This forest retreat outside Bengaluru expects one thing from you: do nothing

Holidays today come with a checklist. Check in almost anywhere, and you’re handed a card of a hundred-odd things to do, from sunrise yoga and guided hikes to pottery at four and a cocktail class at six. Plenty of us pack our fitness routines along with our swimsuits, too, and find the way to the hotel gym before we’ve found the minibar. Even rest, it seems, has to be scheduled.

So, what exactly do you do at a place whose owners would rather you did nothing? That’s the question I arrive with at Kombukal Bidara, in Gottigehalli village off Kanakapura Road, about an hour’s drive from south Bengaluru. First impressions don’t offer much of an answer. There are trees, a whole lot of them, and boulders lolling between the trunks. The cottages take a second to find, tucked into the slope of the four-acre property. The property is built for slow travel, or at least get a taste of it.

When Narasimha Murthy bought the land in 2008, it was mostly bare; the previous owners had grown ragi on the few flat patches. Narasimha had made his living largely in real estate, but farming was always the pull. He started out in landscaping and was drawn to taking care of the farm the Subhash Palekar way. Palekar, the agriculturist behind Zero Budget Natural Farming, advocates farming without chemical fertilisers, pesticides or purchased inputs. And 57-year-old Narasimha dreamt of building an eco-retreat without the trappings of modern agriculture.  

The catch was that this land wouldn’t hold enough water. So, Narasimha planted indigenous trees instead: kaggali (khair), muthuga (flame of the forest), kakke (Indian laburnum) and raktachandana (red sanders), along with a vast collection of herbs, many with medicinal uses. Any time the family drove out, there were saplings in the boot. The goal, his son Siddharth tells me, was an ecosystem that could eventually look after itself. It more or less does now, fitting for a property right next to the Ragihalli eco-sensitive zone.

The family, originally from Yelachenahalli and Konanakunte in south Bengaluru, had been visiting the area for years, camping in Thurahalli forest every full moon. Once the land was theirs, they just pitched their tents and started bringing in friends. The construction really began about eight years ago.

Down to earth

“We haven’t cut down a single tree to build a structure,” says Siddharth. Anything in the way was moved and replanted, and the buildings sit around the paths the rainwater already took. The result is six cottages, between 500 and 1,000 sq ft each, whose roof tiles came from nearby villages and timber from old Bengaluru houses and most of the bamboo from the farm on the premises. Some walls are cob, an old mix of earth, water and straw that keeps rooms noticeably cooler in summer. Local artisans from nearby villages and the city built the traditional roofs, stonework for the pool, and the reception, and restored antique furniture that found home at the property. Even today, all of it needs minding: the roof tiles tend to shift in the wind and have to be nudged back into place. The one concession to modern life is air-conditioning, which the family held off until last month, when low rainfall and climbing temperatures left them, in Siddharth’s words, with no choice.

Siddharth, now 27, spent almost two decades pursuing professional tennis before coming home to experiment with architecture and interiors. Nobody in the family had any training. “It was just a lot of brainstorming and executing whatever felt right,” he says. This meant plenty of trial and error. Years of hopping between tournament hotels had left him with a wish list: bathrooms with character, things to do in your room, like painting, crochet and pottery, and the family’s paintings and heirlooms out for guests to see. Some of it has even made it to the rooms here.

Every cottage is given a Kannada name in place of a room number and no two rooms are alike. Mine is called Nekaara Goodu, or ‘the weaver’s home’, that leads a guest through a green path, over rocks, and past a little woven gate. Its showpiece is the bed, framed in dark carved wood, with printed cotton curtains in green, red, mustard and indigo all drawn in to meet at the centre. In the corner sits an old-school treadle sewing machine, one of Singer’s earliest models and part of an antiques collection spread across every cottage. The ensuite bathroom has toiletries made in-house, drawing from old Indian beauty rituals: channa atta and ubtan instead of another tiny bottle of hotel shampoo.

Each cottage has its own highlights. Chitra Bandhara has a false ceiling of leather puppets sandwiched in glass. Kumbara Hatti or ‘potter’s home’, is built from sun-dried bricks. Go Saaliga, named for ‘rearing cattle’, has a backyard that opens onto a traditional stove plastered in cow dung, with a drawbridge across to the goshala. Melin Jodi Mane, or ‘upper twin house’, is laid with Athangudi tiles salvaged from an old Chettinad home. And Yellache Katte Madayya Na Hatti, named after the land’s previous owner, wears a country-tile roof with a profile so unusual it took six months to finish. Chitra Bandhara, Nekaara Goodu and Kumbara Hatti sleep two; the other three take a third guest. And yes, pets are welcome, too.

Outside, the community pool pulls a trick. It’s wedged into a pocket of rock and walled in by bamboo, with water pouring down the rock face behind it like a private forest waterfall. It runs off a pipe, as it happens. But from the water, it looks so lovely, you couldn’t care less for its source. There’s a hammock between the pool and the waterfall, plus a steam room and sauna for anyone who likes their downtime on a timer.

Seconds, please

Everything is served at Kombukal Kafe, which you enter through a carved wooden doorframe. Inside, there’s a goldfish pond with a bonsai perched on a stone and a stained-glass window in diamond panes of pink, blue and yellow. After dark, torch-shaped lamps wash the walls red, and a bronze Nataraja dances in his ring of fire beside a brass urli heaped with flowers. The collection keeps growing: a temple chariot from north Karnataka was restored recently, as was a radiogram the family had been trying to revive for more than a decade. “To finally see it working was such a thrill,” Siddharth tells me. The antiques are Narasimha’s, gathered from across India, with most of the furniture from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, so you’re essentially eating inside his scrapbook.

Meals arrive on burnished thalis ringed with little clay bowls, set on jute mats across worn wooden tables. Over my stay, I work through a good chunk of the menu: ragi ambli, a wholesome finger-millet drink, paired with a moringa palya; a delicately spiced banana flower palya; a homestyle stir-fry of tender cluster beans; kosambari, the Karnataka salad of lentils, cucumber, and coconut; brinjal cooked in curd; and a platter of assorted vadas. The mango pickle is made with fruit from the property’s own trees. Dessert is black rice payasa, rich and creamy, and ragi manni, a soft finger-millet pudding.

The food is strictly from Karnataka, served as it is. “Almost anywhere I used to stay at never served the local cuisine,” Siddharth says of his tournament touring years. His mother, Manjula, runs the kitchen and makes nearly everything from scratch, from the cold-pressed oils and sambar powder to the ghee and the atta for the chapatis. At least 40 per cent of the ingredients come off the farm, the rest from nearby farms rather than supermarkets, and the menu shifts with the seasons: mango curry in summer, jackfruit biryani just before the monsoon.

Meals are included in the stay and are vegetarian by design. Not staying over? The Kafe opens to day visitors on weekends, from 10 am to 8 pm.

All in the family

Kombukal is a family operation through and through. Narasimha looks after the landscaping and anything that grows on it, Manjula runs the Kafe, and Siddharth and Mithila, 21, handle the day-to-day running and plan the events. “All the family members are fully devoted to Kombukal now,” he says. Together, they want the property to become a centre for art and culture, a platform for artists and artisans, and an open-air theatre is the first step in that direction.

Some of it is already happening. Kombukal marks the big festivals—Dussehra, Sankranti and Diwali—with music, dance and folk art, and runs workshops in kolam and pottery alongside cooking classes. At the Kafe, there’s a painting corner where you’re encouraged to leave a little colour behind, and boards set out for Aliguli Mane and Pagade, the old Karnataka games of seeds-in-pits and cross-and-dice, for guests to try their hand at. But the real programme here is nothing at all.

The lack of an itinerary means some guests struggle; the family is most surprised by how many people arrive expecting to be kept busy. “People have forgotten to do nothing,” Siddharth says, “Embracing boredom is one of the best ways to be.” His idea of slow living is the old farm rhythm: up with the sun, chores done by hand, lights out after dusk.

I’m as guilty as anyone. A walk turns into a hike, a swim becomes cardio. Yet the best bits of my stay turn out to be the gaps, when nothing at all is on the schedule. Siddharth even keeps score: do absolutely nothing for 48 hours, he offers, and “we might just offer another night of stay on the house”.

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