How Bengaluru celebrated Christmas in the ‘80s and ‘90s, a look at bygone days

We gather a few of Bengaluru’s nostalgic Christmas stories, from Nilgiris cake exhibitions to the towering Christmas tree on Brigade Road

The décor was modest, but food was what gave the holiday its flavour. “My mother would go to MG Road and come back with boxes from Koshy’s — nutty bars, rose cookies and other snacks,” says Yamini Atmavilas, a development sector professional and fourth-generation Bengalurean.

Beyond, Christmas used to glow through various corridors of the city. Yamini and her mother, Bhargavi Nagaraja, a former development columnist in the city, speak of the famous Nilgiris cake exhibition and the towering Christmas tree on Brigade Road, followed by an evening at Koshy’s on St Mark’s Road.

These outings were a ritual, with bus rides into town, slow nightly walks through the lit streets and the simple pleasure of being in the city. Even the background score of Bengaluru was different from what it is today, with far less traffic and many more songs of those years drifting out of homes and school corridors.

Anisha VT, a senior engineering manager at an IT firm who has lived in the city since 1985, remembers pop songs on MTV and the odd cable connection, with children sneaking into friends’ houses to watch Alisha Chinai, Bombay Vikings, Colonial Cousins and others on a loop.

Western tracks often arrived via the “popular kids” at school dances, and everyone else went home to chase those songs on Top 10 shows, a shared thrill of discovery Yamini feels is missing now.

Sadly, some of that magic seems to have disappeared as the city has grown.

Sowmya Seetaram-Sagar, who has lived in Bengaluru for nearly 40 years and once worked as a scientist at pharmaceutical and drug discovery companies, talks fondly about the bike rides she and her friends once took through Commercial Street during Christmas.