow of Bangalore as it never became the booming city predicted by experts. But on other fronts, culture being foremost among them, it was never a second enigma. Rather, it was a proud aristocrat. “I think this was supported by the fact that in the political and popular consciousness, it remained a very important city. This was the unique feature of Mysore,” says author Arun Raman, who worked as an industrialist for many years. Watching the area closely were those who were running factories there.
The paradox extends to that region as well – modern industry in Mysore dates back a century, but that historical growth was not reflected in later years. The economy of Mysore, as the social historian Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi puts it, is still largely dependent on remittances, apart from tourism. “Based on its economic activity alone, the city would not be able to sustain itself,” he says. This has historically been the case as the city has been a center of spending from remote areas such as the agricultural districts of Mandya or Coorg, they believe. Even now, most young people move to Bangalore or beyond for work, while those living elsewhere see Mysore as a place to settle. Not surprisingly, as many Mysoreans will tell you, there has been a lot of speculative investment in housing plots, given that private layouts have proliferated around the city. If there has been a boom in the past several years, it is real estate speculation that has pushed prices out of the reach of city dwellers, complaining of old times.
During the pandemic, Muthanna says, many people have explored Mysore, or rather, rediscovered it from the point of view of working remotely. “Everything is accessible,” he says. Shobhi agrees, “The city has actually become quite attractive for anyone who expects the kind of amenities and consumables they want in a place like Bangalore. Even 10 years ago, you didn’t expect to find all this.” Like restaurants and such. Now, there is also a new sailing club in the backwaters of Krishnaraja Sagar Dam. Also, there are regular weekend getaways—hills, forests, plantations, resorts – As far as Mysore always had the best access.
past forward
Mysore as seen from the iconic Jaganmohan Palace
But here’s the paradox again: Central to that appeal is a return to the past—the region of RK Narayan and Malgudi, so to speak. It is still a manageable city – the cleanest city in India for many years now, according to official rankings. But that management ability is being tested. In an essay a decade ago, Shobhi wrote about how the Malgudi ethos was moving ahead in sepia with the influx of money into speculative real estate investments, driving, as he dubbed it, the ‘new urbanisation’. This is something that every city struggles with, for sure.
“Mysore has always been on the edge, always sat on the edge, but never visited it,” says author and relatively new resident of the ‘City of Palaces’ Lakshmi Palekanda. 18 years stint as a molecular biologist in the US. This is decidedly quieter than the city she grew up in, Coimbatore, which rapidly became a thriving industrial hub. If one wants to liven things up occasionally, a quick change of scene in nearby Bangalore will serve the purpose, especially as a writer of romance novels, quipped Palekanda. She points out that in most other cities, older people are likely to be seated in their homes, crowded with children. “You won’t be able to find them any more. While this is where pensioners will go out for walks, at concerts, for book discussions, etc.” She says that Mysore stands out because of its lush greenery. “Still has its grace. You may be going somewhere on business, where you will suddenly meet an old building among modern structures, which will remind you of your place in history.”
Look at the software sector – Mysore appeared in the mid-zero on the IT map when Infosys set up its training center there. But over the years, the digital economy has been a tough one not many had predicted, given how close it was to Bangalore. This, it can be argued, bodes well for other cities in Karnataka too- it has been the ambition of every government since Y2K to move industry away from Bangalore to other places.
City Vintage Car Rally
“It is strange, but a lot of the manufacturing that comes to Mysore has really gone haywire and failed, the answers to which are not very clear,” says Raman. This, of course, was before the software age. “Indeed, Mysore was a hotbed of industrial sickness, I would say, especially in the 1980s and ’90s. A lot of good companies came to a standstill.” But there was advantage on the other side – it did not see the kind of frenzied growth that strangled Bangalore, nor did Mysore’s special stature allow the city to deteriorate. “I must say, let Mysore remain a very lovely city for a very long time.”
While it remains the old Mysore, change is certainly beginning to overtake it now, he feels. The industrial corridor south of the airport towards Nanjangud is now more or less the continuation that was originally envisioned three decades ago. “There were many challenges,” says Pawan Ranga, head of the Mysore chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry. He says the Boom Town story was largely based on estimates of spillover growth from Bangalore and there was never an overall plan for the region. “Actually, it doesn’t just happen. Mysore has never really seen the benefits of being around Bangalore.” For a city of over a million, it has more than 25 technical institutes and six engineering colleges, yet it could not contain the talent. Now, with an eye on electronics and technology, initiatives are being taken for industry and entrepreneurship, he says. “Historically, electronics manufacturing has been a hub in Mysore. Now the government is promoting this by setting up local ESDM clusters,” says Ranga. “We’ve seen some traction in the last five to six years that we didn’t see in the last few decades.”
If connectivity was a bottleneck before, that’s going to change soon, notes Muthanna. Just as air traffic has picked up, the new 10-lane highway connecting Bangalore should cut travel times dramatically when it opens next year. But the challenge for city planners is to run things in a sustainable manner and not let it ‘go the Bangalore way’. The heritage-versus-development conflict is already visible, and there has been civic activism to protect public spaces and old buildings. “It is bound to happen because there is no clarity on what the legacy is. The city needs a hybrid model that will allow it to retain its individuality while allowing for expansion,” he says.
“Mysore has long been a dumping ground for excess money,” says Muthanna. “Many people living abroad buy some property for nostalgia, thinking that one day they will return to the Mysore in which they lived. And, fortunately for them, every year when they visit Mysore, Look, things haven’t changed much.” But they feel that change is about to come to the city and the government should be ready before it happens. “Not now, maybe not next year. But that will change in the next five years.”
(It appeared in the print edition as “Mysore! My Sore?”)
By Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore
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