Old Poor House Road in Bangalore: An asylum for the British vanquished in 1799 war

Sitting in his box-sized shop where he sells bags and wallets, 60-year-old Ganapati Rao stares blankly at the busy street where his contemporaries have zealously started business for the day. From the outset, his seems to be one of the many forgotten, old-time stores on the Old Poor House (OPH) Road near Commercial Street.Among the bags, however, is a glass shelf full of badges, medals and cloth patches that date back to the British military regiments in the Cantonment. “My father started this store in the 1900s,“ says Ganapati. “We used to tailor uniforms for the British and these are the souvenirs we have saved. Thirty years ago, when the tailoring business started to slump, we moved to selling bags.“
Interestingly, neither Rao nor the many sellers on the busy OPH Road -now Jumma Masjid Road -know what its name stands for. They have no reason to, as the house in question has vanished without a trace as commercialisation took over the entire area.

“After the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798-1799), many Britishers in India were left orphaned. They had lost everything in the war and could not go back to England. So the British administration decided to build asylums and shelter homes across the Madras Presidency , one of which was in the Bangalore Cantonment area,“ said Arun Prasad, an independent researcher on Bengaluru's history and head of Discover Bengaluru. “The road derives its name from this asylum that was initially meant only for British orphans but later started admitting AngloIndians and Indian poor as well.“

Apart from food and shelter, regular doctors were appointed to take care of the inmates. Doctors from the VS Veloo Mudaliar Dispensary in the parallel Dispensary Road are said to have treated people in the shelter.

This area was predominantly occupied by people belonging to lowerincome groups and working-class whites. It was home for tailors, carpenters, masons, domestic helps and moneylenders who served the British army officials and elite. The area is said to have been inhabited by Persian traders and merchants, which explains the dominance of Muslim and Christian population in the area.

The biggest landmark of the area is the majestic Jumma Masjid that was constructed in the early 1800s by Haji Abdul Quddus, an officer in the Mysore state. “The brick-andmortar structure is known for its intricate jaali works and floral motifs.The granite pillars are said to have been bought from Tipu Sultan's pal ace in Srirangapatna,“ said Prasad.Next to the mosque is the Lakshminarasimha Swamy Temple that was built by philanthropist Doddanna Shetty .

The OPH Road was renamed as Jumma Masjid Road sometime in the past decade or two. Interestingly, the area has four mosques, two temples and a church and is said to be the epitome of religious tolerance.“All of us belong to the businessman community here. So why create differences unnecessarily ,“ said 60-year-old Noor Sayed, whose shop selling artificial flowers does not have a name of its own. “It just takes the name of the apparel store next to it. What's in a name, anyway?“