Bazaar Street

Novaagallva? (Won't you feel pain?) proclaims a poster inside the market at Ulsoor.

Language chow-chow bath.  

The first thing to strike you when you enter the bazaar area of one of the oldest parts of Benglur - Halasuru or Ulsoor, is the number of languages that scream at you from the walls of the sardine can-like packed gallis. Kannada, Tamil, Urdu, Hindi, Telugu, and Malayalam mingle to create a chow-chow bath of twisted tongues. For instance, the newspaper boys sort and distribute thick bundles of newspapers in more than 7 languages!

Not as many languages as on the the Indian Rupee note.  

When you walk into a shop here, the shopkeeper usually takes a few seconds to figure out what language to use. Using a combination of signals like the colour of your skin, the oil in your hair, the saree or shirt you are wearing, etc., he's an expert in the old Benglurean habit of speaking to the customer in his or her language. And if you live in the Bazaar area, you can usually manage to communicate in most languages. 

Each part of the Bazaar area has its own identity. As you go down the Bazaar Street from the Ulsoor Road side (BSNL/Park Hotel), you encounter the Kannada quarter on your left, first. Starting with a church that has service in Kannada. Next to it is a lane that leads you to the Yellamma Temple. However, it is called The Yellamma Koil Street. Not a Devasthana. 

To the right of Old Bazaar Street is the predominantly Tamil section. Here's the Plague Mariamman Temple. Mariamma is the Dravidian small pox goddess (Sitala Devi is the Northern equivalent). Now that small pox has been eradicated, she represents any epidemic. Plague in this case. 

Outside a Tamil medium school near Someshwara Temple (Last pic).

Adjoining the Tamil Quarter is the main market. Standing tall next to the market is a huge mosque of the Muslim quarter. But this is Ulsoor or Halasuru, and here too, the first thing to catch you eyes is the chow-chow bath of languages. Church, Mosque or Temple, the faithful speak many tongues.  

Stumbled upon this. The remains of an anti-terror campaign by Ogilvy, Bangalore.

And across the Bazaar Street on the right, near Old Madras Road is the Marwari and Jain Quarter. The traditional financiers speak the common language everyone here understands -business. 

That's the reason, if you have are looking for things for a steal, head for the Halasuru or Ulsoor Bazaar. You never know what you will find.

 

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