Bangalore's romantic past is still discernible in the modern city it has become since India's independence. Its equable climate and work culture made it a natural choice for several public sector industries, including telephones, aeronautics, electrical equipment and heavy electricals.

In later decades, when its clean environment attracted electronic industries, it became the country's electronic city. Today Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of India, and a premier dot.com city. It is the home of Infosys and Wipro, and almost every multinational company has its presence here.

The economic boom is evident in the new cityscape - massive, glitzy high-rise buildings have replaced sleepy streets lined with single-storied bungalows with monkey tops and tiled roofs.

Because of its colourful and lively antecedents, and its developmental history, Bangalore is a city of great diversity, offering residents and visitors a range of diversions - clubs and cinema houses, pubs and restaurants, bowling alleys and of course shopping centres.

Bangalore is a great place to buy silk sarees and fine jewellery. Theatre is a flourishing art, with plays in the vernacular as well as English. There is a lively season of classical music, specifically classical Carnatic music as well as regular performances by local and visiting artistes.

Legend has it that Kempe Gowda I saw the strange sight of a hare chasing his dog in the Bangalore area. Convinced it was "Heroic Land", he raised a mud fort there in 1537 AD and called it Bangaluru. Another popular theory is that a Hoysala king (300 years before Kempe Gowda) was offered boiled beans here and he named the spot `Bengal-uru', or the village of boiled beans.

100 years after the founding of Bangalore, the Marathas of Bijapur captured it. In 1687 Bangalore fell to Aurangazeb and for three years it was under the Mughals. It was then sold to the Wodeyars of Mysore for three lakhs of rupees.

This was the beginning of a glorious epoch in the city's history. But after a succession of weak Rajas Bangalore and its surrounds were given to Haider Ali in 1759. Haider Ali and the English engaged in the four Mysore Wars, and Bangalore, being strategically located, was always the target of English attack. To a large extent its subsequent importance was due to its crucial role in these wars.

The years that followed were turbulent. Lord Cornwallis, the Governor General in India had the city captured in 1791 and Bangalore was under English occupation for nearly a year before being handed back to Haider Ali's heir, Tippu Sultan. After his fall in the Fourth Mysore War (1799) it was restored to the old Hindu royal dynasty and became part of the newly carved out Mysore State..

But in 1831 the English resumed the administration of the State, and it became a big cantonment in South India. Thereafter, with people thronging to it for employment the Cantonment developed almost to a city-state. Grand public buildings were built, and beautiful parks, tree-lined roads, reservoirs, recreational centres for the English residents, and educational institutions.

Widespread English education helped bring about a renaissance in Kannada literature. In 1949 the City and the Cantonment areas were amalgamated to form the Corporation of the City of Bangalore comprising an area of 26.7 square miles.