Srinivasa Coffee works

This is an interview with the owner of Srinivasa Coffee works on D.V.G.road in Basavanagudi, Bangalore. I reproduce here the story of Gandhi Bazaar as told by him:

"Gandhi Bazaar was created 50 years back. I have been here since the beginning. I grew up in the coffee plantations. I knew everything about coffee, so decided to start this business here. We were six brothers and all of us were in this business. I have had this shop selling coffee for 50 years. Our coffee also goes abroad, America, Muscat, Dubai, Singapore, Bombay, Delhi. Our coffee has also gone to Commonwealth games.

There are fewer and fewer of the older generation now. The business is also less. Many people have moved out. Things have changed so much. Good quality of coffee and condiments is not available any more. Previously, D.V.G. road was called Nagassandra road. Earlier, there were only ten shops. Now, it is completely filled with shops and houses.

Every year it is improving more. Also, the Kadlekai Parishe (Groundnut Fair) previously it was only one day or two days, now it is come to four days and Ministers come. All children’s toys are also available now. Previously, village people came. It was a mela. You get things to eat, you get balloons, everything. It begins in the morning and goes on until midnight. It is so congested. Police cannot control anything. In the old days, there would be only 100-200 people at the Parishe. There was a piece of land near the Bull temple (the Basavana devasthanam) where groundnut was grown in the old days. The Kadlekai Parishe happens on the last Monday of Karthika month.

I live in Basavanagudi, near the Bull temple. Now, outsiders have come to live here – Bombay people, Calcutta, Delhi. From everywhere, the people are here, from every State. There are moneylenders, silver business, gold business, cloth business, readymade textiles and so on. There are many from the Jain community. There is a Jain temple and a Jain college here. There are many Mangaloreans here too. The population has increased so much. Some of the Mathas have properties here. They have constructed choultries and they give rooms for rent. Earlier, the Basavanagudi community was only Brahmin community. In Malleswaram, there were only Iyengars.

Everything has become so expensive now, tiffin is more costly, hotel is more costly. When I first started my business, in 1960, I used to pay sixty rupees as rent on D.V.G.road. Now, you have to pay Rs.5,000 or 10,000 to rent a shop here. Earlier, house rents were Rs.20, Rs.30 to Rs.100. According to food rates, all rates have increased. It is become second U.S. here. You can export anything, our flowers are exported, our tulsi is exported. Everything is possible now. It has become a world market."

It was an absolutely special afternoon listening to this story in the midst of people coming in to buy their filter coffee, in the midst of coffee being freshly ground and feel most grateful for having this opportunity to know how life was in Gandhi Bazaar at the very beginning. 

Gandhi Bazaar: Street Vendor Eviction

The Street vendors at Gandhi Bazaar were evicted on Jan 23 and it’s now three weeks since then. There is more than one reason being cited for the Gandhi Bazaar main road being cleared of street vending. An article in the Deccan Chronicle on Jan 25, 2012 says, "The BBMP authorities said there was a demand from the traffic police and members of the public to clear the footpath and the road to ensure smooth movement of pedestrians and vehicles". So, it is the traffic congestion and the inconvenience to the public that seems to have triggered the eviction.

When I spoke to the residents of Basavanagudi, I learnt that the vendors are  now quite arrogant and rude so unlike the way they were in the past. The residents say that the vendors infringe on more urban space than they can manage within. The objection to street vending from the residents was related more to the behaviour of the vendors and the government's objection was related to the traffic congestion that street vending was contributing to.

Some months ago, I had read a paper – Lessons from the Unbuilt Tagore circle underpass by Dr.Vinod Vyasulu, Centre for Budget and Policy Studies. The reason I think about this now is because the underpass construction that started in October 2009 has caused so much traffic congestion and one wonders if the need to evict the street vendors would have arisen if the underpass work had never begun. I reproduce here an excerpt from Dr.Vyasulu’s paper:

“Why did work start before it was clear that land would need to be acquired for the service road? What alternatives were debated within the BBMP before deciding upon this? Why was no attempt made to share information with the residents of the area? Why were no public hearings held? Why now, in the middle of construction are alternatives not being debated?
    There are alternatives.
We could fill up the mess and go back to the old situation. Apart from the BBMP losing face—and money being wasted, this would be the best option as this underpass was never needed. Why cannot this be debated openly?”

There could be several reasons for the traffic congestion, one, the street vending, second, the construction of the underpass, thirdly, the lack of a service road after the commencement of the underpass and perhaps also the parking of vehicles along the Gandhi Bazaar main road.

The Gandhi Bazaar main road on Feb 13, 2012 and the absence of flower sellers outside the Vidyarthi Bhavan 

If you look at the Gandhi Bazaar main road from the Tagore Circle end, you find a continuous row of two-wheelers randomly parked along the footpath and further down, a line of cars parked along the road. There are signs put up by the municipality that confirm that there is “Parking for cars” and “Parking for two-wheelers”. There is organised parking that occupies such a large part of this shopping environment which ought to be dedicated more to pedestrians and less to cars.

While the act of street vending is brought under strict scrutiny by the government, it may also be worthwhile to understand how the traffic works, why it transits through this street and whether the cars that park or transit here have direct linkages to the shopping activity which is the mainstay of this urban space. A thorough study of the users of the cars would tell us if the cars parked here belong to the shoppers who use the street bazaar, to the shop-owners or to the offices located in the vicinity and it could be worked out what percentage of the space can be allocated to whom.

In order to decongest the Gandhi Bazaar main road, we need to ask ourselves what are the causes of the street not functioning properly anymore – the increase in the vendor population, the increase in the resident and shopper population, the lack of enforcement of parking regulations or the unjustified construction of the underpass? Perhaps, we need to prioritise our objectives – is it to provide a better environment for the residents of Basavanagudi, is it so that the street functions efficiently as a transition zone, is it to improve the hygiene conditions in this region or is the objective linked to a decision about an underpass that cannot now be retracted from action.

In the future, to make a Street better, can short-term experiments be carried out to determine the extent of change required? Can these include conducting a meeting of Shopowners, Street vendors and Users of the area to know their views on the day-to-day problems and implementing some of their recommendations? Can we seek comments and suggestions from the citizens of Bangalore, through a market survey? Or, can we have an exhibition of an Urban Planning draft proposal, which would be open to the public inviting their views in a visitors’ book or in a follow-up workshop to be attended by organisations and old residents of Basavanagudi?

An initial Urban Planning Survey at Gandhi Bazaar may ask questions such as: How did Gandhi Bazaar originate? How many street vendors operating here have a legal status? What is the length or extent of the street that makes Gandhi Bazaar? What are the average walking distances for customers? How many people enter Gandhi Bazaar every day? Of these, how many are buyers and how many are in transit going somewhere else? What are the roads that surround the Gandhi Bazaar, what roads connect here? How does this street connect to the neighbourhood it lies within? How does it influence what happens in the localities adjacent to it? What have been the government interventions over the last 20 years at Gandhi Bazaar? What are the views and thoughts of the regular customers of the Gandhi Bazaar? How much of the Urban Street Vendor Policy 2009 has been implemented in the city? How are the Town Vending Committees to be constituted at the city level functioning? Who is responsible for this?

We need to know what works, what does not work and what are the costs involved in making a better street and a better city. There is so much to know before we start to come up with appropriate solutions that solve our infrastructural problems, our livelihood issues and give us urban habitats that match up to the “world class city” that we seem to be wanting in India all the time, without wanting to find out how people live their everyday lives and what the day-to-day needs are.

Related Posts:
The Informal Economy and Urban space
Territoriality in the Indian Bazaar
A Street bazaar and the City
Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar

the Garland makers in the Bazaar

Walking along Gandhi Bazaar in Bangalore, my eyes suddenly stopped at this garland which was swirling in the hands of the flower-seller. Two hands tenderly moving as a silver thread twined around the red flowers and the garland moved itself acquiescently to gather its adornment.

The flower seller was both the craftsman and the vendor. A little distance away, another flower seller was stringing jasmine flowers. And further ahead, there were more flowers and more craftsmen.

a Street Bazaar & the CITY

The changing nature of the spaces and the displays in a Street bazaar in India makes it a complex phenomenon that differs from formal retail environments. In a Street Bazaar, there are patterns of human interaction and movement that are generated only to disappear again in a little while, to be created once more in another way. This blogpost includes a film about a simple day in a bazaar in the city of Bangalore.



In the Gandhi Bazaar in Bangalore, there have been two to three generations of vendors who have been involved with trading activity. They have developed a symbiotic relationship with the generations of families who have lived in the residential neighbourhood of Basavanagudi and have a sense of belonging to the place as much as the residents do. People come to Gandhi Bazaar to buy vegetables, fruits, flowers, banana leaves, silk sarees, bangles and puja items amongst many other household goods. It is a place to experience the culture of the city.

There is a territoriality in the Indian bazaar where there are single unit territories that individual vendors create at the street level and there are multiple unit territories that clusters of vendors generate at the city level. What is interesting is that this spatially delimited control described by Mattias Karrholm in his paper 'Territoriality in Urban spaces' may imply that the concept of neutrality in a public space may be crucial in urban design in the Indian context. Can an Indian street be enclosed between two parallel lines? Where will the cobbler sit? How to accommodate the roadside shrine or the sugarcane juice stall? So, how do we design our streets?

Read about:
Groundnut Fair at Basavanagudi
an Afternoon in Festive Dussehra
Flower sellers: To create, to forget
Bazaar Tour : Gandhi Bazaar

Groundnut Fair in Bangalore city

When we first moved to Bangalore three years ago, we were quite awed by the malls and the glass facade IT buildings lining the road where we lived. We made up our minds not to like the city. This was not a place for us. But, we had to continue to live here. As time passed, we discovered the old, charming parts of the "booming metropolis". It had remnants of what we knew Bangalore once was "the garden city" in South India. There have been small and beautiful places and happenings within the city that have unveiled themselves gradually and finally made us feel like this is a city we like!

This week, I read in the news : “On the last Monday of Karthikamasa (a month in the Hindu Lunar calendar), the traditional Kadlekai Parishe, a two-day annual groundnut (peanut) fair will begin at Basavanagudi (Bull Temple road) and Groundnut growers from many neighbouring towns will be here”

Every year over 200 vendors come to the city of Bangalore offering for sale tonnes of groundnuts and other products such as puffed rice, colourful toys and so on. The entire stretch of Bull Temple road is pedestrianised for these two days, vehicular traffic is reorganised and security arrangements are made for the evenings as the excitement of the fair attracts visitors from all over. 

I change my plans for the day and I’m at the Gandhi Bazaar by the afternoon. It is at the Ramakrishna Math circle that the fair starts. I begin to walk…

I couldn't believe that this was all happening in the heart of Bangalore city... a tradition that had to continue no matter how much the city contemporarised itself.

Read about: 
Peanut festival in Bangalore
Udaipur City
Art in Urban Spaces
Fish market Mumbai


This post is part of the blog carnival 'Carnival of Cities' hosted at Sophie's World. - a carnival about cities from around the world. Do check it out!

Festival of Lights

It was Diwali last week and bazaars all over the city of Bangalore and everywhere in the country were “places” to experience the sanctity and joy that comes with this festival of lights. In a simple way, place means ‘character’ of a space. This is a term that needs to be understood since the design of architecture and city planning are based on experiential learning. As I now write this blogpost about a walk in the bazaar during the Festival of Lights, I think about the meaning of place and its relevance to an understanding of the Indian bazaar.

There are shrines and temples on the way to Gandhi Bazaar that are beautifully decorated with lights of different colour. The pushcart vendor and his business thrive in the shared light and shared festivity. 

Christian Norberg-Schulz mentions George Trakl’s poem Winter evening in his writings on the phenomenology of place. He says it is more than a point in the calendar. In our own context, we try to analyse this. Winter evening – it tells you that it is winter, it tells you that it is evening. Winter evening has two attributes – winter and evening. It conjures images of cold weather, dull and husky air, a sky that has less light than otherwise. Whereas winter is related to time of the year, evening is related to time of day. There is a small phenomenon embedded within a larger phenomenon. Within a city, different places have different numbers of attributes that define its character. Here again, some perceive all the attributes and create their definition of the character of the space. Others perceive a few of the attributes which make up for them another character of the space or the sense of place.

The Plaintain leaves that are being offered for sale on D.V.G. Road at Gandhi Bazaar become the decoration for the footpath as shoppers turn the corner, some to stop and buy the leaves for this auspicious time of the year, others to move onto the street beyond. 

Place is always more than the spaces we design. A place may have collective memory. Its character may be defined from what people remember about their experiences of or within that space. Each person in a city has a set of memories. These add up to make a place what it is. What Gandhi Bazaar is as a place could be defined by the collective memory of the many generations who have lived in Bangalore. 

The streets are made more beautiful by the lights that are up for sale and also the lights that the shopowners have jointly organised making the entry to the shopping experience more special.

Sometimes, an event also has a collective memory. For example, the collective memory of the Commonwealth Games 2010 would comprise of what took place before the start of the games and towards the preparation of it. It could also be the winning of medals from the Indian players. For an event of this nature, the collective memory of the place would necessarily need to be built up from people who are not only living near the stadium, or living in Delhi but people from all over the country. Similarly, the festival of lights builds up memories of the Gandhi Bazaar in our minds in many different ways. 

As years pass by, the Diwali festival is celebrated with new kinds of paper lantern designs coming out each year. The clay diyas or lamps continue to be sold year after year.

If one were to explore the idea of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ - what are the inside and outside spaces in the context of a city? I may enter Bangalore from its outside, from another town, from a highway. I am now inside Bangalore city. In the past, a settlement had sometimes a fort and the walls of the fort determined the inside and the outside. A wall is the element that creates often the inside and the outside, also in a house. It creates an enclosure. What kind of enclosures do we have within our cities? The wall or the boundary. In a house, the wall is the boundary. In a city, the boundary may not be a visual barrier. The boundary may be a river, for example. In Benares, there is river, there are the ghats and there is the town. The ghats are not just a “series of steps’. There is a character, a sense of place. It has also collective memory.
 

There is a gentle rain and shoppers take shelter for a while. Soon the bazaar is alive again with some choosing paper lanterns and others gathering at the Granthige stores to choose what they need for the puja at home.

If you visit D.V.G.Road in the Gandhi Bazaar area during Diwali time, there is also an inside and an outside. One of the streets is covered with arches of lights, there are festoons and lanterns for sale, there are kiosks of popcorn, there is the loudspeaker announcing offers for discount sales. There is a note of welcome in the air as you step into the “inside” of the festive bazaar street with its arched lights. In India, with each festival season, urban spaces take on a different character. In the Bazaar, a sense of place is created with its own meaning for each of us. 

Read about :
Mylapore Temple Bazaar, Chennai
Fish market, Mumbai
Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore
An afternoon in Festive Dussehra

an afternoon in festive Dussehra

It was the red, green and silver festoons glittering in the afternoon light that filled my first few moments at the Gandhi Bazaar in Bangalore. People were choosing their festoons and choosing their flowers. There was such an abundance of both on a street filled with people, with children. Everyone was out shopping for the Dussehra festival.

The festoons swayed this way and that in the gentle breeze. There were the voices I heard of people wanting this colour or that. I went closer to the shop front from across the road from where I had watched until now. There were more than five salesmen to this small shop. It was a day when business would be good and fast, as it was then. More hands were needed as the exchanges happened.

The festival of Dussehra celebrates the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana. It is the day when Rama (the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu) killed the great demon and king of Lanka, Ravana.
It is also on this day that the Warrior Goddess Durga defeated and killed the buffalo demon Mahishasura. There is fasting and there are rituals. People all over the country celebrate the victory of good over evil. The Bazaars of India are a place to experience during the ten-day celebrations that begin with Navarathri and culminate in Dussehra.

With each season and each festival as the year moves on, the bazaar takes on a different meaning. It is interesting to observe how the bazaar in Basavanagudi or bazaar anywhere transforms itself from one avatar to another through the year – for Sankranti or Pongal, for Ugadi or the Kannada new year, for the Varalakshmi puja, for Vinayak chavithi or the Ganesh festival, for the Dasera or Navarathri, for Diwali and so on. And, each festival brings with it a magnificent new collection of goods that bring people in large numbers to the bazaar.

In a Street bazaar, where there are no boundaries, it seems as if space for more vendors and more goods is always possible. However, it is not as democratic as it may appear. The vendors do guard the territories of their selling spaces. Mattias Kärrholm in his paper Territorial Complexity in Public Places defines 'Territoriality' as a spatially delimited control. He suggests that a territory is a bounded area characterised by a certain set of rules or some kind of regular behaviour.

In Gandhi bazaar, there is no clear demarcation between road and footpath. At some parts, the footpath is wider and in some parts, it is narrower. One looks for the EDGE – the distinction between where the street vendor belongs, where the pedestrian walks and where the vehicles drive and one finds it difficult to distinguish between what is road, footpath and urban selling space. Here, as I looked on, there were customers bending over the goods, making their careful selections, as they stood on the footpath. The Edge was along the middle line of the footpath, as it always is during a festival when the shop begins to step outwards to reach out and attract.

I was now looking at a “corner shop” which is one of the best locations a shop can have. The footpath curved around it and as the shop turned the corner, it attracted people from both the streets it sat upon. There was also another Granthige shop nearby on D.V.G.road and it had more than just the festoons. It had just about everything you would need for the puja.

One of the shopkeepers asked if I wanted to come in to take some more pictures. I could if I wanted to, he said. There was brisk sales taking place, there were little items displayed horizontally and vertically in as many possible ways, never enough space to show what there was to sell, there were unending queries from potential customers, there were the several salesmen behind the displays and someone in there had had the time to notice me with a camera and to extend an invitation to be part of it all and not leave without having seen everything there was to see or buy. There was both good salesmanship and goodheartedness in that gesture. It made me stay longer by the shop.

Every shop was brimming with activity. Each one had extended its limitless boundary to a new limit just for the festival week. I had noticed that there were a few policemen. I wondered why they were there. They were at least not policing the territory that was meant to be a public domain and had been usurped for private consumption. If the shopkeeper had extended his shop and if he sold goods that the public wanted so much to buy, his utilisation of the footpath space was justified, it seemed.

Bazaars have not been a part of the Master Plan for a city in India. There is within Urban Planning departments, a category called ‘Markets and Fairs’ which serves the shopping needs of inhabitants in an urban settlement. However, the physical implementation includes a few market buildings that are built and operated by the local municipal authorities. These do not adequately meet the needs of the public and is perhaps the reason why street vending easily finds customers.

I continued to walk onto the Gandhi Bazaar main road. There were so many garlands in any direction one looked. If it weren’t for the sound of the cars and the autorickshaws that bolted into one’s mind, one would have thought that on this day, you were alone on that street, standing in the midst of an art installation with flowers of many colours in that “art in public place” that had been created by flower sellers weaving strings of flowers to make every part of the bazaar that day into a place of visual and aromatic delight.

There was a slight change in the light and in the flow of the air around us and everyone sensed that it was about to rain. The vendors came out with their plastic sheets wherever water needed to be kept away. It started to drizzle and then pour. I stood aside watching the display of dasera dolls through what Bangaloreans call the four o’clock rain.

Read about :
Mylapore Temple Bazaar, Chennai
Fish market, Mumbai
Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore

Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar

There have been recent discussions in Bangalore about pedestrianising the Gandhi Bazaar. There are a few questions that arise : Will pedestrianisation help? Is it a feasible option? Can the vehicular traffic be diverted elsewhere? Will the shopowners who belong to the formal sector find this acceptable? And such issues as : When should the municipal authorities take decisions about a change in urban street vendor policy - including which locations are permissible and which are not; or about which changes in the physical infrastructure can better support the street vendors?

I have tried to look at what needs to be considered before making changes to a bazaar road.

Read the full article published here at Citizen Matters

Flower sellers : To create, to forget

The flower sellers sat at the market from morning until the evening. In their demeanour, there was simplicity and there was quietitude. I was awed by the dexterity of their hands and the kindness of their words as they interacted with their customers, while they continued to string flowers. These were flowers that had come into their lives with the crack of dawn, that would soon be offered at the temple and live there until the next day when their place was taken by another showering of flowers and another beautifully crafted garland. 

I remembered these lines from Rabindranath Tagore’s Fireflies :

“April, like a child

writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers
wipes them away and forgets”

The flower sellers wove in silence one day same as another, even while their creations were born today and gone tomorrow. It had been a silent encounter that I would remember for a long time.

This post is part of the ‘Lonely Planet Blogsherpa Travel Carnival’ which is posted by Camden Luxford at The Brink of Something Else. Do check it out!! The theme is 'Encounters' - those that have been inspiring, memorable or simply bizarre. This is a carnival hosted every two weeks with contributions by Lonely Planet Bloggers from all over the world.

Gandhi Bazaar

This post is part of the Bazaar Tour Series. You can read here about Gandhi Bazaar: Street Vendor Eviction and about Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar.


The Gandhi Bazaar is a part of Basavanagudi, one of the older localities of this IT metropolis. It is a Street Bazaar, so you can get down anywhere along the street and start walking and exploring. On a festival day, such as Sankranti or Pongal (14th January) or Ugadi (first week of April) or Diwali (October or beginning November) Gandhi Bazaar has more lively shopping interactions and is a place to be a part of. On any given day of the year, the Bazaar opens at six in the morning and closes at nine in the evening.

The paths that take you towards the bazaar are territorialized by the informal sector, the paths within the market itself are patterns of human interaction and movement that are generated only to disappear again in a little while, to be created once more in another way. The vendor displays are simple creations that are changing and transforming themselves to attract and to sell better.





Amongst the shops that are very unique to this Bazaar are the Granthige stores i.e. shops that sell Puja items. I stop by at Ashwini Stores at the Vidyarthi Bhavan Circle. Besides all puja items, they also have Ayurvedic items, Dry fruits, Country drugs, Plastic covers, etc.


The other shops to look out for are the ones that sell local Kannadiga dry snacks, such as Holige (which is similar to the Maharashtrian Puran Poli), Jaggery & Peanut balls and Pickles. These often have nameboards that say, ‘Dealers in Condiments, Dry fruits and General Home products’. There is one off the Gandhi Bazaar Main road, on D.V.Gundappa Road.

As you walk along the main Gandhi Bazaar road, you see vendors stringing flowers into garlands with their dexterous hands. The jasmines (mallige), tuberoses, marigolds, asters and roses are coupled with leaves to make garlands for the temple deity or for a wedding ceremony. If you are in this area early morning, i.e. anytime between 5:30am to 10:00am, you can also step into the 'Corporation market', which is on the main road and is primarily a flower market.



There are shops along the Gandhi Bazaar main road that also sell Silk sarees. There is the Kancheepuram Silk Weavers'Co-operative Society shop. There is also the private Kancheepuram Silk showroom with a shopfront that is more modern.


When it is time to eat, there are two places that can be a worthwhile experience at Gandhi Bazaar. One of them is Vidyarthi Bhavan, on the Gandhi Bazaar main road. It was started in 1938 as an eating place that served students. It is known for its Benne (butter) masala dosas. Since this is the most popular item on the menu, you often see the waiter balancing several plates of dosas in his hand. It is not a sight you see anywhere else. From Monday to Thursday, it is open from 6:30am to 11:30am and 2:00-8:00pm. On Saturday & Sunday, it is open from 6:30am to 12noon and 2:30-8:00pm. It is closed on Fridays.


The Brahmins Café is the other very popular eatery here. You can walk to it from Gandhi Bazaar. It is on Rangarao road near Shankar Mutt. The menu lists Idli, Vada, Khara Baath, Kesari Baath and Tea/Coffee. It is open from 7am to 12noon and 4pm to 7pm. It is closed on Sundays. There is also the Kamat Bugle Rock, a great restaurant for a North Karnataka thali, on Bull Temple Road.


Gandhi Bazaar sits on land that has been an important part of Bangalore’s history. In the vicinity is the Bull Temple. Here the Nandi (Bull) actually belongs to a centuries old temple almost 2 km away – the Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple. The book ‘Deccan Traverses – The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain’ by Anuradha Mathur & Dilip da Cunha says “The Nandi Bull is a celebration of the rock outcrop, a sculpted summit enclosed by a pavilion on eight columns and a circumambulatory” It further says “An inscription below the right foreleg of Nandi declares that the waters of the Vrishabhavati originate here. These waters join the Kaveri”.

You wonder if the Gandhi bazaar is a Temple Bazaar, because you realise that it is a bazaar for flowers and a bazaar for puja items. These are two important elements of a Temple bazaar anywhere in India. The Gandhi Bazaar is perhaps different from the Temple bazaar in Tiruvannamalai or the Temple Bazaar in Mylapore, Chennai where the bazaars are streets that lead right upto the Arunachaleswarar temple or the Kapaleeswarar temple respectively. However, from what it sells and from its geography, one could assume that it is a Temple Bazaar that is gradually being penetrated with modern-day consumerism.


How to reach there : It is an area well-known and can be reached by bus or by taxi or by an auto-rickshaw. If you ask a cab-driver or an auto-rickshawdriver to take you to ‘Gandhi Bazaar’, he will bring you there. You will know when you are there as you spot flower garland and banana leaf sellers all over.

More about Gandhi Bazaar:
Gandhi Bazaar: Street vendor Eviction
Pedestrianising Gandhi Bazaar
A Street Bazaar and the City (a film)
An afternoon in Festive Dussehra

Other Bazaars in Bangalore :
How "green" is our Bazaar?
Urban Structure-City Market & Russell Market

Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala