India's Little England - Hosur

My Summer travel tales continue…

From Neyveli, our next stop was at Hosur on the border of Tamilnadu-Karnataka. This is another town which I can keep writing about. This place is home to manufacturing units of Industries like Tata’s Titan, Tanishq(jewels), TVS, Ashok Leyland ,Hindustan motors, TTK Prestige, Caterpillar, Easun-reyrolle and many industries related to manufacturing automobile bodies and automotive spares, bio-tech, pharmaceutical, tissue-culture, granite factories etc.

A place which cannot be classified as a 'laid back' town or an 'hyper-active' town. It takes a middle path. From what I have observed generally, people here have the approach of ‘Work while you work, play while you play’ May be because majority of them have jobs with 9-5 schedules unlike IT companies which work in different time zones that’s if you discount industrial problems like labour union, overtime etc.

Apart from the above Industries this city also earns good revenue through its horticulture and floriculture exports. Hosur soil is very fertile and so ideal to grow vegetables like cabbage,carrot, beetroots, colored bell peppers, tomatoes, cauliflowers etc., Tons of vegetables are exported to other parts of the country and this town also houses TANFLORA.

Tanflora is the largest agri-export company for cut flowers in the world producing nearly millions of cut flowers per annum. They breed, cultivate and export flowers like carnation, lilies, gerbera and the world famous valentine red rose. This variety created by a rose breeder in Holland is patented and cultivated in Hosur . It is a deep red budded rose with long stalk and big leaf. Another rose by name ‘Kohinoor’ which is a baby orange-pink rose is also cultivated here. The main markets for these flowers are Europe, Australia,the middle East and Japan. The valentine rose was patented in 2009 and the exports have been doubled and tripled since then. All these are possible not only because of the fertile soil but also because this place is elevated 3000ft above sea level and thus enjoys a compatible and salubrious climate all round the year. The reason why it is called “India’s Little England”. The flowers grown here travel in refridgerated vans to Bangalore and then airlifted to various countries like Amsterdam, Germany, Abudhabi, Singapore , Australia etc.So next time you are in any of those countries and see these red and pink roses. Remember these roses are made in India's Hosur.

The history of this town is pre-dated to 2000 years. During sangam age it was called ‘Muraasu nadu’ and ruled by king Adhiyamaan( the king who gave gooseberry to tamil poetess Avaiyaar to prolong her life), The Cholas, Rajputs, Nayaks, Hoysalas,British East India during Cornwallis time, Tipusultan and many more have ruled this place.

The above are not the reasons I visit this city, I visit it since my sis stays here in a beautiful colony which has lovely independent houses. It has wonderful townships to reside. I have already written about them but notable is the Titan township built for Titan employees exclusively designed by Charles Correa and land developers in nearby Bangalore have already blueprinted their share in this town.

It has well-organised, disciplined , structured schools like Titan school, TVS academy, Sishya, Siddhartha village school. Here I have to mention about the school which my niece goes to. This CBSE school has excellent infrastructure and teaching methods. The school is set amidst orchards of Mango, chikku, pomegranate, custard apple etc., and you have freely roaming peacocks, ducks and rabbits as companions. The class rooms are under the canopy of trees like in gurukul method. They also have state-of-art class rooms. No exams till 8th standard. The children are free to pursue what they want. The Engineering, Medicine, Management degrees of Hosur come from Adhiyamaan university named after King Adhiyamaan.

An interesting observation I made during my short stay this time was when we visited the purely vegetarian Hotel Arusuvai( 6 taste).The menu had interesting food items apart from the regular varieties. For the first time I saw the tamil version of Paratha called as Parota. I have seen them in the southern parts of Tamilnadu on the roadside eateries though I have never tasted them. Making this parota is an art. These parota called 'Veechu parota' is not rolled with a rolling pin but made by tossing, it elongates with each toss in the air.

The menu read Kutthu parota( shredded paratha), Veechu parota, Idiappam(Rice noodles), Vada curry( a side dish made with vadas). The waiter keyed the orders on what looked like a mobile phone and moved to the next table. Later, I realized it was an Ipad through which he took the order and it was relayed immediately to the central kitchen and food was on our table in just 10 minutes while the waiter was still in the dining area. I have never seen bearer keying orders on a Ipad(or is it Iphone) in all those hotels in Major cities. Have you?

I took the phone from him to click the above image. Is it Iphone? or Ipad?(cos it looked like a phone but It was marked Ipad, not similar to the ones we know.

Other than this, I enjoyed the early morning walks , just a kilometer down my sis’s house led me to the vegetable patches and a kilometer up led me to the bustling central business city under the NH flyover Golden quadrilateral.   Yeah, this National Highway connecting the major metros of India passes through this town. You can have the best of both worlds in this small town.

I have decided to explore this town more during my next visit by visitng all those Historical forts, ancient temples and picturesque places around Hosur. Bangalore is just 15 minutes away from Hosur because of which it is slowly emerging as a satellite town of Bangalore. Many employees of Electronics city and Health city find it convenient to commute from Hosur than stay in Koramangala, HSR or BTM layout( residential areas of Bangalore). It is also recently connected to Bangalore- Mysore road by NICE road but after a night’s stay at Hosur, I moved with my family, sis and niece to Bangalore via NH-7.

National highway 7 from Hosur to Bangalore showcases the dreams of all those entrepreneurial Indians who started their business in a room/garage and now some are listed in Fortune 500. Infosys, Wipro, Biocon, Dr. Devi shetty’s Narayana Hrudayalaya, MTR, Nilgiris( the first supermarket chain of India) and countless MNC’s like GE, Fanuc etc.,

Next week to a fairy tale destination from Bangalore.

Check some pics (courtesy Tanflora)

I have always awed at those beautiful tulip gardens of Amsterdam in pictures but never knew India exported flowers to Amsterdam.
The red roses are 'Tajmahal' which expresses love during valentines and new year and orange-pink are 'Kohinoor'

Small lilies

Cabbage patches