The story of Higginbothams, possibly India’s oldest bookstore still in existence, begins with its founder, Abel Joshua Higginbotham, reportedly sidling into the country through rather nefarious means. “He was a stowaway on a ship from England to India,” says Prathyush Mandar, who is leading Bookmarking BLR, a literary walk by Gully Tours, as we gaze up at the white Palladian-style building on MG Road, which houses the Bengaluru branch of Higginbothams.
While there are conflicting reports of how exactly Higginbothams ended up on that ship, it seems clear that “he did something shady, got thrown out and landed in Madras (now Chennai),” says Prathyush, who goes on to trace how Higginbotham’s first job at the Wesleyan Book Depository led to him becoming a book magnate of sorts, with prominent political and intellectual historical figures including Gandhiji, C Rajagopalachari, Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru visiting the store.
Naresh V Narasimhan, co-founder of the Mod Foundation, which runs BLR Design Centre
| Photo Credit:
Gully Tours
Bookmarking BLR, which is being held in collaboration with the upcoming Bangalore Literature Festival(BLF), is filled with trivia-laced stories, including why the much-loved Koshy’s has so many writers, thinkers and artists coalescing here or that the Tudor-style colonial building which now houses Hard Rock Cafe was once the Bible Society, creator of the first Kannada Bible and the genesis of many of the independent bookstores that fuel the city’s literary culture.
And not just culture but also the city’s identity, feels Vinay Parameshwarappa, the founder of Gully Tours, who designed this walk. “The Bengaluru identity is compassionate, curious, intellectual, accommodating and open-minded, and I think it comes from our love for literature and our literary history.”
Church Street stories
Throwing light on this aspect of the city was the raison d’être of the walk, launched exactly a year ago, as part of the 13th edition of BLF, according to Vinay.
The Bookworm’s new antiquarian space
| Photo Credit:
Gully Tours
He did not have to look beyond Church Street and MG Road for where they would do the walk, “since there are a bunch of things going on here,” says Vinay, adding that the first walk, back in 2024, also included interactions with Bengaluru-based writers such as Ramachandra Guha and Anita Nair. “We have such a great literary circle. Kannada writers have won the most number of Jnanpith Awards, outside of those who write in Hindi.”
Vinay acknowledges that no one locality can lay claim to owning the State’s or indeed the city’s literary legacy. ”It is also DVG Road, Basavanagudi and, of course, places outside Bengaluru like Dharwad,” he says. But MG Road and Church Street are definitely places that one associates with books, not only because of the sheer number of book stores in the area, but also other institutions related to the written word. For instance, as part of the walk, we also visit BLR Design Centre’s public reference library and archive, BLR Reads, home to “almost every book on Bengaluru,” says architect and urban designer Naresh V Narasimhan, co-founder of the Mod Foundation, which runs BLR Design Centre.
Among the many interesting things about Bengaluru, he says, is that it is one of the oldest cities in India, close to 500 years old, which makes it even “older than Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai as an urban centre.” It has also, he adds, been a city of science and innovation for a long time, making it a perfect setting, at least in part, for a new speculative fiction graphic novel, Matter End. The novel, adapted from a story by Dr Gregory Benford and co-created by Naresh and comic artist Sunando C, “begins at the Bangalore airport,” says Naresh, who then goes on to expand on the premise of the novel before formally launching it as part of the walk.
Koshy’s has so many writers, thinkers and artists coalescing here
| Photo Credit:
Gully Tours
Book town
We leave the Mod Foundation, graphic novel in hand, and then amble down Church Street, continuing to make several more pit stops along the way even as Prathyush draws connections with these places to the larger literary history of the city. The walk ends with visits to two iconic independent book stores in the city: Mayi Gowda’s Blossom Book House, which started off in 1999 as a small footpath store and now has three stores on Church Street, and The Bookworm, founded by Krishna Gowda, whose latest addition is a beautiful antiquarian space, filled with rare and antique books.
“At the core of it, they love their books and they love their business,” says Prathyush, as we finish the walk on the roof of Bookworm with cups of steaming coffee. “You have lived through the literary vein of Bangalore, all the stories that pump blood through them. These are the guys keeping that culture alive.”
Srikrishna Ramamoorthy, one of the founders of BLF, must agree. “There is so much of book history to the city, and we thought it would be nice to showcase some of it in the run-up to the festival, as a way of engaging with our community of readers and book-lovers,” he explains, pointing out that BLF is very much a city literary festival, with 80-90 % of the audience being people from the city, unlike many other festivals, which are destination festivals. “We are a continuity of the literary tradition that exists in the city, not just of bookstores and book cafes, but also of book clubs,” he says.
Children at a previous edition of Bengaluru
| Photo Credit:
k BHAGYA PRAKASH
The literature festival, which will have writers like Banu Mushtaq, Deepa Bhasthi, Amish Tripathi, Shashi Tharoor, Chetan Bhagat, Anuradha Roy and Clare Mackintosh at it this year, is “just a small cog in the larger landscape and canvas of our literary history. We are a very large reading city and that really explains the numbers that show up at the festival.”
A view of old watch tower built inside Freedom Park, Old Bangalore Central Jail, in Bangalore
| Photo Credit:
MURALI KUMAR K
This year, for the first time in BLF’s 14-year-long history, the festival is being held at the iconic Freedom Park, instead of in a hotel. Having this “privately-enabled public festival” in a truly inclusive space is “how it should have been in the first place. It has taken us some time to get there, but I’m glad we have,” says Srikrishna.
While Freedom Park is largely associated with protests, according to him, it is also a fabulous, large public space, which, unlike a hotel, is not intimidating, making the festival truly inclusive. “It is a large expanse, which means that there is just a lot of space for people to mill around and experience the festival, not just by listening to sessions and possibly meeting with writers, but also just soaking in the ambience and enjoying being at the festival,” he says.
The 14th edition of the Bengaluru Literature Festival will be held at Freedom Park, Bengaluru on December 6 and 7. To know more or register, log into bangaloreliteraturefestival.org.
