A new book about Bangalore is always cause for celebration. Launching this week is Roopa Pai’s Becoming Bangalore. 

On the occasion, a love-filled chat about the city, with M Shivakumar, Kannada writer and Sudheesh Venkatesh, Managing Editor, Azim Premji Foundation, and Roopa Pai, the author herself. 

About the Book

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.

About the Author

Roopa Pai is a third-generation Bangalorean who has carried on a very public love affair with her city for as long as she can remember. This computer engineer is also one of India’s best-known children’s writers, whose many bestselling books are enjoyed as much by adults as by children.

For over 20 years now, she has also been leading children and adults on heritage walks around her beloved city and state, as part of her work with BangaloreWalks, a company she co-founded. She has recently translated 100 poems of the celebrated Kannada poet K.S. Nisar Ahmed into English; the collection will soon be published as a book.

Roopa refers to her city as Bangalore when she is speaking English and Bengaluru when she is speaking Kannada (and absolutely detests people calling it ​‘Luru’). She is happy calling herself a Bangalorean or Bengalurean, however, in every language.