The city of my dreams now has a brand spanking new airport. Refurbished at a cost of over Rs 60 crore, it looks pretty much like the Bangalore International airport, albeit a bit smaller. Now, Mysore is connected to Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and maybe even Delhi, we are told. Smaller aircraft like the ATRs can land here and in the second phase of expansion, Mysore will be ready to receive larger aircraft like the Airbuses or Boeings.
Mysore has a new airport, but here in the IT capital of the world, children are still getting washed away in open drains. The mammoth search for 4-year-old Abhishek’s body did not hold any lessons for our civic corporation. Imagine the pain of the parents when they could not even give a decent burial to their son. Is life so cheap in India that we do not even get dignity in death? The case seems to be so. Last week, 18-month-old Vijay fell victim to BBMP’s callousness. The body has not been found which tells a telling tale of the state of our drains.
Mysore has a new airport, but the IT capital of the world gets gridlocked after just 90 minutes of rain. KH Road (supposedly the pride of Bangalore because it is named after Kengel Hanumanthiah), Bannerghatta Road (which houses some of the finest hospitals, shopping malls and multi-national IT companies), BTM Layout, VV Puram and several other areas that are considered the arteries of the city were choked with traffic after the downpour. It was just 3 cm of rain, mind you. And the IT capital was inundated. You can very well imagine the state of our drains and our preparedness to tackle exigencies.
Mysore has a new airport but in the IT capital of the world, two persons were electrocuted on Friday last after the heavy downpour. While one died in Kalasipalya, the other one lost his life in Kadugodi. Anybody who has taken a walk in Bangalore is aware of the risk the dangling wires hold, except for our officials. It is a disaster waiting to happen. And yet, when the disaster happens, there is only blame-game till the next time.
Mysore has a new airport but here in the IT capital of the world, people regularly stumble and fall because of broken and encroached footpaths. Two-wheeler riders regularly break their legs – and four-wheeler drivers their axles – because nobody bothers about the potholes in the middle of the road. If you have been a regular reader of The New Indian Express, you would have seen the size of them.
Mysore has a new airport but in Bijapur, little Kanchana had to lose her life because nobody is bothered about open borewells or public safety.
Mysore has a new airport. So let’s go and build some more airports around Karnataka for the world to see. What about lesser mortals losing their lives every day, you ask? The authorities can ask the parents to be more careful.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
Friday, November 27, 2009
To Mr Y, on his govt’s first birthday
The first BJP government in South India has completed a year with many feathers in its cap. Saffron-haters would expect a listing of the party’s shortcomings as well in this column but I’m not going to oblige them just yet.
Readers of The New Indian Express would have seen pictures of the Chief Minister playing cricket with his granddaughter in their favourite newspaper a few days back. I’m going to grab this opportunity to extract some concessions from the CM when he seems to be in a happy and relaxed mood.
So here it is, Mr Y.
You have been pressing on with infrastructure projects cleared by the earlier government (wherein you were the deputy chief minister) and have also sanctioned several new ones to decongest Bangalore and make it a world-class city. While there are no two ways about development, we should ensure that minimum damage is caused to our environment. Of course, there will be a price to be paid for progress, but we could look at building “stacks of roads” that Mr Narayana Murthy proposed – and got – in the form of the elevated corridor.
But Mr Y, children are falling into open drains, getting electrocuted in parks, becoming orphans because of unscientifically-built road humps. People are getting killed because of poor road signage, because truck and bus drivers are not sensitized and because officials don’t care. Travel down the Bangalore-Mysore state highway and you will understand what I am saying. Or take a round of the city without informing your officials. The Sunday Rounds was a good thing you had started, Mr Y. Pity, it died after just one round. I understand that you are a very busy man, Mr Y, but you need to go around Karnataka’s cities and make heads roll when you see dirty streets and poorly maintained roads. Or, when you see people lugging buckets and pitchers and trekking for miles to get clean drinking water. Or children studying in the dark and yet scoring such fabulous marks.
You also need to visit public utility offices once in a while. And see how your people stand in queues and are treated with disdain by your officials. Will it not help, Mr Y, if most applications are submitted online?
I also have a problem with the “world-class city” tag, Mr Y. What is it about “world-class” that attracts chief ministers of all our states? Is it the wealth, like in the case of West Asian countries? Or is it the sanitized, clinical environs of some of our South-east Asian counterparts? Is it the gleaming glass structures, like in the case of Shanghai, where architects from the world over flocked and practiced their craft because no one in their own countries would allow them to build such horrific energy consumers?
Karnataka’s cities – Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, to name a few -- are world-class in every sense of the word. All we need to do is get somebody in place who truly feels that way and also ensures they are maintained properly and stay alive to the needs of the citizens.
As for the other problems facing the state, I am sure you are the best man for the job, Mr Y.
Happy birthday, Mr CM.
Readers of The New Indian Express would have seen pictures of the Chief Minister playing cricket with his granddaughter in their favourite newspaper a few days back. I’m going to grab this opportunity to extract some concessions from the CM when he seems to be in a happy and relaxed mood.
So here it is, Mr Y.
You have been pressing on with infrastructure projects cleared by the earlier government (wherein you were the deputy chief minister) and have also sanctioned several new ones to decongest Bangalore and make it a world-class city. While there are no two ways about development, we should ensure that minimum damage is caused to our environment. Of course, there will be a price to be paid for progress, but we could look at building “stacks of roads” that Mr Narayana Murthy proposed – and got – in the form of the elevated corridor.
But Mr Y, children are falling into open drains, getting electrocuted in parks, becoming orphans because of unscientifically-built road humps. People are getting killed because of poor road signage, because truck and bus drivers are not sensitized and because officials don’t care. Travel down the Bangalore-Mysore state highway and you will understand what I am saying. Or take a round of the city without informing your officials. The Sunday Rounds was a good thing you had started, Mr Y. Pity, it died after just one round. I understand that you are a very busy man, Mr Y, but you need to go around Karnataka’s cities and make heads roll when you see dirty streets and poorly maintained roads. Or, when you see people lugging buckets and pitchers and trekking for miles to get clean drinking water. Or children studying in the dark and yet scoring such fabulous marks.
You also need to visit public utility offices once in a while. And see how your people stand in queues and are treated with disdain by your officials. Will it not help, Mr Y, if most applications are submitted online?
I also have a problem with the “world-class city” tag, Mr Y. What is it about “world-class” that attracts chief ministers of all our states? Is it the wealth, like in the case of West Asian countries? Or is it the sanitized, clinical environs of some of our South-east Asian counterparts? Is it the gleaming glass structures, like in the case of Shanghai, where architects from the world over flocked and practiced their craft because no one in their own countries would allow them to build such horrific energy consumers?
Karnataka’s cities – Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, to name a few -- are world-class in every sense of the word. All we need to do is get somebody in place who truly feels that way and also ensures they are maintained properly and stay alive to the needs of the citizens.
As for the other problems facing the state, I am sure you are the best man for the job, Mr Y.
Happy birthday, Mr CM.
Poll dance: Will you show them the finger?
Silly season starts in the country later this month when election dates are announced. And it will come at the right time, just after the United States caught a cold and the world started sneezing.
Call it the fourth stimulus package, if you will. All told, the electoral spend could be as high as Rs 15,000 crore. The cap on expenditure by a contestant stands at Rs 35 lakh but everybody gets by with a little help from friends. The whirlwind tours by politicians, the gifts to voters, the convoys, and the money shelled out to ensure the right numbers at rallies etc. are seldom accounted for in a contestant’s books.
Finally, a lot of jobs will created, albeit for a short time. Taxi operators will have a tight schedule, printing presses will go into overdrive, unemployed villagers will be wooed like never before and the chai-and-omelette wallahs will have a field day.
Coupled with the new industrial policy the Karnataka government announced on Saturday (which envisages creation of another 10 lakh jobs) and the Budget 2009-10 initiatives by the Yeddyurappa administration, we will finally see some good cheer reaching the most neglected homes in the state.
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that each candidate will spend between Rs 7 and 8 crore (at a conservative estimate), depending on the number – and pockets -- of opponents. A study by the Centre of Media Studies says that what India will spend in the next 3-4 months will top the expenditure incurred during the US Presidential polls over a year.
But what good is this great democratic process to the average young, urban citizen? How many of you will go to the polling booths and show everybody the finger – for the indelible ink on it?
Politicians don’t care much about the average young, urban citizen. That is not their constituency, as former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy showed during his mega JD(S) rally in Bangalore. So it is not surprising that while vigilante groups roam Karnataka’s mega cities -- attacking women for wearing jeans, talking in English or going to a restaurant because they are too tired to cook after a hard day’s work -- police take a backseat and the local politician hardly ever shows concern.
So what option does the average young, urban citizen have when she or he goes out to vote in Karnataka? As things stand today, zilch.
But what you do have is the power of money.
You have the power to stop patronizing pubs outside which people like you were attacked. After all, how many pub owners have joined issue when their patrons were assaulted? The liquor barons of Karnataka have the clout to put an end to this menace by just picking up the phone and asking the government to act. But they will not do so unless you switch to other brands.
The average young, urban citizen has two choices -- democracy or econocracy. If you choose the latter, spend it wisely.
Call it the fourth stimulus package, if you will. All told, the electoral spend could be as high as Rs 15,000 crore. The cap on expenditure by a contestant stands at Rs 35 lakh but everybody gets by with a little help from friends. The whirlwind tours by politicians, the gifts to voters, the convoys, and the money shelled out to ensure the right numbers at rallies etc. are seldom accounted for in a contestant’s books.
Finally, a lot of jobs will created, albeit for a short time. Taxi operators will have a tight schedule, printing presses will go into overdrive, unemployed villagers will be wooed like never before and the chai-and-omelette wallahs will have a field day.
Coupled with the new industrial policy the Karnataka government announced on Saturday (which envisages creation of another 10 lakh jobs) and the Budget 2009-10 initiatives by the Yeddyurappa administration, we will finally see some good cheer reaching the most neglected homes in the state.
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that each candidate will spend between Rs 7 and 8 crore (at a conservative estimate), depending on the number – and pockets -- of opponents. A study by the Centre of Media Studies says that what India will spend in the next 3-4 months will top the expenditure incurred during the US Presidential polls over a year.
But what good is this great democratic process to the average young, urban citizen? How many of you will go to the polling booths and show everybody the finger – for the indelible ink on it?
Politicians don’t care much about the average young, urban citizen. That is not their constituency, as former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy showed during his mega JD(S) rally in Bangalore. So it is not surprising that while vigilante groups roam Karnataka’s mega cities -- attacking women for wearing jeans, talking in English or going to a restaurant because they are too tired to cook after a hard day’s work -- police take a backseat and the local politician hardly ever shows concern.
So what option does the average young, urban citizen have when she or he goes out to vote in Karnataka? As things stand today, zilch.
But what you do have is the power of money.
You have the power to stop patronizing pubs outside which people like you were attacked. After all, how many pub owners have joined issue when their patrons were assaulted? The liquor barons of Karnataka have the clout to put an end to this menace by just picking up the phone and asking the government to act. But they will not do so unless you switch to other brands.
The average young, urban citizen has two choices -- democracy or econocracy. If you choose the latter, spend it wisely.
Why the Yeddyurappa govt will not fall
One of the pitfalls of being in the newspaper business is the spot analyses that you are expected to dish out. Nobody lets you hedge your bets. The questions have to be answered in monosyllables: “Did Mr X accept that Rs 150 crore?” or “Are Ms Y and Mr Z having an affair?” This past week, I have been bombarded with just one question, from my sabziwallah to my neighbour: “Will this government fall?” So here is my take on the situation in Karnataka today.
Anybody looking for a sharp spot analysis need not read a column. Instead, look at a picture that The New Indian Express published last Saturday: Mr Y looking into the camera shaking a certain K Rosaiah’s hand. Rosaiah, an unwilling Andhra Chief Minister, seems to be firmly in the saddle now. Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party has been pushing him to stop mining activities by Obalapuram Mining Company, a firm owned by Gali Janardhan Reddy, the man in the thick of the battle with B S Yeddyurappa. Rosaiah, the YSR loyalist, transferred Y Srilakshmi, Secretary (mines), because she was considered too close to the mining barons of Karnataka.
The Reddy Brothers of Bellary were said to be close to Y S Rajashekhara Reddy. After his tragic death, efforts were under way to install his son, Jaganmohan Reddy, as the CM. But the Congress high command (what the hell, let’s name names: Rahul Gandhi) wanted him in New Delhi. So, that option is ruled out. And it’s hurting the Reddy Brothers badly.
Mr Y on the other hand is going from strength to strength. After having delivered 19 MPs to the BJP’s kitty, he rules one of the handful of states that the saffron party has. And he looks pretty confident too: After transferring the Gadag DC and imposing a toll on mining trucks, he struck at the heart of the mining barons by transferring officials in Bellary. Do you think any CM would do that if he was not sure about his own money-spinning powers, given that elections today are won solely on financial muscle? Arun Jaitley is backing Mr Y and Sushma Swaraj, the godmother of the Bellary Brothers, has too many problems of her own.
The BJP high command thus does not have too many options. It knows that any change in the leadership now will have devastating effect on its poll prospects.
Which brings us to the fringe players in Karnataka: the Congress and the JD(S). The former is a no-man show and the latter a one-man show. Besides, in this hour of crisis -- villages have to be shifted, houses have to be built, succour has to be provided, money has to be raised -- it is better to sit back and criticize than to step in and execute.
And the role of the Governor? H R Bharadwaj is a veteran of politics and constitutional law. He knows that he does not need to step in right now.
I’ve tried to hedge my bets when answering the question. But if you still want an answer to the question “will this government fall” in monosyllables: No.
Anybody looking for a sharp spot analysis need not read a column. Instead, look at a picture that The New Indian Express published last Saturday: Mr Y looking into the camera shaking a certain K Rosaiah’s hand. Rosaiah, an unwilling Andhra Chief Minister, seems to be firmly in the saddle now. Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party has been pushing him to stop mining activities by Obalapuram Mining Company, a firm owned by Gali Janardhan Reddy, the man in the thick of the battle with B S Yeddyurappa. Rosaiah, the YSR loyalist, transferred Y Srilakshmi, Secretary (mines), because she was considered too close to the mining barons of Karnataka.
The Reddy Brothers of Bellary were said to be close to Y S Rajashekhara Reddy. After his tragic death, efforts were under way to install his son, Jaganmohan Reddy, as the CM. But the Congress high command (what the hell, let’s name names: Rahul Gandhi) wanted him in New Delhi. So, that option is ruled out. And it’s hurting the Reddy Brothers badly.
Mr Y on the other hand is going from strength to strength. After having delivered 19 MPs to the BJP’s kitty, he rules one of the handful of states that the saffron party has. And he looks pretty confident too: After transferring the Gadag DC and imposing a toll on mining trucks, he struck at the heart of the mining barons by transferring officials in Bellary. Do you think any CM would do that if he was not sure about his own money-spinning powers, given that elections today are won solely on financial muscle? Arun Jaitley is backing Mr Y and Sushma Swaraj, the godmother of the Bellary Brothers, has too many problems of her own.
The BJP high command thus does not have too many options. It knows that any change in the leadership now will have devastating effect on its poll prospects.
Which brings us to the fringe players in Karnataka: the Congress and the JD(S). The former is a no-man show and the latter a one-man show. Besides, in this hour of crisis -- villages have to be shifted, houses have to be built, succour has to be provided, money has to be raised -- it is better to sit back and criticize than to step in and execute.
And the role of the Governor? H R Bharadwaj is a veteran of politics and constitutional law. He knows that he does not need to step in right now.
I’ve tried to hedge my bets when answering the question. But if you still want an answer to the question “will this government fall” in monosyllables: No.
Extreme engineering, in Bangalore!
Reading the papers these days has me in splits.
After a couple of accidents, in quick succession, at an under-construction line of the Delhi Metro, questions are being raised – by newspapers -- about the safety of the Bangalore Metro since it follows the same model.
It’s not that accidents during construction are anything new. London Metro has had to contend with it when a tunnel collapsed on the Heathrow high-speed line. Similarly, a tunnel collapsed in Singapore during the construction for the MRT line, claiming four lives. During a press conference after the accidents, Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan had this to say: “The DMRC accident rate is still very low as compared to international standards as Singapore has 1.1 accidents per million man-hours, London Underground has 0.32 accidents and Delhi Metro Phase-II has 0.4 accidents.” That was reassuring.
But it’s the news reports that give me the laughs. Gammon India, the contractor handling the stretch where part of the elevated track came crashing down, is handling work for the Bangalore Metro as well. And this is the same company that did not follow standard operating procedure in Hyderabad thereby killing two persons when pre-cast blocks for a flyover collapsed in September 2007.
You don’t find that funny? Allow me to elaborate.
Grave as the situation may be, the Bangalore Metro follow-ups do not merit front page treatment. After all, we live in a city that needs a traffic cop to man traffic on a flyover. The authorities call it the Richmond Circle flyover. I call it Edward Scissorhands. Where else in the world have you seen a flyover where traffic has to move in to the right lane from the left and vice-versa? There is a flyover in Chennai where you have to take a very sharp left to avoid falling off the bridge, but even that doesn’t come close to what our engineers in Bangalore have built.
What do come close to the monstrosity in Chennai are our tragic boxes (the authorities call them magic boxes). You must sample the one near Windsor Manor. The underpass gives you a sense of the proverbial “elephant passing through the eye of the needle”. And the moment you emerge out of it, you have to take a sharp right and floor the gas pedal on a crude cement surface that some like to call a “road”. Stay on that road some more and you get to the Cauvery Junction. T J S George wrote a beautiful and sarcastic piece about that “straight road” that becomes a U-turn there some weeks back in the Express. You should read it to understand what I’m trying to say.
If Bangalore has so far survived bad planning and engineering in terms of Scissorhands and Tragic Boxes, I’m sure it will also take cracks in Metro pillars in its stride.
After all, we live by a code: swalpa adjust maadi.
After a couple of accidents, in quick succession, at an under-construction line of the Delhi Metro, questions are being raised – by newspapers -- about the safety of the Bangalore Metro since it follows the same model.
It’s not that accidents during construction are anything new. London Metro has had to contend with it when a tunnel collapsed on the Heathrow high-speed line. Similarly, a tunnel collapsed in Singapore during the construction for the MRT line, claiming four lives. During a press conference after the accidents, Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan had this to say: “The DMRC accident rate is still very low as compared to international standards as Singapore has 1.1 accidents per million man-hours, London Underground has 0.32 accidents and Delhi Metro Phase-II has 0.4 accidents.” That was reassuring.
But it’s the news reports that give me the laughs. Gammon India, the contractor handling the stretch where part of the elevated track came crashing down, is handling work for the Bangalore Metro as well. And this is the same company that did not follow standard operating procedure in Hyderabad thereby killing two persons when pre-cast blocks for a flyover collapsed in September 2007.
You don’t find that funny? Allow me to elaborate.
Grave as the situation may be, the Bangalore Metro follow-ups do not merit front page treatment. After all, we live in a city that needs a traffic cop to man traffic on a flyover. The authorities call it the Richmond Circle flyover. I call it Edward Scissorhands. Where else in the world have you seen a flyover where traffic has to move in to the right lane from the left and vice-versa? There is a flyover in Chennai where you have to take a very sharp left to avoid falling off the bridge, but even that doesn’t come close to what our engineers in Bangalore have built.
What do come close to the monstrosity in Chennai are our tragic boxes (the authorities call them magic boxes). You must sample the one near Windsor Manor. The underpass gives you a sense of the proverbial “elephant passing through the eye of the needle”. And the moment you emerge out of it, you have to take a sharp right and floor the gas pedal on a crude cement surface that some like to call a “road”. Stay on that road some more and you get to the Cauvery Junction. T J S George wrote a beautiful and sarcastic piece about that “straight road” that becomes a U-turn there some weeks back in the Express. You should read it to understand what I’m trying to say.
If Bangalore has so far survived bad planning and engineering in terms of Scissorhands and Tragic Boxes, I’m sure it will also take cracks in Metro pillars in its stride.
After all, we live by a code: swalpa adjust maadi.
A wish for Karnataka
Silly season is finally over in Karnataka and come May 16 you will be bombarded with analyses about why a particular candidate won or lost. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that the BJP is still on a strong wicket – and just might be able to retain its earlier Lok Sabha tally of 18. If that happens, expect the opposition in Karnataka to raise a hue and cry over missing names from the voters’ list. There will also be the expected breast-beating over how the ruling party managed to pump in huge amounts of money to engineer a thumping win. By its own admission, the Congress said during the campaigning phase that it wouldn’t be able to match the deep pockets of the BJP. That probably means that the Congress has admitted that it won’t be able to do much in Karnataka. That also means that the JD(S) will finish as an also-ran. That also means that Karnataka is indeed getting a step-motherly treatment from the Centre – considering that the Congress doesn’t have enough money for its state unit even though it rules at the Centre.
Whatever be the result, bigger problems are staring Karnataka in the face. The spectre of communal violence looms large. While some say that emboldened by its win the BJP will try to make a statement, others are of the opinion that mischief-makers will try to bring a bad name to the first BJP government south of the Vindhyas.
That the stand-off between the communities will only intensify was evident from the way Dakshina Kannada voted. Here’s a recap for those who came in late: Attacks on churches, a pub and incidents of moral policing had set the agenda for the elections in this coastal constituency.
In its reportage from Mangalore, The New Indian Express said, “For the first time, the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) used e-mails to send the Ten Commandments to all Bishops in India. These commandments, scripted by Bishop Ivon Ambroise, defined the role of a Christian during polls.” So on V-Day, Christians, who are generally cool to elections in Mangalore, voted in large numbers, as did other minorities. When news spread of the large turnout among Christians and minorities, Hindu leaders went around the constituency ensuring that all votes were cast in order to counter the “threat”. The result: 75 per cent voting in the constituency.
Karnataka is known for its accommodating nature and mild-mannered people. The phrase that an outsider first picks up in Karnataka – swalpa adjust maadi – bears testimony to the large-heartedness of the people here. Hope when governance kicks in after May 16, Mr Y and his Cabinet colleagues will ensure that nobody takes advantage of the situation and steers them away from the path of progress.
Whatever be the result, bigger problems are staring Karnataka in the face. The spectre of communal violence looms large. While some say that emboldened by its win the BJP will try to make a statement, others are of the opinion that mischief-makers will try to bring a bad name to the first BJP government south of the Vindhyas.
That the stand-off between the communities will only intensify was evident from the way Dakshina Kannada voted. Here’s a recap for those who came in late: Attacks on churches, a pub and incidents of moral policing had set the agenda for the elections in this coastal constituency.
In its reportage from Mangalore, The New Indian Express said, “For the first time, the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) used e-mails to send the Ten Commandments to all Bishops in India. These commandments, scripted by Bishop Ivon Ambroise, defined the role of a Christian during polls.” So on V-Day, Christians, who are generally cool to elections in Mangalore, voted in large numbers, as did other minorities. When news spread of the large turnout among Christians and minorities, Hindu leaders went around the constituency ensuring that all votes were cast in order to counter the “threat”. The result: 75 per cent voting in the constituency.
Karnataka is known for its accommodating nature and mild-mannered people. The phrase that an outsider first picks up in Karnataka – swalpa adjust maadi – bears testimony to the large-heartedness of the people here. Hope when governance kicks in after May 16, Mr Y and his Cabinet colleagues will ensure that nobody takes advantage of the situation and steers them away from the path of progress.
Auto-matic route to solving B’lore’s traffic problems
A few years back, a friend and I took an auto in Delhi. When we reached our destination, the meter showed more than twice the fare. To be fair to the auto driver, he admitted that the meter was rigged. When we asked him why he could not earn his daily bread the honest way, his reply left us speechless. This is what he said, essentially: “I have to pay a bribe at the RTO to get a licence. I have to pay extra to my owner every day because he thinks I earn more than what I claim. I have to pay the traffic policemen nearly every day to stay out of trouble. If you can get those guys to get straight, I will too.”
The scene is not very different in Bangalore today. Despite over 80,000 autos running in the city, it’s hard to find one who is honest. And boy, don’t even get me started on their driving skills. They are champions at multi-tasking. They can drive (if you can call it that) while constantly scouting for passengers. And when they do find one, they have no qualms about stopping in the middle of the road, others be damned.
A pedestrian would find it hard to walk between two vehicles but not your auto-wallah. No sir. He can squeeze his pesky little machine through the eye of a needle, if given a chance. He will turn first and look for oncoming traffic later. And when you finally manage to arrive in one piece, you will have a heart attack just looking at the fare and arguing with him.
No politician or bureaucrat has been able to tame the louts that rule the roads of any city in India. Long years back, Delhi set up a helpline and fast-tracked complaints made by passengers. Nothing happened. The traffic police conducted regular drives against erring autos. Nothing happened. Then the Delhi government brought in the Metro and modern buses. Everything changed. The auto-wallah – faced with increasing competition – softened a little bit. He still charges the moon for short distances but I hear from friends in Delhi that the fights with the auto-wallah, which were a regular affair earlier, are now few and far between.
What Bangalore needs to do is pretty much the same, and then some more. Convert autos into mini buses and make most of the auto-wallahs part of a cooperative that runs these buses – and is accountable for any lapses/misbehaviour.
Our traffic problems will be solved to a great extent if all autos are taken off the main roads. Some of the drivers could be given battery-run rickshaws to ply in residential areas, working as micro feeders. The moment they touch an arterial road, their role should be played by a mini bus that, in turn, acts as a feeder to the Kendra Saariges, the Big10s and the Vajras. Not only will that ensure smooth traffic flow and better revenue realization for the BMTC, it will also cut down on pollution.
But that is going to be a big task for the politician – as Housing and Muzrai minister V Somanna realized on Saturday. It’s not clear whether Somanna slapped BBMP assistant engineer Somaraju or just hurt his ego. What is clear is that Somaraju is still in hospital.
Imagine what will happen if the government decides to straighten the auto-wallahs, over 1 lakh of them.
Did somebody just say all hospitals in Bangalore are full?
The scene is not very different in Bangalore today. Despite over 80,000 autos running in the city, it’s hard to find one who is honest. And boy, don’t even get me started on their driving skills. They are champions at multi-tasking. They can drive (if you can call it that) while constantly scouting for passengers. And when they do find one, they have no qualms about stopping in the middle of the road, others be damned.
A pedestrian would find it hard to walk between two vehicles but not your auto-wallah. No sir. He can squeeze his pesky little machine through the eye of a needle, if given a chance. He will turn first and look for oncoming traffic later. And when you finally manage to arrive in one piece, you will have a heart attack just looking at the fare and arguing with him.
No politician or bureaucrat has been able to tame the louts that rule the roads of any city in India. Long years back, Delhi set up a helpline and fast-tracked complaints made by passengers. Nothing happened. The traffic police conducted regular drives against erring autos. Nothing happened. Then the Delhi government brought in the Metro and modern buses. Everything changed. The auto-wallah – faced with increasing competition – softened a little bit. He still charges the moon for short distances but I hear from friends in Delhi that the fights with the auto-wallah, which were a regular affair earlier, are now few and far between.
What Bangalore needs to do is pretty much the same, and then some more. Convert autos into mini buses and make most of the auto-wallahs part of a cooperative that runs these buses – and is accountable for any lapses/misbehaviour.
Our traffic problems will be solved to a great extent if all autos are taken off the main roads. Some of the drivers could be given battery-run rickshaws to ply in residential areas, working as micro feeders. The moment they touch an arterial road, their role should be played by a mini bus that, in turn, acts as a feeder to the Kendra Saariges, the Big10s and the Vajras. Not only will that ensure smooth traffic flow and better revenue realization for the BMTC, it will also cut down on pollution.
But that is going to be a big task for the politician – as Housing and Muzrai minister V Somanna realized on Saturday. It’s not clear whether Somanna slapped BBMP assistant engineer Somaraju or just hurt his ego. What is clear is that Somaraju is still in hospital.
Imagine what will happen if the government decides to straighten the auto-wallahs, over 1 lakh of them.
Did somebody just say all hospitals in Bangalore are full?
High road to development passes through villages
It was a pleasant surprise to see the chief minister of a state writing in newspapers about agriculture and rural development and inviting public opinion on the issue for a special session of the legislature. Ministers, leave alone the chief minister, generally tend to sidestep the demands and views of the general public when formulating decisions. Whether the ideas generated through this unique gesture are accommodated in the final policy remains to be seen. But Mr Y has certainly forced the opposition on the back foot.
The special session, which will be held on September 9, 10 and 11 will thus be closely scrutinized.
Rural Karnataka is not in a great state. Farmers battling crop failures and poor compensation prices are dealt a lethal blow by way of intermittent power supply. Most areas complain that they get power only about three hours a day. And then there is this great paradox: while finding employment in rural areas is a Herculean task, land owners complain of a shortage of farm hands and high cost of labour. Migration to cities is another issue of concern. A rural youth would much rather work as a helper in an MNC than till his own land.
How can the government strike that balance between clocking impressive growth figures and retaining farmland for agriculture? By providing access to schools, healthcare and means of earning a decent livelihood. And the assurance of a healing touch when diseases or drought strike. Going by what Mr Y wrote in the newspapers, he is aiming to achieve just that. If he succeeds, it could be a role model for all other states.
Lessons from rural Karnataka
On a recent trip towards the western coast, I couldn’t help but notice the splendour of Karnataka. Mother Earth was blooming in all its glory as the rain gods showered it with all their love. But that was just nature doing its duty. We humans, on the other hand, seem to have forgotten what we are supposed to do. Heading into Shimoga from Bhadravathi, I kept asking my colleague why there was no road despite the area being home to two of the most powerful politicians in the state: Mr Y and his son, Raghavendra, Member of Parliament. I still haven’t got an answer.
The stretch between Kumta and Karwar is another paradox. While the landscape will fill up your senses, the road (or the lack of it) will knock the wind out. And this is supposed to be a National Highway, mind you.
Rural areas would give higher priority to access to better healthcare and education systems higher than access to better roads. But not fixing the roads is symptomatic of our reluctance to solve problems of rural areas.
The special session, which will be held on September 9, 10 and 11 will thus be closely scrutinized.
Rural Karnataka is not in a great state. Farmers battling crop failures and poor compensation prices are dealt a lethal blow by way of intermittent power supply. Most areas complain that they get power only about three hours a day. And then there is this great paradox: while finding employment in rural areas is a Herculean task, land owners complain of a shortage of farm hands and high cost of labour. Migration to cities is another issue of concern. A rural youth would much rather work as a helper in an MNC than till his own land.
How can the government strike that balance between clocking impressive growth figures and retaining farmland for agriculture? By providing access to schools, healthcare and means of earning a decent livelihood. And the assurance of a healing touch when diseases or drought strike. Going by what Mr Y wrote in the newspapers, he is aiming to achieve just that. If he succeeds, it could be a role model for all other states.
Lessons from rural Karnataka
On a recent trip towards the western coast, I couldn’t help but notice the splendour of Karnataka. Mother Earth was blooming in all its glory as the rain gods showered it with all their love. But that was just nature doing its duty. We humans, on the other hand, seem to have forgotten what we are supposed to do. Heading into Shimoga from Bhadravathi, I kept asking my colleague why there was no road despite the area being home to two of the most powerful politicians in the state: Mr Y and his son, Raghavendra, Member of Parliament. I still haven’t got an answer.
The stretch between Kumta and Karwar is another paradox. While the landscape will fill up your senses, the road (or the lack of it) will knock the wind out. And this is supposed to be a National Highway, mind you.
Rural areas would give higher priority to access to better healthcare and education systems higher than access to better roads. But not fixing the roads is symptomatic of our reluctance to solve problems of rural areas.
If there is paradise on earth…
The first 30 years of my life were spent in Delhi, gorging on masala dosas, utthapams, onion ravas and vadas at Karnataka Sangha, and dreaming about catching a rock concert in Bangalore some day. My fantastical itinerary was pretty much fixed those days: Visit the numerous pubs that played rock the classic way, go to Mysore and Srirangapatna, spend a day by the Tungabhadra in Hampi and then wake up and smell the coffee in Coorg. But all those plans remained just that: plans.
Until the day I landed in Bangalore.
The first few days were quite a revelation. I bumped into a postman, literally, while carelessly turning around. The man apologized profusely. Where in the world am I? I thought. Had this been Delhi, the postman would most probably have torn into me with an expletive or two and asked me to make use of the eyes that God had given me. Similar such experiences led me to believe that I had finally arrived at a relatively civilized place.
I had not factored in the politician, the bureaucrat and the builder through. And they had not factored in the thousands of people like me who come to Bangalore every day to settle down, lured by tales of its beauty and the cosmopolitan culture.
The result is there for everybody to see: a beautiful city with a rich heritage being uprooted to make way for the thousands of vehicles that get added to the crowd, and the numerous glitzy malls that keep springing up on the grave of old markets -- and traditions.
They say you never realize the worth of something you have until you lose it. Bangalore had numerous lakes – some 262 of them in 1960. Most lost the battle to rapid and mindless urbanization and only 81 survive today. And before we know it, this number will be reduced to single digits. Save for the few good men and women in this city, nobody seems to shed a tear when waste is dumped into lakes or trees are cut. Those trees which saw Kengal Hanumanthaiah give his blood and sweat for the grand building, nay icon, called Vidhana Soudha. Those trees which shed a leaf when Karnataka experimented with Kashmir- and Uttar Pradesh-style coalition with the JD(S) and BJP coming together only to end the honeymoon with a bitter taste in their mouths.
The economic slowdown will hopefully teach us a lesson or two – like we should not skip revolutions and ape what the West is doing. Look at the two ends of our spectrum, for instance. Operation Flood, which brought about the White Revolution, started from the grassroots. Verghese Kurien and Amul are legends today because the effort to create a milk grid for the country started from bottom up.
Our IT story, however, is very different. Till the mid-90s, getting a telephone connection meant a wait of at least 8-10 years. But the advent of the Internet – and economic reforms -- meant that demand was rising at breakneck speed but supply still walked like a tortoise. Even today, save for the mega towns, telephone connectivity is a challenge and all we are doing is play catch-up. Ditto for our road infrastructure. We may be importing Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Porsches but few people realize the importance of proper roads.
I heard an Indian folk fusion band which some politicians and the moral police would label as a blot on Indian culture. The band is called Swarathma and they were belting out a beautiful number about Karnataka called “Ee bhoomi swarga” (This land is paradise).
Funny how only people like Swarathma realize how beautiful this land is. The politicians and the moral police? They are just hell-bent on destroying it.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
Until the day I landed in Bangalore.
The first few days were quite a revelation. I bumped into a postman, literally, while carelessly turning around. The man apologized profusely. Where in the world am I? I thought. Had this been Delhi, the postman would most probably have torn into me with an expletive or two and asked me to make use of the eyes that God had given me. Similar such experiences led me to believe that I had finally arrived at a relatively civilized place.
I had not factored in the politician, the bureaucrat and the builder through. And they had not factored in the thousands of people like me who come to Bangalore every day to settle down, lured by tales of its beauty and the cosmopolitan culture.
The result is there for everybody to see: a beautiful city with a rich heritage being uprooted to make way for the thousands of vehicles that get added to the crowd, and the numerous glitzy malls that keep springing up on the grave of old markets -- and traditions.
They say you never realize the worth of something you have until you lose it. Bangalore had numerous lakes – some 262 of them in 1960. Most lost the battle to rapid and mindless urbanization and only 81 survive today. And before we know it, this number will be reduced to single digits. Save for the few good men and women in this city, nobody seems to shed a tear when waste is dumped into lakes or trees are cut. Those trees which saw Kengal Hanumanthaiah give his blood and sweat for the grand building, nay icon, called Vidhana Soudha. Those trees which shed a leaf when Karnataka experimented with Kashmir- and Uttar Pradesh-style coalition with the JD(S) and BJP coming together only to end the honeymoon with a bitter taste in their mouths.
The economic slowdown will hopefully teach us a lesson or two – like we should not skip revolutions and ape what the West is doing. Look at the two ends of our spectrum, for instance. Operation Flood, which brought about the White Revolution, started from the grassroots. Verghese Kurien and Amul are legends today because the effort to create a milk grid for the country started from bottom up.
Our IT story, however, is very different. Till the mid-90s, getting a telephone connection meant a wait of at least 8-10 years. But the advent of the Internet – and economic reforms -- meant that demand was rising at breakneck speed but supply still walked like a tortoise. Even today, save for the mega towns, telephone connectivity is a challenge and all we are doing is play catch-up. Ditto for our road infrastructure. We may be importing Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Porsches but few people realize the importance of proper roads.
I heard an Indian folk fusion band which some politicians and the moral police would label as a blot on Indian culture. The band is called Swarathma and they were belting out a beautiful number about Karnataka called “Ee bhoomi swarga” (This land is paradise).
Funny how only people like Swarathma realize how beautiful this land is. The politicians and the moral police? They are just hell-bent on destroying it.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
Why we need a lesson in good education
Unlike previous years, the financial year coming to a close is not something anybody is looking forward to. The global economy has been beaten to a pulp and corporations are trying every rule in the book -- and outside of it – to stay afloat. Some, like TCS, have increased working hours and other global giants, like HP and IBM, are trimming salaries.
And the effects of the downturn haven’t even begun showing in India.
Does the slowdown hold any lessons for us? Definitely.
There once was a time when parents in India could think of only two options for their children – a career in medicine or engineering. While the merits and demerits of that kind of thinking could be turned into a book, it is important to understand the benefit of that approach – parents egged their children on to study, and study hard.
Cut to the late nineties/early 21st century. The job market in India – and abroad – was booming. Percentile in school and college was considered just a number. Landing a job was really easy – all you had to do was register with a website and voila! Interview date was set. One could hear youngsters talking ‘propah’ English, splurging in the numerous glitzy malls. The phrase “save for a rainy day” became redundant. Thomas L. Friedman announced the world is flat and we raised a toast to it.
Somewhere in the rush to service global clients most of us forgot something very basic – that the foundation for a stable job has to be built on good education.
That little slip has come to haunt us now. The country’s “Gods of code” will survive this downturn but what about the numerous youngsters who hopped on to the call centre bandwagon after barely finishing college? A lot of them even bought cars and houses on the devil called EMI (equated monthly instalment).
Something similar, although on a much, much smaller scale, happened during the dotcom bust. With poor revenue models, websites were springing up like fruitflies till one day it all came crashing. People who left steady jobs to work for a website suddenly found themselves having to accept drastic pay cuts.
As things stand today, there is more pain coming. The job loss meter in the US crossed the 6.5-lakh mark in February. The $900-billion stimulus package approved by the Senate will ensure that American jobs stay in America, and not get “Bangalored”. However, we’ll still be manufacturing for the world. We’ll still be servicing clients in Alaska out of Bangalore or Mysore. We’ll still be a cheap labour market. Only the breakneck pace with which we were becoming the world’s backyard will perhaps slow down.
Relying on conventional Indian wisdom, our parents encouraged us to study hard, follow the save-more-spend-less routine and basically keep our feet on the ground. But crass commercialization told us otherwise. And we listened to the latter.
Maybe we ought to have listened to conventional Indian wisdom.
Maybe students writing the II PU exams will keep this in mind when they enter examination halls – that there is no alternative to good, old-fashioned education.
Hopefully, some good will emerge out of the slowdown.
And the effects of the downturn haven’t even begun showing in India.
Does the slowdown hold any lessons for us? Definitely.
There once was a time when parents in India could think of only two options for their children – a career in medicine or engineering. While the merits and demerits of that kind of thinking could be turned into a book, it is important to understand the benefit of that approach – parents egged their children on to study, and study hard.
Cut to the late nineties/early 21st century. The job market in India – and abroad – was booming. Percentile in school and college was considered just a number. Landing a job was really easy – all you had to do was register with a website and voila! Interview date was set. One could hear youngsters talking ‘propah’ English, splurging in the numerous glitzy malls. The phrase “save for a rainy day” became redundant. Thomas L. Friedman announced the world is flat and we raised a toast to it.
Somewhere in the rush to service global clients most of us forgot something very basic – that the foundation for a stable job has to be built on good education.
That little slip has come to haunt us now. The country’s “Gods of code” will survive this downturn but what about the numerous youngsters who hopped on to the call centre bandwagon after barely finishing college? A lot of them even bought cars and houses on the devil called EMI (equated monthly instalment).
Something similar, although on a much, much smaller scale, happened during the dotcom bust. With poor revenue models, websites were springing up like fruitflies till one day it all came crashing. People who left steady jobs to work for a website suddenly found themselves having to accept drastic pay cuts.
As things stand today, there is more pain coming. The job loss meter in the US crossed the 6.5-lakh mark in February. The $900-billion stimulus package approved by the Senate will ensure that American jobs stay in America, and not get “Bangalored”. However, we’ll still be manufacturing for the world. We’ll still be servicing clients in Alaska out of Bangalore or Mysore. We’ll still be a cheap labour market. Only the breakneck pace with which we were becoming the world’s backyard will perhaps slow down.
Relying on conventional Indian wisdom, our parents encouraged us to study hard, follow the save-more-spend-less routine and basically keep our feet on the ground. But crass commercialization told us otherwise. And we listened to the latter.
Maybe we ought to have listened to conventional Indian wisdom.
Maybe students writing the II PU exams will keep this in mind when they enter examination halls – that there is no alternative to good, old-fashioned education.
Hopefully, some good will emerge out of the slowdown.
Why blame the politician for failing us
An uneasy truce hangs in the air. After a lot of name-calling, posturing and pressuring, the Reddy Brothers and their brother-in-arms B Sriramulu posed for the cameras with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and BJP state president D V Sadananda Gowda in New Delhi. BJP leader Sushma Swaraj brokered the truce and it seems that Mr Y had to give in a significant bit to bring back the adamant Reddys into his fold. And this is bad news for several MLAs in Karnataka.
Battle over, they have to return to another front – providing relief to the people of flood-hit districts. The feud provided them easy escape from the responsibility expected of them. Had the battle continued, they could have continued staying in posh hotels and resorts in Hyderabad, Goa or any other tourist destination of their liking. And you and I, the electorate, will readily oblige when these shameless creatures return to us -- hands folded and a fake smile playing on their lips – next time elections are called.
So who is to blame when a handful of MLAs hold the state to ransom? When politicians ignore the mothers who don’t have food to prepare for their children and the fathers who can’t put a roof over their heads? When nobody is worried about children who have to miss school, maybe for a year, because their buildings have been washed away?
It’s all our mistake. One should not expect miracles when all the electorate looks for when a politician comes calling is a 500-rupee note and bottle of intoxicant.
And then there is the urban “elite”.
Look at us. Just look at us. Few of us vote and we let a politician (continuing with my policy of naming names: H D Kumaraswamy) get away with making snide remarks. We select a politician not on the basis of the work he does, but because of the party he belongs to. We do not protest when he takes us for a ride. We do not get worried when we see elections being won solely on the basis of money power.
The Politician looked to the Reddy Brothers when it came to financing Operation Lotus or when money was needed to win elections. Today, The Brothers are strong enough to ignore the mandate of the people, ask for a leadership change and have their way, to a large extent – only because they have the money needed to finance the next elections.
So let’s not blame The Politician or The Brothers. It’s our doing and we shall have to bear the consequences. After all, when money talks, nobody bothers about the grammar.
Battle over, they have to return to another front – providing relief to the people of flood-hit districts. The feud provided them easy escape from the responsibility expected of them. Had the battle continued, they could have continued staying in posh hotels and resorts in Hyderabad, Goa or any other tourist destination of their liking. And you and I, the electorate, will readily oblige when these shameless creatures return to us -- hands folded and a fake smile playing on their lips – next time elections are called.
So who is to blame when a handful of MLAs hold the state to ransom? When politicians ignore the mothers who don’t have food to prepare for their children and the fathers who can’t put a roof over their heads? When nobody is worried about children who have to miss school, maybe for a year, because their buildings have been washed away?
It’s all our mistake. One should not expect miracles when all the electorate looks for when a politician comes calling is a 500-rupee note and bottle of intoxicant.
And then there is the urban “elite”.
Look at us. Just look at us. Few of us vote and we let a politician (continuing with my policy of naming names: H D Kumaraswamy) get away with making snide remarks. We select a politician not on the basis of the work he does, but because of the party he belongs to. We do not protest when he takes us for a ride. We do not get worried when we see elections being won solely on the basis of money power.
The Politician looked to the Reddy Brothers when it came to financing Operation Lotus or when money was needed to win elections. Today, The Brothers are strong enough to ignore the mandate of the people, ask for a leadership change and have their way, to a large extent – only because they have the money needed to finance the next elections.
So let’s not blame The Politician or The Brothers. It’s our doing and we shall have to bear the consequences. After all, when money talks, nobody bothers about the grammar.
All hail the idiot box
Desperate times call for desperate measures. But when bureaucrats start demanding that people be put behind bars for producing more than the “stipulated” number of children, you can be sure you are in China.
Or can you?
I R Perumal, the principal secretary in the health and family welfare department, on Saturday advocated the desperate measure to curb the booming population in India. His prescription sounds a bit more radical than his minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s. While Azad wants to hand villagers the power of the remote so that they don’t turn to baser instincts, Perumal seems to think that punishing the careless, capricious and carnal lover will arrest the population explosion.
Late-night television or the threat of being put behind bars will not do the trick. What the government needs to do is incentivise reproduction, just like Singapore does. The more children you produce, the more tax breaks and goodies you get. It will lead to a temporary population boom alright, but then our country cousins will get too bored and stop being productive altogether. Don’t laugh it off just yet.
The politics of incentives is doing the farmer in, as you must have read in The New Indian Express on Sunday. Labour is hard to come by, what with the subsidized rice scheme. Labour cost is shooting up because a farm hand gets Rs 100 under the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. With food and money assured at home, labourers are loath to do what they have been doing for ages. So, if you were to employ the same logic to baby boomers, voila! The whole problem is solved in a jiffy.
Okay, let’s get a little serious now.
Azad’s and Perumal’s concern for India’s population is not misplaced, even though it may be 20 years late. The pressure on land, water and other resources is getting out of hand. And with the West breathing down our neck (“You Asians are eating too much. That is why there is a shortage of food in the world”) survival is going to be hard-fought. Already, there are reports of our groundwater being contaminated, among other things, with uranium. A lot of what we produce is meant for export (Virginia and organic tobacco along the Mysore-Coorg belt, for instance) and the cost of harvesting land is shooting through the roof.
Is it time then to do what China did in the late seventies-mid eighties? That is, aggressively implement the birth control programme through a carrot-and-stick policy. After all, some of us are trying to follow the Chinese in all that we do – be it in agriculture or low-cost technology.
Why not enter the bedroom too?
Or can you?
I R Perumal, the principal secretary in the health and family welfare department, on Saturday advocated the desperate measure to curb the booming population in India. His prescription sounds a bit more radical than his minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s. While Azad wants to hand villagers the power of the remote so that they don’t turn to baser instincts, Perumal seems to think that punishing the careless, capricious and carnal lover will arrest the population explosion.
Late-night television or the threat of being put behind bars will not do the trick. What the government needs to do is incentivise reproduction, just like Singapore does. The more children you produce, the more tax breaks and goodies you get. It will lead to a temporary population boom alright, but then our country cousins will get too bored and stop being productive altogether. Don’t laugh it off just yet.
The politics of incentives is doing the farmer in, as you must have read in The New Indian Express on Sunday. Labour is hard to come by, what with the subsidized rice scheme. Labour cost is shooting up because a farm hand gets Rs 100 under the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. With food and money assured at home, labourers are loath to do what they have been doing for ages. So, if you were to employ the same logic to baby boomers, voila! The whole problem is solved in a jiffy.
Okay, let’s get a little serious now.
Azad’s and Perumal’s concern for India’s population is not misplaced, even though it may be 20 years late. The pressure on land, water and other resources is getting out of hand. And with the West breathing down our neck (“You Asians are eating too much. That is why there is a shortage of food in the world”) survival is going to be hard-fought. Already, there are reports of our groundwater being contaminated, among other things, with uranium. A lot of what we produce is meant for export (Virginia and organic tobacco along the Mysore-Coorg belt, for instance) and the cost of harvesting land is shooting through the roof.
Is it time then to do what China did in the late seventies-mid eighties? That is, aggressively implement the birth control programme through a carrot-and-stick policy. After all, some of us are trying to follow the Chinese in all that we do – be it in agriculture or low-cost technology.
Why not enter the bedroom too?
Where are the modern-day Kempe Gowdas?
In 2nd century BC, Chola king Karikalan built the Grand Anicut. The ancient dam in Tiruchy, Tamil Nadu, is considered to be one of the oldest surviving water-chanelling structures in the world. The Kaveri River flows with all its might and charm and is channeled here for irrigation and flood control. Let me drive home the point again: In 2nd century BC, Chola king Karikalan built the Grand Anicut.
On a recent visit to Mysore, I witnessed the beauty of the town from its vantage point: the Chamundi Hills. Forgive me, but I can never praise Mysore enough. Anybody who’s been there will probably agree with me. And that beauty that we praise today is partly due to the fact that Sir M Visvesvaraya was its Chief Engineer. Sir MV is considered the greatest son of India and a visionary par excellence – he dreamt of a university for Mysore, encouraged girls to study and was the architect of KRS (Krishanrajasagara Dam, to the uninitiated), which is one of the biggest dams in India. If I begin to list his other achievements, this column would run out of words before I even reach the halfway mark.
Sadly, only our past is glorious when it comes to managing cities. Cut to the present day and you see nepotism all around. Political interference and vested interests take care of the rest of whatever little our engineers and civic body chiefs can achieve. Take the case of our former BBMP commissioner S Subramanya, for instance. He was so vehement in defending his character that he had to give up his chair for it. Agreed that Abhishek’s death was not the sole responsibility of the BBMP chief but it doesn’t become a man of his stature to blame the child’s mother or take on the Lokayukta for his comments. You could call it his hamartia.
Managing cities is no mean task. But it is not that overwhelming either. A micro (nay, nano) model of how cities should be run can be seen in our glitzy malls. The toilets are cleaned regularly, there is a mandatory space for parking, walkways are clearly defined and some thought goes into how weekend crowds are handled.
Look at our cities on the other hand. Our pourkarmikas (they should be called poor karmikas henceforth) are poorly equipped for the job. They clean sewers – which are storehouses of deadly gases – without the most basic equipment. How often have you seen – or heard of -- a civic body chief taking rounds of the city and setting things right on the spot? Where in Bangalore have you seen zero-tolerance zones where no encroachment or deviation from the master plan is allowed?
Couple of days back, Jayakar Jerome, the former BDA chief, wrote an eye-opener in The New Indian Express. He described in great detail how the four natural drainage valleys of Bangalore have to be scientifically drained, desilted and trained. He also advocated the modernization of storm water drains. That is so true. In most of our cities, storm water drains are of the Raj era.
Most of our cities need rebuilding from the bottom up. They need new Master Plans, better engineering marvels, better foresight. All in all, we need visionaries and doers like Sir Visvesvarayas, Karikanals and Kempe Gowdas.
Can our cities deliver?
On a recent visit to Mysore, I witnessed the beauty of the town from its vantage point: the Chamundi Hills. Forgive me, but I can never praise Mysore enough. Anybody who’s been there will probably agree with me. And that beauty that we praise today is partly due to the fact that Sir M Visvesvaraya was its Chief Engineer. Sir MV is considered the greatest son of India and a visionary par excellence – he dreamt of a university for Mysore, encouraged girls to study and was the architect of KRS (Krishanrajasagara Dam, to the uninitiated), which is one of the biggest dams in India. If I begin to list his other achievements, this column would run out of words before I even reach the halfway mark.
Sadly, only our past is glorious when it comes to managing cities. Cut to the present day and you see nepotism all around. Political interference and vested interests take care of the rest of whatever little our engineers and civic body chiefs can achieve. Take the case of our former BBMP commissioner S Subramanya, for instance. He was so vehement in defending his character that he had to give up his chair for it. Agreed that Abhishek’s death was not the sole responsibility of the BBMP chief but it doesn’t become a man of his stature to blame the child’s mother or take on the Lokayukta for his comments. You could call it his hamartia.
Managing cities is no mean task. But it is not that overwhelming either. A micro (nay, nano) model of how cities should be run can be seen in our glitzy malls. The toilets are cleaned regularly, there is a mandatory space for parking, walkways are clearly defined and some thought goes into how weekend crowds are handled.
Look at our cities on the other hand. Our pourkarmikas (they should be called poor karmikas henceforth) are poorly equipped for the job. They clean sewers – which are storehouses of deadly gases – without the most basic equipment. How often have you seen – or heard of -- a civic body chief taking rounds of the city and setting things right on the spot? Where in Bangalore have you seen zero-tolerance zones where no encroachment or deviation from the master plan is allowed?
Couple of days back, Jayakar Jerome, the former BDA chief, wrote an eye-opener in The New Indian Express. He described in great detail how the four natural drainage valleys of Bangalore have to be scientifically drained, desilted and trained. He also advocated the modernization of storm water drains. That is so true. In most of our cities, storm water drains are of the Raj era.
Most of our cities need rebuilding from the bottom up. They need new Master Plans, better engineering marvels, better foresight. All in all, we need visionaries and doers like Sir Visvesvarayas, Karikanals and Kempe Gowdas.
Can our cities deliver?
Why smiling is an effort for state leaders
The electorate has spoken – emphatically – and none of Karnataka’s political bosses have a reason to be truly joyous.
That sadness first engulfed former prime minister H D Deve Gowda. Even while his lead was around 2 lakh votes over K H Hanume Gowda of the BJP, the stalwart started feeling uneasy. When the results were announced, Gowda had defeated Gowda – of the BJP – by the highest margin in the state – 2.91 lakh votes. With the victory, he also got high blood pressure and was advised rest. There are many theories as to why Deve Gowda decided not to face the media eve after a convincing victory in Hassan and improving his party’s score in the state – the JD(S) tally went up to 3 from 2 in 2004. The most convincing theory is this: after the UPA received a healthy mandate, Gowda and Son lost all relevance at the Centre. “I-sweat-in-a-Mercedes” Kumaraswamy may still be eyeing a Cabinet berth but is Sonia Gandhi still scouting for him? No way.
And then there is Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President R V Deshpande. His party may be forming the government at the Centre, but he is the only man who has let Madam Gandhi down in south India. In Andhra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Congress gained an upper hand. What makes the Congress victory even more significant is the way Kerala and Tamil Nadu vote and throw out the incumbent. But this time, Congress – and its allies – bucked the trend.
RVD puts the blame of his defeat squarely at the door of poor organizational structure and delay in selection of candidates. He has also been saying that lack of funds did him in. You should have heard how a colleague in New Delhi – who has been covering Andhra and Karnataka politics for decades – laughed when I told him that RVD has been bandying about this excuse for his upcoming poor show (that was on May 13).
The man who worked the hardest in helping L K Advani realize his lifelong ambition is not very happy either. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa did more than what was expected of him – he delivered 19 BJP MPs to the Lok Sabha, silenced his critics and has, hopefully, reined in mischief-makers from rival parties who wanted to stoke communal fires in the state. And that is no small task, mind you, given the fact that he has been chief minister of Karnataka for less than a year. But it’s not a pretty picture if you hear your party chief conceding defeat and your prime ministerial candidate preparing to fade away.
The Congress performance in Delhi – where Sheila Diskhit became chief minister for the third consecutive term recently and the party swept the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday – is a good pointer to what chief ministers should do. Sheila Dikshit launched an aggressive development programme and has been aided by a weak and tattered opposition.
The BJP’s emphatic win in Karnataka is an endorsement of Mr Y’s policies. Hope he doesn’t get distracted by the events in New Delhi and keeps at them.
That sadness first engulfed former prime minister H D Deve Gowda. Even while his lead was around 2 lakh votes over K H Hanume Gowda of the BJP, the stalwart started feeling uneasy. When the results were announced, Gowda had defeated Gowda – of the BJP – by the highest margin in the state – 2.91 lakh votes. With the victory, he also got high blood pressure and was advised rest. There are many theories as to why Deve Gowda decided not to face the media eve after a convincing victory in Hassan and improving his party’s score in the state – the JD(S) tally went up to 3 from 2 in 2004. The most convincing theory is this: after the UPA received a healthy mandate, Gowda and Son lost all relevance at the Centre. “I-sweat-in-a-Mercedes” Kumaraswamy may still be eyeing a Cabinet berth but is Sonia Gandhi still scouting for him? No way.
And then there is Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President R V Deshpande. His party may be forming the government at the Centre, but he is the only man who has let Madam Gandhi down in south India. In Andhra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Congress gained an upper hand. What makes the Congress victory even more significant is the way Kerala and Tamil Nadu vote and throw out the incumbent. But this time, Congress – and its allies – bucked the trend.
RVD puts the blame of his defeat squarely at the door of poor organizational structure and delay in selection of candidates. He has also been saying that lack of funds did him in. You should have heard how a colleague in New Delhi – who has been covering Andhra and Karnataka politics for decades – laughed when I told him that RVD has been bandying about this excuse for his upcoming poor show (that was on May 13).
The man who worked the hardest in helping L K Advani realize his lifelong ambition is not very happy either. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa did more than what was expected of him – he delivered 19 BJP MPs to the Lok Sabha, silenced his critics and has, hopefully, reined in mischief-makers from rival parties who wanted to stoke communal fires in the state. And that is no small task, mind you, given the fact that he has been chief minister of Karnataka for less than a year. But it’s not a pretty picture if you hear your party chief conceding defeat and your prime ministerial candidate preparing to fade away.
The Congress performance in Delhi – where Sheila Diskhit became chief minister for the third consecutive term recently and the party swept the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday – is a good pointer to what chief ministers should do. Sheila Dikshit launched an aggressive development programme and has been aided by a weak and tattered opposition.
The BJP’s emphatic win in Karnataka is an endorsement of Mr Y’s policies. Hope he doesn’t get distracted by the events in New Delhi and keeps at them.
Chaplin’s beauty and the beach
All that Charlie Chaplin needed to make comedy was “a pretty girl, a policeman and a park”. In India, he got a filmmaker, the moral police and a beach. And what a comedy it’s been.
Hemant Hedge, a film director who has delivered Ooh La La! and Dhad Dhad (which were below average performers at the Box Office), wanted to shoot a dance number using a 67-foot Chaplin statue as the backdrop for his forthcoming venture, House Full. As a symbol of his magnanimity, he wanted to leave the statue intact to draw tourists. That his name and that of his movie would have become immortalized with the permanent structure is an issue that Hegde would never have even thought of.
A couple of issues need to be explored here. First and foremost, a 67-foot Chaplin statue on the beach? Agreed, Chaplin was a great artist – I still get the goosebumps when I watch The Kid. But would my admiration for the man hold when I see a statue as tall as a five-storey building on the beach? Doubtful. When you picture a beach, you see the sea, the sun, the palm trees and lots of white sand. Not statues. Hope it stays that way.
And then there is this issue of the Coastal Regulatory Zone norms. Hegde had only got oral permission for installing the statue at Otthinene near Baindur (Udupi). As per CRZ norms, no permanent structure can come up within 500 metres of the seashore. Hegde’s tribute to the legendary artist was to come up 300 metres from the seashore.
Hegde and his next, House Full, got a lot of free press before he decided to install the statue to Innovative Film City at Bidadi, near Bangalore, thanks to the comedians who opposed it saying Chaplin was a Christian. A lot of artists jumped into the debate and a lot of noise was made. Ramachandra Gowda’s remarks about modern art were recalled as was Chaplin’s agnosticism. In the end, the “moral police” had their way even though they did not realize that by bringing in the useless issue of Chaplin’s “religion”, they managed to preserve the beauty of the beach.
Frankly, Karnataka is going through a churning that it can do without. The attacks in Mangalore and the moral policing in Bangalore have brought the state into global focus once again. And on days the moral police catches its breath, it is the police that manages to raise eyebrows. Police commissioner Shankar Bidari’s plans to recruit 10,000 eyes and ears for the city met with a poor response. Now he wants Bangaloreans to defend themselves with whatever weapon they have when attacked.
If the onus of ensuring safety is increasingly being transferred to the individual, it is little wonder then that individuals are rising to “uphold cultural values” and are getting away with it.
It’s turning out to be a comedy even Chaplin would have never dreamt of. Only, it’s not funny anymore.
Hemant Hedge, a film director who has delivered Ooh La La! and Dhad Dhad (which were below average performers at the Box Office), wanted to shoot a dance number using a 67-foot Chaplin statue as the backdrop for his forthcoming venture, House Full. As a symbol of his magnanimity, he wanted to leave the statue intact to draw tourists. That his name and that of his movie would have become immortalized with the permanent structure is an issue that Hegde would never have even thought of.
A couple of issues need to be explored here. First and foremost, a 67-foot Chaplin statue on the beach? Agreed, Chaplin was a great artist – I still get the goosebumps when I watch The Kid. But would my admiration for the man hold when I see a statue as tall as a five-storey building on the beach? Doubtful. When you picture a beach, you see the sea, the sun, the palm trees and lots of white sand. Not statues. Hope it stays that way.
And then there is this issue of the Coastal Regulatory Zone norms. Hegde had only got oral permission for installing the statue at Otthinene near Baindur (Udupi). As per CRZ norms, no permanent structure can come up within 500 metres of the seashore. Hegde’s tribute to the legendary artist was to come up 300 metres from the seashore.
Hegde and his next, House Full, got a lot of free press before he decided to install the statue to Innovative Film City at Bidadi, near Bangalore, thanks to the comedians who opposed it saying Chaplin was a Christian. A lot of artists jumped into the debate and a lot of noise was made. Ramachandra Gowda’s remarks about modern art were recalled as was Chaplin’s agnosticism. In the end, the “moral police” had their way even though they did not realize that by bringing in the useless issue of Chaplin’s “religion”, they managed to preserve the beauty of the beach.
Frankly, Karnataka is going through a churning that it can do without. The attacks in Mangalore and the moral policing in Bangalore have brought the state into global focus once again. And on days the moral police catches its breath, it is the police that manages to raise eyebrows. Police commissioner Shankar Bidari’s plans to recruit 10,000 eyes and ears for the city met with a poor response. Now he wants Bangaloreans to defend themselves with whatever weapon they have when attacked.
If the onus of ensuring safety is increasingly being transferred to the individual, it is little wonder then that individuals are rising to “uphold cultural values” and are getting away with it.
It’s turning out to be a comedy even Chaplin would have never dreamt of. Only, it’s not funny anymore.
Let’s get on the road to public safety
We Indians always dream big. If we need power, we take the long and circuitous route – we get all criminal MPs out of jails and ask them to vote for the nuclear deal which will bring in an additional 25,000 MW of N-power by 2020 at an enormous cost.
When it comes to population – well, we are around 1.6 billion. Few countries can match us in innovation. Fewer can come close to the Gods of Code who roam the streets of Bangalore.
But it’s the smaller things in life that we take for granted. Covering a manhole or filling up a ditch, for instance.
Last week, 60-year-old Venkateshwaralu’s life was cut short when a concrete slab in Frazer Town had been removed. BBMP has washed its hand of Venkateshwarulu’s death by saying that he could have avoided the route just like others did. Moreover, they say, the concrete block – 4 m wide and 40 cm thick – had not been removed by them but by “somebody else”.
This is not the first time that open drains and manholes have claimed a life. And neither will this be the last. Every time a life is lost, authorities will come up with some excuse or the other, probably make the right noises, carry out some damage control and then wait till it happens again. It’s so predictable.
Public safety is a concept alien to India. When civic bodies cut roads, they seldom do so with proper markings. Holes are dug days after roads are laid, but never covered properly. Labourers working in manholes, or laying roads are hardly ever provided protective gear. Motorists are expected to notice them -- and the several ditches on the roads -- and simply avoid them. What did you expect, man?
Lakhs die on the roads in India every year. In 2007 alone, 1.2 lakh lives were lost in accidents. A good many could have been saved with proper road design and elementary rules of public safety. For instance, marking turns and speed-breakers – nay, neck-breakers – with reflecting paint. Or, ensuring that they conform to standards. Or, that there are no ditches or open manholes in the middle of the road and motorists don’t have to swerve suddenly.
But all that will not happen unless a law is passed that makes it mandatory for officials to drive themselves. Or, in the case of Bangalore, made to walk home late at night so that they notice the packs of strays on the roads looking for easy meat. That way, they will hopefully do something about the problems that lesser mortals face every day.
I lost a colleague some years back. He was returning home late, there were no streetlights and the Delhi Police had put up a barricade – ostensibly for checking vehicles. The barricades had no reflectors and two of them had been tied up with a rope to ensure that motorists don’t slip away. The colleague did not notice the rope, and was decapitated in the process.
I’ve seldom seen barricades with ropes since then, but reflector-less ones are still all the rage in Delhi.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
When it comes to population – well, we are around 1.6 billion. Few countries can match us in innovation. Fewer can come close to the Gods of Code who roam the streets of Bangalore.
But it’s the smaller things in life that we take for granted. Covering a manhole or filling up a ditch, for instance.
Last week, 60-year-old Venkateshwaralu’s life was cut short when a concrete slab in Frazer Town had been removed. BBMP has washed its hand of Venkateshwarulu’s death by saying that he could have avoided the route just like others did. Moreover, they say, the concrete block – 4 m wide and 40 cm thick – had not been removed by them but by “somebody else”.
This is not the first time that open drains and manholes have claimed a life. And neither will this be the last. Every time a life is lost, authorities will come up with some excuse or the other, probably make the right noises, carry out some damage control and then wait till it happens again. It’s so predictable.
Public safety is a concept alien to India. When civic bodies cut roads, they seldom do so with proper markings. Holes are dug days after roads are laid, but never covered properly. Labourers working in manholes, or laying roads are hardly ever provided protective gear. Motorists are expected to notice them -- and the several ditches on the roads -- and simply avoid them. What did you expect, man?
Lakhs die on the roads in India every year. In 2007 alone, 1.2 lakh lives were lost in accidents. A good many could have been saved with proper road design and elementary rules of public safety. For instance, marking turns and speed-breakers – nay, neck-breakers – with reflecting paint. Or, ensuring that they conform to standards. Or, that there are no ditches or open manholes in the middle of the road and motorists don’t have to swerve suddenly.
But all that will not happen unless a law is passed that makes it mandatory for officials to drive themselves. Or, in the case of Bangalore, made to walk home late at night so that they notice the packs of strays on the roads looking for easy meat. That way, they will hopefully do something about the problems that lesser mortals face every day.
I lost a colleague some years back. He was returning home late, there were no streetlights and the Delhi Police had put up a barricade – ostensibly for checking vehicles. The barricades had no reflectors and two of them had been tied up with a rope to ensure that motorists don’t slip away. The colleague did not notice the rope, and was decapitated in the process.
I’ve seldom seen barricades with ropes since then, but reflector-less ones are still all the rage in Delhi.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
Language policy: Lost in translation?
Bangalore lives by a code: swalpa adjust maadi. But the Karnataka government seems to be in no mood to grant concessions. It is still holding on to its guns over the language policy. For those who came in late, here’s a recap: The Karnataka High Court had ordered the government not to force schools to adopt Kannada as the medium of instruction. The government challenged the order and this is what the Supreme Court had to say about it, essentially: Without English, students won’t even get a clerk’s job… they would find it extremely hard to compete in this world.
Forcing children studying in government schools to learn only in Kannada – or any other vernacular language – is a flawed decision in a string of flawed decisions that governments have made. Look at the kind of homework that kids are given. Most of the times, parents have to struggle with the assignments. And then there is this policy of no tests till Class V. Even though it does take a lot of pressure off kids, but seriously, won’t we be bringing up a generation ill-equipped to face challenges of a ruthless world?
Mukhyamantri Chandru, chairman of the Kannada Development Authority, says that the government should have introduced the concept of compulsory Kannada long years back. The government failed in doing so and that is why we are in a spot, he says.
All these arguments are based on the premise that youngsters would not like to converse in Kannada or would lose touch with their roots unless they are forced to learn only in Kannada. And I think that premise is wrong. I may have spent less than a year in Bangalore but most youngsters I have met are equally at home with Kannada – and proud of it – as they are with English or Hindi. Unlike in the North, where most youngsters consider it a sin to speak in Hindi, youngsters in Karnataka talk in Kannada and English in the same breath.
Unless we let people decide what is good or bad for them, they will never be able to make the correct choice. Unless we open them up to different cultures, they will never realize the richness in their own.
In this globalized world, we need skills that can help us compete with the best in the business. Our youngsters need wings to soar and, at the same time, be in touch with their roots. Special classes wherein children learn the nuances of the language and the state’s rich heritage will do the trick.
Kannada is a beautiful language and needs little promotion. If the state feels there should be active encouragement, it should be by way of incentives and special schools, and not through coercion.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
Forcing children studying in government schools to learn only in Kannada – or any other vernacular language – is a flawed decision in a string of flawed decisions that governments have made. Look at the kind of homework that kids are given. Most of the times, parents have to struggle with the assignments. And then there is this policy of no tests till Class V. Even though it does take a lot of pressure off kids, but seriously, won’t we be bringing up a generation ill-equipped to face challenges of a ruthless world?
Mukhyamantri Chandru, chairman of the Kannada Development Authority, says that the government should have introduced the concept of compulsory Kannada long years back. The government failed in doing so and that is why we are in a spot, he says.
All these arguments are based on the premise that youngsters would not like to converse in Kannada or would lose touch with their roots unless they are forced to learn only in Kannada. And I think that premise is wrong. I may have spent less than a year in Bangalore but most youngsters I have met are equally at home with Kannada – and proud of it – as they are with English or Hindi. Unlike in the North, where most youngsters consider it a sin to speak in Hindi, youngsters in Karnataka talk in Kannada and English in the same breath.
Unless we let people decide what is good or bad for them, they will never be able to make the correct choice. Unless we open them up to different cultures, they will never realize the richness in their own.
In this globalized world, we need skills that can help us compete with the best in the business. Our youngsters need wings to soar and, at the same time, be in touch with their roots. Special classes wherein children learn the nuances of the language and the state’s rich heritage will do the trick.
Kannada is a beautiful language and needs little promotion. If the state feels there should be active encouragement, it should be by way of incentives and special schools, and not through coercion.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
The Michael Jackson in all of us
Like A Comet
Blazing 'Cross The Evening Sky
Gone Too Soon
Like A Rainbow
Fading In The Twinkling Of An Eye
Gone Too Soon
Shiny And Sparkly
And Splendidly Bright
Here One Day
Gone One Night
Like The Loss Of Sunlight
On A Cloudy Afternoon
Gone Too Soon
Like A Castle
Built Upon A Sandy Beach
Gone Too Soon
Like A Perfect Flower
That Is Just Beyond Your Reach
Gone Too Soon
Born To Amuse, To Inspire, To Delight
Here One Day
Gone One Night
Like A Sunset
Dying With The Rising Of The Moon
Gone Too Soon
This song written by Larry Grossman and Buz Kohan is perhaps among the lesser-known performances by Michael Jackson. MJ dedicated this song to the memory of Ryan White, a student who contracted AIDS after he received infected blood for his haemophilia. The song also sums up the emotions that ran through my head when my wife informed me on Friday morning that Michael Jackson was dead. I would be lying if I said my eyes did not get a tad moist.
Most people of my generation grew up on a staple diet of Michael Jackson on LPs, cassettes and, later, on MTV. We gathered in school gyms trying to perfect the moonwalk and break dance. The first question kids my age would ask whenever someone told them that MTV was going to be launched in India was – “Will they play Michael Jackson songs as well?”
MJ became HIStory many years back. But whenever his songs play on the radio, I still get the goosebumps and I turn up the volume.
MJ will forever remain with us – us Indians, that is. How is it, you ask? Look around you. There is a TV ad in which a girl wins a tennis match only after she applies a skin-whitening body lotion. Our body colour often does not match with our face, we are told. So, the girl applies the lotion for a few weeks and voila! She is confident enough to lose her jacket and win the match.
And we curse MJ for trying to change the colour of his skin.
And then there was MJ’s childhood, rather the lack of it. He started singing when he was barely four. By the time he was eight, he was already touring the Midwest, “extensively”. His father was a stickler for perfection and MJ once said that he would sit in a chair – belt in hand – and “if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you". Very Indian, don’t you think? Recall that scene from Dev D when he gets on a bus, completely wasted. The woman next to him scolds him and says that if her son had done the same thing, she would whack the daylights out of him. Why, even Pramod Mutalik justified the attack on “wayward girls” in pubs saying that most parents wanted to beat up their kids for going to pubs but could not.
It was the allegation of child sex abuse that really brought MJ down. I don’t know if they were all true, but the fact that most of them were settled out of court (read “on payment of huge sums”) does suggest a sinister motive.
MJ will forever be remembered. When we try our hands – and legs -- at break dance (it’s so out of fashion but still very difficult to perfect), or when we try out that body lotion or when we beat the living daylights out of our children or students in order to discipline them.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
Blazing 'Cross The Evening Sky
Gone Too Soon
Like A Rainbow
Fading In The Twinkling Of An Eye
Gone Too Soon
Shiny And Sparkly
And Splendidly Bright
Here One Day
Gone One Night
Like The Loss Of Sunlight
On A Cloudy Afternoon
Gone Too Soon
Like A Castle
Built Upon A Sandy Beach
Gone Too Soon
Like A Perfect Flower
That Is Just Beyond Your Reach
Gone Too Soon
Born To Amuse, To Inspire, To Delight
Here One Day
Gone One Night
Like A Sunset
Dying With The Rising Of The Moon
Gone Too Soon
This song written by Larry Grossman and Buz Kohan is perhaps among the lesser-known performances by Michael Jackson. MJ dedicated this song to the memory of Ryan White, a student who contracted AIDS after he received infected blood for his haemophilia. The song also sums up the emotions that ran through my head when my wife informed me on Friday morning that Michael Jackson was dead. I would be lying if I said my eyes did not get a tad moist.
Most people of my generation grew up on a staple diet of Michael Jackson on LPs, cassettes and, later, on MTV. We gathered in school gyms trying to perfect the moonwalk and break dance. The first question kids my age would ask whenever someone told them that MTV was going to be launched in India was – “Will they play Michael Jackson songs as well?”
MJ became HIStory many years back. But whenever his songs play on the radio, I still get the goosebumps and I turn up the volume.
MJ will forever remain with us – us Indians, that is. How is it, you ask? Look around you. There is a TV ad in which a girl wins a tennis match only after she applies a skin-whitening body lotion. Our body colour often does not match with our face, we are told. So, the girl applies the lotion for a few weeks and voila! She is confident enough to lose her jacket and win the match.
And we curse MJ for trying to change the colour of his skin.
And then there was MJ’s childhood, rather the lack of it. He started singing when he was barely four. By the time he was eight, he was already touring the Midwest, “extensively”. His father was a stickler for perfection and MJ once said that he would sit in a chair – belt in hand – and “if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you". Very Indian, don’t you think? Recall that scene from Dev D when he gets on a bus, completely wasted. The woman next to him scolds him and says that if her son had done the same thing, she would whack the daylights out of him. Why, even Pramod Mutalik justified the attack on “wayward girls” in pubs saying that most parents wanted to beat up their kids for going to pubs but could not.
It was the allegation of child sex abuse that really brought MJ down. I don’t know if they were all true, but the fact that most of them were settled out of court (read “on payment of huge sums”) does suggest a sinister motive.
MJ will forever be remembered. When we try our hands – and legs -- at break dance (it’s so out of fashion but still very difficult to perfect), or when we try out that body lotion or when we beat the living daylights out of our children or students in order to discipline them.
ravijoshi@epmltd.com
A fling with Paris can do Bangalore good
A funny thing has been happening on the streets of Bangalore. Auto drivers are increasingly getting agreeable to the idea of going by the meter.
I have only two explanations for the phenomena: either they are being extremely cordial to an out-of-towner or they have been hit by the downturn that has gripped Bangalore. Since I can hear you laughing your guts out at the former, I can safely assume that the latter theory holds water.
No government has ever been able to tame the overcharging auto driver. In most cities, autos are either owned by police officials and politicians, or, as in the case of Bangalore, are affiliated to powerful local outfits such as Jai Karnataka or Ka Ra Ve. Which basically means that they can get away with almost anything because the hapless commuter has no other alternative.
Public transport in Indian cities has always been run on the whims and fancies of individuals and lobbies – except perhaps in Mumbai and Kozhikode where auto drivers are like a wish-come-true. Take the case of Kendra Saarige, for instance. The air-conditioned Volvo service run by BMTC for the Central Business District in Bangalore is just the thing needed for this city. However, due to poor planning, these buses mostly run empty. What BMTC could – or rather, should – have done is identify a few parking lots and run the service between these points. On the other hand, BBMP should have jacked up the parking charges along MG Road, Brigade Road etc after the introduction of the service to encourage Kendra Saarige’s usage. This would have ensured better utilization of the service and eliminated the need for autos in the CBD.
Two things alone can save Bangalore from its mammoth traffic problems and pollution. One, integrated public transport with the right mix of high capacity buses running along arterial roads and smaller battery-operated ones serving as feeders. Two, Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris since 2001. Delanoe has brought back romance to the city of love with his three-pronged strategy – reduce cars in areas served by buses and trains; improve public transport to ensure rapid movement; give back the city to pedestrians and cyclists, even rollerbladers. Delanoe introduced an essentially free Velib service wherein you can pick up a cycle from racks provided all over the city for a nominal subscription fee. And you can return it at any rack. The service is free for the first 30 minutes and thereafter the charge rises steeply.
Though the scheme has its fair share of critics, it’s an idea that is being replicated in Austria, Spain, Finland, Australia and the US.
The Agenda for Bengalooru Infrastructure Development (ABIDe) is working toward a world-class Bangalore by 2020 and, hopefully, our very own Bertrand Delanoe will emerge through that exercise. Till then, it is only the economic downturn that will save us the daily harassment at the hands of the auto driver.
I have only two explanations for the phenomena: either they are being extremely cordial to an out-of-towner or they have been hit by the downturn that has gripped Bangalore. Since I can hear you laughing your guts out at the former, I can safely assume that the latter theory holds water.
No government has ever been able to tame the overcharging auto driver. In most cities, autos are either owned by police officials and politicians, or, as in the case of Bangalore, are affiliated to powerful local outfits such as Jai Karnataka or Ka Ra Ve. Which basically means that they can get away with almost anything because the hapless commuter has no other alternative.
Public transport in Indian cities has always been run on the whims and fancies of individuals and lobbies – except perhaps in Mumbai and Kozhikode where auto drivers are like a wish-come-true. Take the case of Kendra Saarige, for instance. The air-conditioned Volvo service run by BMTC for the Central Business District in Bangalore is just the thing needed for this city. However, due to poor planning, these buses mostly run empty. What BMTC could – or rather, should – have done is identify a few parking lots and run the service between these points. On the other hand, BBMP should have jacked up the parking charges along MG Road, Brigade Road etc after the introduction of the service to encourage Kendra Saarige’s usage. This would have ensured better utilization of the service and eliminated the need for autos in the CBD.
Two things alone can save Bangalore from its mammoth traffic problems and pollution. One, integrated public transport with the right mix of high capacity buses running along arterial roads and smaller battery-operated ones serving as feeders. Two, Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris since 2001. Delanoe has brought back romance to the city of love with his three-pronged strategy – reduce cars in areas served by buses and trains; improve public transport to ensure rapid movement; give back the city to pedestrians and cyclists, even rollerbladers. Delanoe introduced an essentially free Velib service wherein you can pick up a cycle from racks provided all over the city for a nominal subscription fee. And you can return it at any rack. The service is free for the first 30 minutes and thereafter the charge rises steeply.
Though the scheme has its fair share of critics, it’s an idea that is being replicated in Austria, Spain, Finland, Australia and the US.
The Agenda for Bengalooru Infrastructure Development (ABIDe) is working toward a world-class Bangalore by 2020 and, hopefully, our very own Bertrand Delanoe will emerge through that exercise. Till then, it is only the economic downturn that will save us the daily harassment at the hands of the auto driver.
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