The Book

Kiran Keswani holds a PhD in urban design. She is Co-founder, Everyday City Lab, an urban design lab which works on everyday life in the city. She is the author of The Making of a Campus: IIM Bangalore, and a recipient of the Homi Bhabha Fellowship 2026–7 for research related to Nature in the City.

Suresh Bhagavatula is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at IIM Bangalore. His research examines how social networks and entrepreneurial scripts drive technology ventures and informal industries. A dedicated ecosystem builder, Suresh has trained several entrepreneurs, family business owners, and startup founders.

The City Beneath the Tree is a richly illustrated narrative which explores the quiet social and sacred life of Bengaluru through its ashwath kattes – the local name for tree-shrine sites. These small public spaces around peepul trees serve as gathering places where people pray, converse, perform rituals, build relationships, and find moments of solace through everyday interactions.

The book is the result of years of on-site research, storytelling, and visual documentation. Drawing upon intensive fieldwork, including 400 interviews with citizens, it shows how both spatial transitions and social capital shape these unmapped spaces.

The authors suggest that the ashwath katte needs to be considered not as an informal arena with no room within planned cities, but rather as a public-space model rooted in the Indian context.

While the book is grounded in urban sociology and cultural research, it is written for the general reader. Its accessible text is profusely supplemented with photographs and illustrations showing the relationship between nature, ideas of piety, and notions of belonging to Bengaluru.

This is a work of reflection sensitising us to places within our own cities that are often hidden in plain sight.