BECOMING BANGALORE

What makes a city uniquely itself?Is it its geography history location?Is it its leaders aspirations demographics?Or is it a palpable spirit wrought of a combination of all these that seeps into the soil over centuries and charges the air infecting residents and visitors alike?Two decades of exploring her hometown - and reading writing and talking about it - has convinced Roopa Pai that the last is true: cities are neither born nor made they become.In this collection of evocative essays she trawls the city's history to tease out bits of the Bangalore jigsaw - a scientist's quest for excellence a maharani's foresight an entrepreneur's vision a chief minister's ambition a writer's pride in his language and more - in an effort to trace the genesis of the liberal soul of the metropolis and its ability to offer inclusive creative laid-back spaces amid its frenetic growth. What emerges is a fascinating mosaic that reveals how a little sixteenth-century settlement on a hill became India's most charismatic city.