Bengaluru - Tech Museum, Eat Street, Iskcon Kovil [India 2022]

“The Silicon Valley of India” is neither Delhi, Bombay, nor Kolkata, but this South Indian capital of Karnataka. The city is full of skyscrapers, malls and headquarters of tech giants.

Vidhana Souda, the post-colonial state parliament is an absolute beauty of a Neo-Dravidian architecture that combines elements of the medieval Chalukya, Hoysala and Vijayanagar kingdoms of Karnataka with British and Islamic techniques. Cubbon park was a big, well maintained park where locals & visitors find some tranquillity.

Tech Museum was truly mind-blowing. I learnt that elliptical & square gears do work (videos) and can be useful. Kids and adults are able to play with almost all the artefacts, observing how they move and work. These include mechanisms, gears, seatbelt locker, plane wing (Bernoulli)…etc. Difficult concepts like turbulence are demonstrated by live smoke models. A mini tornado is maintained in a chamber. Separate section is allocated for ENTC, where stuff like modern satellite parts and old functioning telephone switchboards are displayed. There was a section on the nuclear energy debate as well.

Thindi Beedi (eat street) was a nice experience as well. Gobi Manchurian (photo): deep fried, saucy mix of chicken, cauliflower and more, is famous in North India. But Bengaluru gives its own twist to it.

Iskcon Temple, a kovil built in Dravidian style, with modern look is maintained by Hare Krishna, a modern bakthi (devotional) movement. There are hundreds of tiles placed one feet apart as a well-defined path throughout the temple. Visitors should stand in each tile and recite a small mantra before moving to the next tile. There are three temples, last of which is pretty grand, where hare krishna followers keep dancing happily (video).