Today Malleswaram is a bustling hub which is a melange of the old and the new and an intrinsic embodiment of the present-day Bangalore experience. A large modern mall and the typically South Indian street shopping side-by-side, Malleswaram presents to you a quintessential slice of the southern life, modern and age-old.
The olden day suburb now at the heart of the city, Malleswaram still evokes a strong sense of nostalgia and curiosity among Bangaloreans and outsiders alike. Exploring this authentically South Indian Malleshwaram, this walk takes you through delights of south Indian life: in Hindu temples, street shopping for hand-woven flowers and pooja materials, freshly brewed filter coffee and one of Bangalore's best dosas.
TemplesColourful marketsOld BungalowsTraditional short eatsSouth Indian way of life
Back in the day Malleswaram was visualised and built as a suburb, where the blue-collar middle-class stayed, far enough from the central business district of the day, but close enough to take a short ride by horse carriage, or in rare cases by car. As employees of the British government or the Mysore Raj, or researchers and scientists at the IISc, the early inhabitants of Malleswaran tended to be upper-middle class, mostly Brahmins, Bharatanatyam patrons, the influence of which can be seen to this day.
On our walk in this atmospheric hub of city life, as the second oldest suburb in Bangalore we will find the old Malleswaram, and its history and heritage in its temples and markets, its eat streets, the lovely old bungalows that still stand from the olden days. Among the highpoints of the area are the Kadu Mallikarjuna Temple, Dakshinamukha Nandi Teertha Kalyani Kshetra, the CTR tiffin room, Venugopalaswamy Temple, Wood Museum and Sankey Lake. The marketplace is a riot of colours and sounds and scents with vendors hawking everything from silk sarees, to vegetables and fruits and flower to richly brewed coffee.