Dig, dig, and dig seems to be the votive mantra for Bangalore these days, nay years. Take any road, digging is at a furious pace either for metro or laying a pipeline, all at the fancy of our city fathers.
If you are living off a main road in a small lane, your friendly new neighbour who has built a house has cut a trench or a bump to take electricity or water connection to his dear house to break your back. Dust and grime are perennially present here.
No wonder Bangalore has acquired its new sobriquet as the asthmatic capital. From pensioners’ paradise to a garbage city a title bestowed by no less than the prestigious new york times .
Then there are civic woes unheard of till recently; so there is waste management, water shortage and power cuts. It is aptly said that a city is not known by its culture but how it handles its waste. By this yardstick, Bangalore has fallen flat on its face. Our city fathers are still squabbling with no solution in sight.
The city is witnessing furious construction activity. Greed appears to be the ruling deity. Old graceful residencies are pulled down to make way for commercial complexes and apartments. The debris are dumped in once bountiful lakes surrounding the city killing them forever.
Strangely the same class of people occupying these high rises are the ones to complain of vanishing lakes and take to marches with candle lights.
Take a look in any direction from your roof top - apartment complexes raise their ugly heads to block your view of a sun or moon rise. Flip your newspaper any day. You see colourful and enticing advertisements for apartments. Welcome to paradise, they say-, gardens, swimming pools, private walkways. Luxury incarnated.
Alongside you also see a picture of women waiting, patiently, for bwssb water to trickle into their cheap, gaudy pitchers and pans.
You only wonder how these elite gated communities manage to get tonnes of water for their swimming pools, lawns and golf courses. Wonder never ceases.
Experts are unanimous that water woes will only get worse with the weak state government arm-twisted by a stronger neighbour for more cauvery water. Before the city was invaded by it and bt companies, bangalore had no identity except as an army or air force station.
For many northerners, the city was some where in madras and kannadigas were madrasis at best. Like pune, another laid back city of yore, bicycle was the preferred choice. If horse drawn cart was the means of transport for middle class family outings, it was a few vintage cars for the elite and the rich mostly seen in cantonment area.
M.G road held its glamour with its cinema halls and drinking joints. Ceiling fans were a luxury item only seen in well to do homes.
As one cigarette ad said in another context ‘you have come a long way baby’. Indeed the city has taken long strides. But for better or worse, you never know.
The reader is a resident of Subramanyapura