ABSTRACT
As we drop below the cloud cover, “India’s Silicon Valley” is revealed. Beneath us, surrounded by the rural landscape of the Deccan Plateau and the south Indian state of Karnataka, Bangalore’s familiar landmarks slowly come into view. We swing lower for landing at the soon-to-be-obsolete HAL airport just east of the former colonial cantonment. Hosur Road, and the traffic for which it is infamous, winds southward to Electronics City. Amidst the former British military complexes still occupied by the Indian military and remaining tanks (artificial water bodies), the broad, tree-lined streets of the cantonment are visible east of the old city, or Pettah, and its high-density urban fabric. Punctuating the skyline, the Public Utilities Building and the Visveswarya Tower stand in testament to earlier postcolonial development.
