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