This former British "watering hole" is strategically located on a sprawling 9.8 acre spread near upmarket M G Road. It has always had to contend with its elite, snooty neighbour the Bangalore Club. Though the Institute boasts of an international standard 100-year-old swimming pool, tennis courts, badminton courts, billiard tables and a reserve corpus of nearly Rs 3 crore, it often loses out to its more peppy neighbour.
But if one man has his way, things are likely to change. The club's president, S Philip Lewis, has vowed to turn the Bowring Institute into one of the liveliest clubs in South India. "We want the club to become more than just a club for people to sit around and play cards," says Lewis.
This has prompted the management to usher in drastic changes . On the agenda are a health club, plush guest rooms, a modern kitchen, conference facilities, a department store and an old age home.
These rapid expansion plans have set the Bangalore Urban Arts Commission fretting. On learning about the proposed renovations, the Commission wrote to the Bowring Institute which is registered as a heritage building. So any renovation or new construction will amount to defacement of a heritage building.
But the management is keen to set the record straight. "The wrong signal has gone out to members that we are going to tamper with the building's design. We are just adding more facilities," says Lewis.
The club's building itself bears an uncanny resemblance to a monastery. It is an unremarkable white, spartan structure with teak windows. But the Institute, started by a band of British intellectuals with the avowed object of "promoting the intellectual and moral improvement of the young men in Bangalore in 1888," soon became infamous for its "un-monastery like activities." The club's bar and active gambling tables have earned it the reputation of being a hangout for "old fogies".
Well-known architect, V Narasimhan, holds a very different opinion from most dyed-in-the wool conservationists. "Let the club pull down the building, it is after all an ugly symbol of our colonial past."
At the end of the day, however, the final decision rests with the club members and their management who have lease rights over the land. J P Unwalla, a long time club member, says, "I don't think these new extensions will take away from the old-world charm of the club."
However, if you scan the club's past diary of events, each year has been tumultuous. To begin with, the club's founders the well-meaning band of British intellectuals were forced to house their literary and scientific institute in rented premises. In those days, they coughed up the princely sum of Rs 20 for the reading room and library and subsisted on a Rs 50 monthly grant from the Mysore government. This did not stop the founders from running into a lot of trouble to acquire permanent premises.
A proposal to locate the institute in the historical Mayo Town Hall fell through at the last minute. Finally, the municipality found a site at the central St Mark's square. Though the building was constructed by 1890, the land was finally given to the institute on a 99-year lease for an annual rental of Rs 30 in August 1958.
The club later became a recreation centre for the allied forces stationed in the city and was ambivalent towards Indians. Like most other Anglo-Indian clubs it also maintained a stern dress code. The discrimination was objected to first at an annual general meeting held on August 1889, where the words "European and native" which appeared in the rulebook were expunged. However, it took a while before Indians were welcome in the club and it was 1953-54 before the first Indian president, S V Subramaniam was elected.
According to a paper prepared by a club member, H E Morrison on the club's history, 1897 was a bad year. The bar was opened for the first time and Morrison quotes: "the members preferred, like the Duke of Clarence, to drown in their favourite wine." But the management kept a rein on Bacchus; the bar closed religiously at 8 pm until the 1900s.
However, the club maintained a lively atmosphere with regular entertainment such as the June Rose balls. Live bands raised funds for various causes like the Lord Mayor of London Relief Fund and the Bangalore War Plane Fund. The institute in fact contributed almost half a lakh to the war coffers. Jumble sales and the Elite Aces band figured often on the club's monthly programmes, but these fun-filled activities had their fallouts.
In 1924, the stern Mysore government withdrew its grant of Rs 50 since the "intellectual side of the Institute had been neglected." The government quite rightly felt the Bowring Institute failed to come under the category of a `literary and scientific institute' any more. In 1944, a proposal was mooted to strike out the word "institute" and change it to club, but was not followed through.
In 1927, in a significant move the women "began to invade the bar room" and a few miffed men demanded a separate bar for themselves. But, this never materialised as Morrison states the "ladies showed they would prove to be an asset and make a positive contribution to brightening up the bar."
The legacy of the intellectuals is the library, with rare books and 18th century titles filling the wooden bookshelves.
The Bowring Institute still retains a faint aura of prestige as the governor remains the club's patron while the chief minister and mayor are the vice-patrons. In the old days, their patron was noless a personage than the Maharaja of Mysore.
In their second phase of renovation, there's an ambitious plan to set up a 300-capacity old age home. An ambulance and medical assistance will be at hand. At the dawn of another century, the institute is still redefining the meaning of being an unusual club.
And as Morrison had stated in his lecture in 1954 "the conflict between old values and new ... is still working itself out in our institute... and when this conflict is finally resolved I am sure the resulting synthesis or compromise will contain all that was best in the old and all that is best in the new..."