The
Question: Is Bangalore Dead? Is she Dying? Can she be resuscitated? Or will
she just become a Comic Strip?!!
The quiet, peaceful 'Pensioner's Paradise' , 'Garden City' and haven to many a 'good old
days' memory, has blasted into a myriad of cacophony of unintelligible
sounds and sights. Gone are those pretty 'Circles', gone are the road
side footpath gardens that lightened the way and prevented misuse of
the payments as a urinal. Bangalore, once a Military Cantonment, boasted to
all and sundry in India and the World that it was one of the best
cities, the prettiest and healthiest. Now, one remembers the old song
with refrains like 'Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away'! Very
ironical, that this Military piece of history has succumbed to the
pressure of a non-planned and erratic phase of handling the
metamorphosis of a growing city, into one of a dying city, just an ugly
dustbin. There is no more charm in Bangalore anymore. It's just rush, rush and
rush everyday and everywhere.
There are many leaps in the number of
ailments that have hit Bangalore in the recent decades, viral fevers,
heart & lung disease, mental illness, suicides, drug OD's,
diabetes, you name it, you've got it coming. The City 'implosion' and letting
in of 'expansionists' has increased the incidents of crime, road accidents,
murders, rapes and all that one can find in the B-movies of the US of A!
Right through 2000 till date (12th December, 2004), there has been a rush to lay foundation
stones for 'fly-overs' over bridges, gradients, under-bridges, and so
on. All in the name of 'traffic congestion' and 'city development'.
Well, one might be right, especially when figures are given that 600
vehicles are added to the roads of Bangalore every day!! A little hard to swallow, but
then, 'those in power' are seldom wrong when it goes against the grain.
Very good idea (and idealistic dream) to allow traffic to 'just fly
over from one end of the city to the other' as is often spoken about by
those in whose hands the planning and future of the City of Bangalore lies. Sad to say this planning has been
so short-sighted that even a child would be able to point it out. Logic
and common sense have been thrown out of the windows, and because of
the 'circle of power', lot was and is done to 'kill' the City of Bangalore. Yes, very harsh words, but it is being
literally murdered.
One is not being 'negative' without reason. It is from repeated
assaults on the city of Bangalore that conclusions can be drawn by anyone
and everyone. Go into the street, ask any person what she or he thinks
about the future of the City of Bangalore, and you will get the 'pulse' of the
city. Don't be surprised if you get beaten up by the person because of
frustration and the helplessness to save the dying city.
Ok, let's put it this way, let's be broad-minded. Bangalore has to be modernised, and so all the
'old' things must go. Let's not hang on to the past, it has no place in
the future (that seems to be the present trend in Bangalore), for
example, old bungalows should be brought down, they are too hard to
manage, and the roof leaks and there is no water for the plants in the
garden, and there are not enough rooms for the residents, tax is too
high for the person staying to pay, and so on and so forth. Yes, Plenty
of genuine excuses to bring the buildings down. Bringing them down is
so easy, a handful of workers with crowbars, and within a few hours the
past is eradicated.
- Now that it is flattened. What
next? Simple. Just remove all the trees as the ‘roots may lie under the
building’, and more space is needed for ‘car parking’ (whose?) and the
'electric transformer'! A single storied building that housed the
maximum, a dozen people, will now be replaced by a multistoried
building which could house 300 people if it is an office to be built or
about 10 to 15 flats, depending on the area of the compound available.
Now, would you not call that economics-in-action, multiplication of
assets?
- Very good! Then what next? What
does one do, what does everyone do? Drill a bore-well for water, and
tap the natural resource that is becoming so scarce. Nothing
surprising, going down 500 to 800 feet is quite common.
- What next? The plan of the
building is made, 'sanctioned', and flats or offices 'sold', and then
the 'diggers' move in. Very good, the latest designs are presented, the
new materials used, faster curing, faster building. Once the building
has come up, there are provisions for the 'parking' of the owners'
vehicles, and a large red board (normally) is put up at the gate,
'Visitors Vehicles Not allowed inside'.
- Now starts the real fun. Where
does the visitor park? Answer: Usually in
front of someone's gate, or the closest to the building without
checking if they make an inconvenience to the owner of that property.
(Good Answer, very interesting!) People just take it for granted that
it is their right to park on any road in any position, sometimes on any
side!
Bye-laws for buildings do not
stipulate that the builders have to provide parking space for
'visitors', so no provision is made, thus forcing the vehicles onto the
usually narrow roads that were once a quiet side lane of the
'pensioner's paradise', where a horse drawn carriage or a hand-drawn
riksha would be more than enough to spread over the road.
Question:
What's happening to our ‘good old
days’ Bangalore?
Now, the Answer to this
has been converted into:
(a) A lane for fast moving vehicles,
(b) Parking of all types of vehicular
traffic, and we have new cars (earlier there were only Morris 8’s,
Ambassadors, and FIAT’s) that are quite wide and so take up lots of
space, these drivers tend to park their vehicles against the gate of
the house in front of which they park,
(c) Digging up for water pipes
(b) Digging up for telephone cables
(e) Digging up for electric cables
(f) Digging up
for communication cables
(g) Re-digging up any of the previous
'digging' ups for repairs, relaying or upgrading, etc., the excuses are
plenty and accountability is "zero". One is quite impressed in seeing
'ditch witches' drilling from one side of the road to the other, of
course then what damage the drill does to what is underground nobody
really knows, nobody really cares till some poor resident suddenly
realizes that he or she has no water, electricity, or telephone because
of some damage!! Who can we blame, who can we go and claim damages
from? Is anyone really listening? Is anyone really taking
responsibility and saying 'the buck stops here!'.
(h) Ah! then comes the famous 'pot
holes', (now there is a group doing a 'scientific' study on pot holes
and how and what to fill them with before the next showers or election).
(i) Dustbins that
over flow because so many people are living where only a few people
lived before.
Planning for the future does not come ready made with any text book; it
is just trial and error or is
it really more error than trial?
(j) Now the fun really begins, 'One-ways'!!!, the roads become so,
without reason, or
because some 'traffic
specialist' decides so (we have so many of them suddenly popping
up and claiming to be so), and the drama starts or continues which ever
side you are on - Observing a 'new direction' forced on roads.
Anticipation of cross-town traffic, diversions to arrest the immediate
foul-ups, only vehicles need to be addressed, forget about the
pedestrians, they really do not matter, they are not any priority,
their lives don't really matter, after all they cannot be rich as they
do not own vehicles? If one sits in a car, one is treated differently
than one on a motorcycle or scooter is treated differently than one who
walks on the streets. Let the person who is used to catching or chasing
buses walk a little further and be more inconvenienced, and a risk to
chain-snatching, being run over by the ever moving ‘free-left’ traffic.
Earlier we had small circles that vehicles used to go around, now they
are physically removed in 99% of the cases, and even bigger circles are
created, now you simply go around the town!!. Very simple, traffic does
not get jammed, the roads get more space (reminds one of the movie
'Ben-Hur!' seeing the way traffic spurts up or down Richmond Road!),
more gas is used, fares increased because of distance increased, bus
routes are so circumnavigational that they never really take you to
where you want to go (it kind of reminds me of the words of the Eagles’
song ‘Hotel California’, you can always enter, but you can never
leave!) or just like one of Alice in Wonderland’s journeys through the
labyrinth, anytime expecting to meet the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar,
the Dormouse, the White Rabbit, the Duchess, the Gryphon, the Mock
Turtle, the Queen with her 'off with his head', the more I think
of it, Bangalore is developing real-life characters from Lewis
Carroll's book!!.
And so, life goes on for the poor
Bangalorean. Compromise, compromise and more compromise, till something
gives or some ‘big’ shot gets his or her royal personage ruffled by
bumps, humps and dumps and even not getting to where they want to be on
time.
One-ways
are useful, and they become very efficient when properly planned
taking into consideration all aspects, through city traffic, cross-city
traffic, incidental traffic, aerial monitoring from helicopters (which
is so much a part of making decisions on vehicle traffic movement
abroad) is an integral part and cannot be missing, survey of commuters
destination movement, arterial streets and lanes that decongest main
roads. Road science is similar to the flow of oxygenated blood in our
bodies. The cells are like residents in the town and they need oxygen
to live and let live. The body is like the whole town and the heart is
similar to the functioning of the body. There are sub functions like
the shops, post office boxes, lung-refreshing parks, milk booths,
toilets, schools, religious places, which act similar to the kidneys,
liver, spleen etc. In the whole body, the circulatory system is
basically of two patterns, those that pertain to the heart and lungs
for purification, and those that connect the heart and the rest of the
body which circulates through arteries, veins and the capillaries
(comparable to lanes, streets and roads). Like the heart, which has
four chambers, the town (in this case Richmond Town) is now divided up into four areas.
Each becoming more indifferent to the other, thanks to the dividers and
one ways, and influx of ‘people’ who make up the bulk of the
‘cells’. One group is the area of Hayes Road, Convent Road, Residency Road to Richmond Circle. The next is Good Shepherd Convent,
Albert & King Streets, next Arab Lines, Johnson Market, Baldwin
Boys School, Little Sisters of the Poor, to Langford Road, Curley
Street to Wellington Street, finally the Western part of Wellington
Street, which consists of Serpentine Street, Alexandra Street, Kingston
Street, Myrtle Land, Leonard Lane, Laurel Lane, Norris Road which also
includes Baldwin Girl School and the Mud Tank and Richmond Park (Thank God! we still have the Park, even
though the Mud Tank - the Hockey Stadium, has gone like the Shoolay
Tank - the Football Stadium, like most Tanks in Bangalore!) and
the remainder of Richmond Road upto the flyover! Now try to picture the
'heart beats' of the Town a few decades ago. There was only one
unceasing rhythmic contraction and relaxation that created one sound,
one pulse, one harmonious friendly caring and loving community, where
barriers were only 'broken wooden gates' and 'barking dogs', where
everyone knew everyone, and the children played on the streets, in the
Park, in the large compounds, walls did not deter them from going over
and ‘raiding’ a fruit tree that supported ripe fruit like guavas, wood
apples, chickoo (supota), tamarind, and the ‘spoils’ were evenly
shared, sometimes the owners would lend a hand by offering salt and
chilly powder to add to the taste. Today, there are no fruit trees to
be seen, and basically ‘coconuts’ which only the monkeys may on second
thoughts think of trying their skills at to get a few. The flow of
blood also affects the nervous system which in turn affects the whole
body. Once an organized movement, now becomes a ‘free for all’ and ‘I,
me and myself’ attitude, which is so prominent in today's society,
which in turn is just a reflection of our inner self, our selfish
motives, and our heartless ways.
Blocking the side roads (by making them
‘one-way’) and not allowing the ‘localized’ or ‘internal network’ of
the Town, will surely kill the town. For example, when the road divider
was put up on Richmond Road from Kingston Road junction to Shoolay Circle, it literally divided the town in half.
This barricade created a psychological barrier between the people on
either side of the road. One half was neglected, because it was
considered not part of the town and Associations were founded without a
view of the needs of each other common goals (I understand that the
local Corporator was also of the same opinion, maybe I am wrong, but I
have never seen one till date turn up and declare that he or she will
do this and that for the town!). The only link was
the squeezed crossing through Richmond Road from Wellington Street to
Albert Street (no reverse movement was possible as the divider was
placed specifically to only allow movement from one side to the other,
actually some residents on Albert Street did not want movement of
traffic from Richmond Road into their street, now I suppose their wish
is granted, because of the ‘one-way’ imposed on the 11th
December 2004!), now that Richmond Road has become one-way, that
‘link’ has been totally severed as it is very inconvenient for one
neighbour of the same town to meet the other. Also, if I live on the
eastern side of Castle Street, how do I get home if I cannot turn right
on Tate Lane once I enter from Wood Street? We are fast catching up
with the West in relationships! Perhaps this is an indirect promotion
for ‘mobile’ phone users as the normal telephone is soon fading out of
usage. Three cheers for the loss to the town.
Quite amusing is the
planning for the traffic to move from one direction to another. For
example, if I want to go to Hosur Road when I am coming out of the Pubs
near Brigade Towers, I have two choices, one peacefully go on Museum
Road – Residency Road, take a deviation near the World War Monument,
back up Brigade Road and then through Shoolay Circle. A good exercise
on fuel consumption, how much addition to the environment downfall, I
only hope some wise person has a tab on the environment changes after
the one-way being introduced. A
single solution would be to allow a U-turn at the Old Shoolay
Police Station circle (and as the traffic coming out of Castle Street is not that heavy, it could be directed
to move around the circle
when proceeding to Museum Road instead
of going across it at present, a very strange move is being
followed! I wonder how long the beautiful circle is going to remain, I
remember once I fought for it when they tried to demolish it). Alternatively,
is to go through Albert Street, cross Richmond Road, enter into Wellington Street, through Curley Street and on to Langford Road on to Hosur Road (until they make Hosur one-way also!). I
feel that the benefit that has come out from the ‘one-ways’ is that the
people think twice before and after entering the Pubs on ways on how to
go home without going around in circles!! Times Of India have
come out with a few pointers on 12 dec 2004. One, Two, Three, Four, Five.
There are so many Children
Crossing the Roads from Wood Street across Brigade Road, they
have now tied up all the dividers and the children have to ‘duck’ under the ropes to go
to school struggling to avoid their bags from getting entangled in the
rope and keeping an eye on the mad rushing traffic. Pedestrian
crossings do not exist, and it clearly goes to show there is no
respect for the human life. The first objective of the road
planner should have been to see that no child's life is endangered by
any change. Also there is no pedestrian crossing at Shoolay Circle (which people wrongly call ‘Vallera
Junction’ after a shop at the corner) across Brigade Road, Hosur, Richmond Road. Someone has wisely suggested to have a
walk over, one can imagine the fate of the elderly, is there a secret move to get rid
of old people and the children?
There was a report in the newspapers that the 'one-way' was a success!
I also think it really is, for it has made people realize that there
are other roads that lead to Rome (their destinations)!! People have
been using some of the self-decided diversions like Langford Road to
by-pass Richmond Road and that road has become more loaded. The Hosur
Cemetery road used to be a quiet and peaceful place where one feared to
travel on because of loneliness, but today there is such a flow of
traffic that even the dead must really be scared that they will soon
have a problem of 'no-entry' to the
Cemetery!! This smoothe flow of traffic on Richmond Road and
Residency Road makes people think falsely that the change is a
'success'! There is only so much the people of the Town and City can
take, more than that probably will lead to some 'citizens rage', not so much 'road rage'!
A friend of mine remarked that Bangalore is a City only for the rich people so you
have to only drive in vehicles to go from one place to another. I haven't even
thought about the ‘bus stops’ and the people and children
chasing the buses, and then after alighting, where do
they go from there? Are
we encouraging people to take ‘public transport’ to reduce the vehicle
congestion, or
are we encouraging them to be
more independent and increase the pressures on our dear city of
Bangalore?
Try to think about the future, it is very enlightening, and
educating to see how our Bangalore City and road planners are
encouraging our City and Towns to develop and die. Are
we allowing the ‘Euthanasia’ of Bangalore?
Wake up! You may be next!! Why do they allow old bungalows to be
demolished and the large compounds be used for flats and offices,
instead of just a replacement of the old one with a new one. The road
and infrastructure cannot take any more punishment, but then those who
have loud voices, and lots of money have
ways of getting their own way. Just open your window and look outside,
when did you last see a bird (forget about singing a song), have you
seen a sparrow lately? A minyha, even crows are getting scarce!
I ask the question again, Is Bangalore Dead? Is she Dying? Can she be resuscitated? Or will
she just become a Comic Strip?! Or
perhaps a City to 'Fly Over'!!
You can make the difference, yes, do not shirk your responsibility. You
have the right to live, and so do I.
Welcome to the world of Alice in Wonderland! We may ‘Celebrate
Bangalore’, but when the very infrastructure is being challenged, how
can we show-case Bangalore to our visitors, our investors, our
benefactors and above all to ourselves and our children. Gone are the
‘good old days’, gone is the ‘Pensioners Paradise’ and ‘Garden City’
status of Bangalore. Good-bye my friend, see you when the
pollution induced tears in my eyes dry up, and when the music stops.
Cheers
Ronnie, the
Bangalorewalla
December 12, 2004
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Dhoy!
Whadha! Baarow! Bailee!
Come back! You cannot go Left!
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Whadha!
Dhoy!
Bailee!
Baarow!
Come
back! You cannot U-Turn! |
Dhoy!
Whadha!
Baarow!
Bailee!
Come
back! You cannot go Back! |
Whadha!
Dhoy!
Bailee!
Baarow!
Come
back! You cannot go Right! |
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If
You were to visit Bangalore
in the "Good Old Days" ... Around
the end of the 1920's
... Where
Would You Stay?
