Bangalore Palace

Today, when I reached the palace and saw it from outside, I was in doubt if I have reached the right place as the place looked deserted except for 2 or 3 cars standing outside and there was no name board(Got so much used to directions and nameboards that I have started looking for a nameboard saying "Palace" for a palace too:-)). But then this feeling lasted only until I entered it.

I was in for a surprise when I visited Bangalore Palace today. Little did I know before, that this was where the famous “Chandramukhi” movie starring RajniKanth, Jothika was shot. I will come to this part later.

Palace administrative office phone no is 080-23360818.
The palace is open for visitors on all days except Sundays. The timings are 10 AM to 6 PM.

How did I reach there?
I called up palace administrative office and asked them how can I reach the Palace from Domlur. They were of good help.
Most of the places in Bangalore are like nodes of doubly linked list. Consider alphabets as nodes in the doubly linked list. You can reach the letter “S” from A, traversing through B,C,D,…..P,Q,R or by traversing through Y,X,…U,T from Z.
So there are 3 ways you can reach the Palace from Domlur.
1. Go to Shivaji Nagar bus stand. From there, take a bus that goes towards Yeshwanthpur. Get down at Vasanth Nagar.
2. Go to M.G. Road -> Cunningham Road. Find Chandrikha hotel and from there the palace is of 5 minutes walk. It is near Mount Carmel College.
3. Go to Majestic. From there take a bus towards Vasanth Nagar from platform no. 24.


Among these routes, the first two are shorter. But as I am comfortable and have many buses to reach Majestic by bus no 333. I took bus no.111 from platform no.24 and got down at Mount Carmel College and the palace is 2 mins walk from there.
From Vasanth Nagar, bus no. 137A takes you back to Domlur, but I got down at IndiraNagar.

Total cost of the trip: Rs. 144
Domlur to Majestic - Rs. 10
Majestic to Vasanth Ngr - Rs. 7
Entry fee to Palace - Rs. 100
Vasanth Ngr to IndiraNgr - Rs. 7

A big calendar with photos of Fern Hill Palace in Ooty and a table calendar are given as a complementary gift when you get the entry ticket. The Fern hill palace has now been converted in to a five star hotel.

Once you pay the entry ticket, there are guides appointed in the palace to take you around and give you a brief description about things.

Wodeyars
Wodeyars are considered the real kings of Mysore and Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan created a kingdom of their own and ruled from Srirangapatna.

Wodeyars have three palaces – this Bangalore Palace, the Mysore Palace, and Fern Hill Palace Ooty. This Bangalore Palace was built using Windsor Castle as a model and Mysore Palace was built with Buckingham Palace as model.
The throne in Mysore Palace is said to have ascended from Pandavas, which was then used by King Vikramaditya too and now is with Wodeyars. Even now, during Dasara festival, the current descendant of Wodeyar dynasty sits in it wearing royal clothes. But it is so rich and made of metals that it gets heated up and the King doesn’t sit in it for more than half an hour.

There is a very big dressing mirror in a room whose frames are coated with gold.

Elephant’s legs and head
There is a head of the elephant near the entrance of the palace(inside the palace). It is a real elephant’s head which is preserved using chemicals. The elephant was very wild and killed many people and hence it is said the Wodeyar King ordered his men to kill it. The of lower part the elephant’s legs are cut off to a height of 2 foot and cushions were made and they are fixed at the top of the elephant legs to make stools(which resemble dressing table stool). There is a stool made of bullock’s legs also. All these were treated with chemicals so that they don’t decay.


Weighing machine
I found a weighing machine in the palace. The setup is as: there is a two seater sofa kind of thing made of wood. The person to be weighed should sit on one seat and the other seat contains a weighing instruments which is connected to the first seat. But it is sad to find that this is not working now.

Refrigerator
There is a cupboard made of a different material, coated with wood on the outside. There are many compartments inside it and ice cubes are placed in the top most compartment on one side. This was used like a refrigerator to preserve food materials.


There is a seater(like sofa) made of a material like tiles, which was brought from Spain. Queen’s room is decked with wallpaper from Japan.

There are other things like dressing tables, chairs, lamps, empty perfume bottles, statues and sculptures that are available in any other palace. There are many paintings painted by Raja Ravi Varma and many other painters all over the palace. The most striking thing, here is there are numerous black and white photos of few past generations of Wodeyar Kings. I haven’t found so many photos in any other palace, I have visited so far.

And this is the first palace, where I got to see bathrooms and toilets. There were Western toilets and the Queen’s bathroom was bigger than the King’s. There was a partition between the place where the Western Toilet commode was present and the bathroom.

Chandramukhi movie
Many rooms of the palace was rented out for the shooting of Chandramukhi movie. The rental per day is something around Rs. 1.5 lakhs. The Chandramukhi room is actually the King’s room and from one of the windows, is where Jothika looks in to the dance master’s (Vineeth’s house). The dance master house is actually a small quarters or a guest house for officers coming from outside the state to stay.

I saw the stairs they show in the movie, which leads to Chandramukhi room. In reality, this set of stairs and the room where Malavikha faints and falls are at a distance from Chandramukhi room. And the door(which has all those sacred threads and is opened by a long key) that is shown that leads to Chandramukhi room is a set, and was placed in fron of the original door. Apart from the door, the rooms are real.

On a last note, renovation is going on to preserve the palace in good condition. The maintenance is good and this palace is a must-see if you are in Bangalore or visiting Bangalore!