Takeoff today

Jisha Surya
First Published : 15 Jun 2010

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: You may be deceived by the name. Bakery Junction doesn’t have any connection to the mouth-watering ‘pedas’ and ‘ladoos’ of Sweet Mahal. Neither is it related to the spicy sandwiches and yummy burgers of Ambrosia.  It might be some metrosexuals who gave the chic name Bakery Junction to the old ‘Rottikkada Mukku’. According to old people living in the locality and city historians, the name Bakery Junction is the Anglical version of ‘Rottikkada Mukku’ (bread shop).
Senior journalist Malayinkeezhu Gopalakrishnan, who is a keen observer of the transformation of the city, said that commuters depended on this ‘rottikkada’ for their tea and snacks. ``Queen’s Bakery at Spencer Junction was considered to be the first bakery in the city. Then, Bakery Junction was known for this small ‘rottikkada’, where bread and tea were sold to people waiting for buses,’’ he said.
 The ‘rottikkada’ functioned beside the road that leads to Valsala Nursing Home, just outside the compound wall of the Reserve Bank. Some residents of the area also believe that a foreigner named Baker lived there and thus it turned to be called Bakery Junction. However, there is no proof to support this.
TRANSFORMATION
The transformation of the place to a busy junction dates back to 1869, precisely with the construction of the Secretariat building. The bricks to build the Secretariat were brought from Chenkalchoola (hence the name). Rest of the city, including the Rottikkada Mukku, grew with the Secretariat as the focal point. All arterial roads were developed during the time of Ayilyam Thirunal, with Secretariat as the destination. ``T. Madhava Rao was the Dewan of Travancore then. The city got a facelift during that period. The gazette of 1869-70 cites Chenkalchoola-Paruthikunnu (Cotton Hill) road as the first road in the city. More roads were developed in and around the Secretariat. Subsequently, the Rottikkada Mukku too developed into a busy junction. Private buses used to be parked on the backyard of the church at Palayam. People waited for buses to places like Malayinkeezhu and Peyad at Rottikkada Mukku,’’ Gopalakrishnan said.
 He said most of the places like Nandavanam, Vanross Junction and the location of the Reserve Bank of India had been paddyfields and coconut groves once. With the junction getting busy, these lands were reclaimed and new buildings cropped up. The building of the Russian Cultural Centre at Vanross Jn was once the office of the state Congress Committee before and for a short term after Independence. Cotton Hill (then Paruthi Kunnu) was the main residential area of the bureaucrats during that period.Vanross, who had been the excise commissioner of Travancore, had lived in the palatial bungalow that was later rechristened Gorky Bhavan.
 According to Kesavan Nair, a retired PWD employee, and wife Krishnamma, who have been living near Bakery Junction for as many as 60 years, Bakery had been a notorious place before the arrival of Reserve Bank and Valsala Nursing Home. ``There was only a small bread shop, a pan shop and a tailor shop. It was the junction formed by five untarred roads. Only two three huts were there,’’ said Kesavan Nair.
MAKEOVER
Again, the credit for the makeover of the Bakery Junction can be attributed to the Secretariat - but not in a positive way. The unending processions and dharnas in front of the Secretariat used to create a bottleneck at the busy Statue Junction.
The N.S. Sreenivasan Committee report in 2002 found a solution to this by suggesting an Inner Ring Road. Bakery Junction Flyover was one of its major components. The first full-length grade separator of the state was finally made a reality after eight long years.
jisha@expressbuzz.com