Friday, June 23, 2017

Bangalore METRO - Towards a new consciousness

Last week, at last, I took the METRO. It was unplanned travel from Kanakapura to WhiteField – yes, you should believe me on that. The excitement of the release of Green Line got the better of my planning instinct. I decided to go to our WhiteField Office by METRO although there was a last mile issue. 10 mts to Yelachenahalli Station, 21 Minutes to Majestic, 10 Minutes waiting time and 20 Minutes to Byappanahalli. In an hour I was in Byappanahalli from the southern end of Bangalore and when was the last this happened – I remember travelling to KR Puram from Jayanagar in 1 hour in the early 90s. Life seems to have come full-circle after 25 years. What I haven’t told you is Byappanahalli to WhiteField it took another ridiculous hour because I was travelling in Peak hour by the bus. Yet you need to know that I wasn’t tired because METRO travel was exciting and the experience enabled me to overcome the pain of sitting in the bus for 1 hour.

There is a reason for all this excitement. I was born and brought up in Bangalore, and I have seen the heaven of Bangalore in the 80s. I have lived in Malleshwaram, Indiranagar, Basaveshwaragar, JP Nagar literally with heart and mind always living in Basavanagudi and Jayanagar. In the 80s, route number 41 crawled through the streets from Malleshwaram to Basavanagudi in 30 mts but route number 14 took the same time to speed from Malleshwaram to Jayanagar. 7D took a round about from Jayanagar to Indirinagar through Hosur Road and yet made it less than an hour. 138 Double Decker reached Indiranagar from Richmond circle in a ridiculous 20 minutes. Cycling from Indiranagar to Banasawadi took 30 minutes. When there was a Bus strike I cycled from Indiranagar to National College Basavanagudi in 30 minutes and it was not a big deal. From Basavanagudi to Jayanagar we often walked because even a cycle ride took less than 10 minutes.

Over a period of time, minutes became hours. Bangalore gradually moved from jolly-rides to necessary rides to struggling drives to miserable crawls and got used to experiencing stand-stills. We consistently slid from concerns to complaints to cribs to curse to frustration to ridiculous jokes in 20 years. Helpless and frustration became the new normal. Eventually, the thought of getting onto the road itself was as much tiring as the eventual journey. Worse, slowly we began to limit our social lives. We no more thought of Bangalore as ours. Personally, I confined my life to the sector formed by the boundaries of Chamarajpet, Mysore Road, Banneraghatta Road and NICE Road. Rest was forbidden region to be crossed only when unavoidable. The experience of the City of Bangalore diminished. Bangalore became broken and discreet in the minds of people. Bangalore suffered the contradiction of being a large city with the experience of a Mofussil town. One always felt that something was behind you and on you all the time. Our experiences were always in the destinations and never in the journey. Naturally cultural exchanges and connect with the city dramatically eroded over the years. The rut reached such a nadir these destructions of the cultural life even ceased to bother the common man. The worst affected were the senior citizens but the productive generations simply rolled on.

There is a reason to smile now. I can now reach Lalbagh from my house in 20 minutes – is this a dream? And wow – I am not tired. I don’t feel I am in a vegetative state. I am active. The METRO gives you a physical perspective of the city that the road has not only stolen away but cannot even provide. I can now reach the other end of the city in 45 mts and return home in under 2 hours. I can take my daughter to Chitrakala Parishat in 45 mts end to end without getting tired. The journeys are consistent, experiential and connecting. Sit in the METRO – you will see such diverse and interesting people. An elderly is meditating, a college girl is chatting with her boy-friend over the phone, two young couple are in indulging in romantic exchanges that you cannot hear but see in their eyes, a school girl is doing her last minutes revision of notes to face her Unit Test in an hour, an IT professional is seriously sitting with his laptop and upon meeting his eyes exchanges a meaningful smile saying “YES, this is the METRO that were desperately waiting for – isn’t it?”. It’s a great experience to travel with the common man of Bangalore after a long time – the last I experienced this in the 90s.

The METRO is more than an infrastructure. It is not only going to make the journeys better and the city accessible. This is now the first genuine step in Bangalore becoming a genuinely large city that creates consistent and connected experiences. Professionals will now work in the West and work in the East. Bangaloreans will now think of the entire city as theirs. This is a great step towards a new consciousness much bigger than the old beautiful Bangalore. Majestic will once again become the centre of Bangalore and occupy its rightful place. MG Road could regain its lost glory. Lalbagh and Cubbon park will come back into the imaginations of people. Nrityagram will seem a possible journey. Indiranagar residents may go to Orion Mall for shopping and movie more easily than Forum Mall – YES, the latter will see the impact. People will now remember that IISc is in Bangalore. We now have the most secular and universal platform in Bangalore that serves all citizens of Bangalore uniquely, consistently, equally without discrimination and bias. This is the best friend that Bangalore has created for itself.

More importantly, I will now go to my WhiteField office without planning and People will learn to stand in Queues J


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