I am in Bengaluru !

In anticipation of Girish karnad's play " Boiled beans on toast " a.k.a " Bendakalooru on toast " directed by Surendranath

Original in kannada by Jogi Girish Rao Hatwar

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I am in bengaluru !
Isn't it joyful to just say this? What's not there in bengaluru? The vast city which has surprised one and all every now and then.
For the old guard this is bengaavalooru (supportive city), for those who believe in cock and bull stories it's bendakaalooru and for the most celebrated playwright Girish karnad this is baked beans on toast, for the cinema buffs this is kempegowda nagara, for those who know english this was/is a british hamlet and those who dont know,  like the farmers and pheasants this is just a big conglomeration of hallis and palyas (gully and villages )!
For the outsiders this is a safe city but a lazy/cozy one for the locals. This is a crazy city for the nocturnals, fashion city for girls, educational city for the studious lot, pension city for the old, tension city for IT folks but for the youth this is electricity or may be electronic city !

Ask anyone and i bet you will get nothing but a positive response about our city. There are people who are madly in love with its traffic (indeed !) and those who are not change their stance after visiting other metros and say " Namma Bengaluru is not that bad afterall !".

This is one of the few cities where one can wander in the night safely and jog in the morning easily. To make this easy we have lalbhag in the north and cubbon park in the south. Rangashankara for theatre buffs and chowdaiah smaaraka bhavana for the ardent music lovers. Apart from these you have mekedaatu, mutyaalamdu, bannerghatta and nandi hills for your weekends. To say the least if you have a job and a little zeal you can easily spend 30 years of your life happily !

Bengaluru is neither like your mom nor your wife but very close to your girl friend ! No hangama,  No kirik (especially for the outsiders !) You can sow, reap and exploit bengaluru the way you want but still the city embraces you. Though mumbai impresses us by it's hardwork and commitment , chennai by its passion, hyderabad by its liveliness, kolkata by its art and beauty and delhi by its royalty, it is bengaluru which calms you down and puts you to sleep with a sweet lullaby !

One can think of hundred reasons to like bengaluru and just one or two not to ! It doesn't trick you or mess with you unless you do. It wont ask you for what reason you came, stayed or left. Its a confluence of karnataka and india as well. The innumerable languages people speak here, their choices, likes and dislikes, thinking, happiness and sadness makes the city what it is today.

Bengaluru is a good friend. Indeed its like soothing 'majjige' (butter  milk) in summer, Hot coffee in the winter and a warm wool for the rains. Bengaluru is everything that you can think of and relate to !

To experience more of bengaluru it would be worthwhile to visit Rangashankara anytime between 25 to 29th of this month (7:30 pm) to see the play written by Girish karnad and directed by Surendranath

(Translated by :  Darshan Jayanna)

Askew : A short biography of bangalore by T.J.S George

Malgudi series - 13

There are three ways by which one can learn about a city, it's core, culture, dynamism, values and soul. One by spending considerable time in the city and knowing it first hand, second by talking to people who are from the city and third and the most easiest one is to read the books available. Each one of these options has its own advantages and disadvantages, the third option is the most simplest one, but the experiences one grasps is as good as the book and its narrator !

In the coming blogs i would like to introduce to the reader many books written on Bangalore from people who were born and brought up here, who were from a different place and stayed here for sometime, people who were just fellow travellers and also from Englishmen who stayed in the city during pre and post independent era.

The first such book in the series is " Askew : A short biography of Bangalore by T.J.S George

T.J.S George is a keralite who studied in Madras and due to his career in journalism travelled across the world and stayed in cities like Hong Kong, New York, Bombay, Patna and finally came and settled in Bangalore during his post retirement days. It was this time that Karnataka was undergoing a lot of cultural changes and Bangalore's civil society was quiet vibrant. This is evident in this book where the author illustrates his interactions with the celebrated editor of Kannada journalism  Y.N.K.

Most of T.J.S cultural observations of Bangalore were from the eyes of Y.N.K which is a repetition for anyone who is aware of the cultural sphere here, however his observations on the the dwindling lakes and parks which made way for the high rise buildings, establishment of institutions and IT parks and what followed later like price rise, traffic, sudden growth leading to crumbling infrastructure and corruption come from his first hand journalistic observations ! Interestingly, his stay in the city when all these changes were taking place brings more authenticity to his observations.

George argues that Bangalore is at a tipping point now and if not rescued will soon become a dead city ! The unavailability of sufficient green spaces like parks for its elderly and children, felling of trees, pollution and traffic jam, neglecting heritage buildings for commercial complexes and there by pressing the soul of the city should be taken seriously.

He gives an interesting example of New York which went through similar problems in the late 90's and how it overcame those problems  by setting aside place for everything and re-planning the whole city for good - this is worth a read and should be emulated in Bangalore, if at all we are serious about our city !

Overall this book by T.J.S George is an introductory and lucid read for anyone who would want to know what was Bangalore like over the past few decades and what changes it went through in this period from a journalistic point of view. There is more an in-organic analysis of the city and its problems and less of organic discussion about the city !
 

The tale of two lakes !

Malgudi series - 12

In the recent months there is an impeccable coverage of the two infamous lakes of bengaluru both in national and international media. One is Varthur and another bellandur lake. They were quite serene till the time multi storied apartments were built around them starting year 2000 and sold to prospective buyers promising them a majestic sunrise and sunset amidst lake view !

What happened all of a sudden is rather a cliched question !

According to sources bellandur lake is the largest lake in the city with an area of 892 acres and use to have a very good ecosystem. Its indigenous wildlife had Parakeets, King cobras, Kingfishers,Parrots, wood pigeons, rat snakes, monitor lizards etc. which are not visible at all today !

They did not vanish all of a sudden but only due to the continuous, unplanned and fast paced urbanization over the past 20 odd years with sewage from the surroundings being fed to these fresh water lakes without any treatment. All we can see today in these lakes today is water hyacinth and no other flora and fauna !

The overflow from bellandur lake flows into Varthur lake which is the second largest lake in bengaluru with an area of 445 acres and was a man made lake built by ganga kings thousands of years ago. Today it receives 40 % of sewage from bengaluru and led to the massive growth of water hyacinth which reduces the BOD ( Biological oxygen demand ) of water leading to death of aquatic life. The high levels of phosphates ( In detergents) and ammonia (In floor cleaning chemicals) which enters the lakes via sewer are causing a lot of foam when water flows down from a height especially near varthur kodi ( An overfill outlet for any lake is called KODI in kannada ) leading to FLY FOAM all over the vicinity. Till this happened and affected people who travel in the Whitefield main road, no one noticed and took it seriously !

A study by IISC reveals that 2 TMC of untreated water to Tamil Nadu goes from here through pinakini river basin and at the same time there is a significant amount of heavy metal content in the milk produced by the cattle which feed on the grass and water hyacinth grown in the lake's vicinity !

Bellandur lake with its heavy organic sewer content had a lot of methane ( Marsh gas) which is generally the case in low oxygen environment  (anaerobic ) when such methane was exposed to heat from sun and atmospheric oxygen it caught fire which we generally observe in municipal dumps or coal mines !
People were really worried  and thought the situation must be way out of control if water has to catch fire and only then the authorities responded despite continuous warnings from institutes of repute like Indian institute of science ( IISC ) and several other citizen forums regarding the untreated sewage, foaming, Industrial pollution ( Around 100 industries near bellandur), Eutrophication (Excessive growth of algae and other phyto planktons due to increase in nutrients like detergents, fertilizers entering water bodies).

The situation in bengaluru is far worse than we perceive because for saving trees, lakes and other eco systems, citizens have had to approach Government, Green Tribunal and courts which is really a shame to the name Garden city ! The lung spaces of the city like lalbhag and cubbon parks have long been encroached by greedy citizens and key people from the government itself.

The situation in other lakes of bengaluru is no different from what happened to varthur or bellandur lakes except the fact that there is no fire incident yet. Although there are a lot of foaming incidents, the first one to reveal foaming was the lake near tin factory bus stand ( KR Puram) which is completely covered by water hyacinth now !

In all the developed nations there is a concept called "Polluter Pays Principle-PPP" where the one who pollutes will be shamed and hefty fines will be collected from him, but in our country we citizens are collectively polluting our own water bodies with a blind eye towards the consequences and get extremely active and uneasy when situation goes out of control, but by that time we would have reached a point of no return !



Sources : Wikipedia, Newspaper articles, Author's own observation

The tale of a village called Nallurahalli

Malgudi series - 11

Almost half of Bengaluru is a collection of villages which joined the urbane when city started growing helter skelter ! It is like those drawings in which as and when we connect the dots in a particular numerical order it evolves into an animal, bird etc.!  If the order is  missed we end up creating a mess …That’s the fate of growing Bengaluru !

One such village in Whitefield which was circumscribed by the growing city was Nallurahalli ( Halli is a kannada name for village) which exists between the Whitefield main road and the EPIP ( Export promotion industrial park), through this village once can quickly reach Whitefield from the EPIP area which is the focus of this blog !

Nallurahalli was a small hamlet of few hundred houses whose people mainly depended on agriculture in the erstwhile years till the dawn of new millennium. It was surrounded by fields and many lakes amongst which varthur lake was the most prominent one. Though Whitefield in those days had bungalows as well, they were mainly part of the farm houses which existed from the British period including the one in which Kenneth Anderson and later his son lived!

In the late nineties when the companies (especially from the IT sector) started operating from EPIP Whitefield because of the tax sops they got from the government, the neighborhood started seeing changes! People who work in these companies were well paid and came from different parts of the country. They wanted a decent home to live which is also close to their work.

That’s how the real estate picked up here. It din’t take much time for the cultivated and cultivatable land around to get converted from green belt to yellow belt (Agri to revenue) and whoever had an acre or two became crorepatis overnight! Land was purchased by builders as fast as they could and construction started at full pace to cater to the booming market!

Villas, row houses, apartments, villaments, complexes were constructed without any planning and forethought! Each builder was just worried about his project and was oblivious to the obvious problems that could arise in future because of the lack of water, parks and recreation centers, waste disposal and sewage, road approach and traffic problems etc. and the result ultimately is the most congested, suffocating, high profile property chunk of Bengaluru!

For a long time, people use to avoid the nallurhalli village road which connected EPIP to Whitefield because of two reasons. One-It was small, tiny with kids playing around and went through the varandas of poor houses, Two- It was notorious before it joined Nallurhalli where people would get robbed from strangers who were taking cover in the open fields at a certain distance from the village and after EPIP (Whitefield police station!).

This scene changed by 2009 when more and more people started using this road as the other roads from ITPL to EPIP, varthur to kundalahalli were not able to cater to traffic because of unplanned U-Turns. People especially car and two wheelers started pouring into to avoid the traffic and signals! Initially the numbers were less but later cabs and buses also started using these roads causing a lot of misery, frustration and tension to the villagers! Their kids, cows and buffaloes, elderly got affected on a daily basis.

Their festivities and public gatherings got distracted by the continuous outpour of vehicles round the clock. Remember these houses were attached to the 30 feet road and many became sleep deprived. All this started building up the tension and there were many cases of stone pelting, argument and fights between the inhabitants and the people who used the road. There were cases of attempt to murders when some arguments dint go the way it was supposed to!

In most of the cases the educated dint understand the misery poor villagers were going through and the villagers misunderstood the affluent class as the ones who are the cause for their misery!   

Fast forward to 2016, the nallurahalli road is the most sought after in the area! Both sides of the road flaunts  2 and 3 BHK apartments which are ready to occupy for 75-80 lakhs! Though the road is in pathetic state, you will see people walking, jogging and taking their dogs for outing!

Potholes and sewage chambers in the middle of the road which makes the drive or ride in the busy and congested road even worser than before! The tankers which use to fetch water to the entire Whitefield from bore well road are now catering to the apartments only in the nallurhalli region because of the sudden spike in the demand and hence blocking the road furthermore!

Now you don’t see the tiny houses and verandas, elderly sitting on the road side benches chitchatting and local festivities like before! Probably the people existed there might have been taken care by the local leaders / builders but moving them away or getting them one or two flats in the land owner share and some money as part of the settlement!

The question is how do they pay the maintenance of the flats they have got? Have they given those flats for rent? Did they save the money they got out of the deal? With the cultivatable land gone what do they do for living?  Have they joined the same companies whom they blamed as housekeeping staff? If they stay in the apartment where their house once existed how do, they feel? Do they still feel they belong there? what do the new flat owners feel for these people who barely can speak the elite language and can’t dress up like them?

Nallurahalli has really changed in few years, so does many villages which became food for the growing monster……. not for good!

 

Namma bengaluru - A temporarily permanent city !

Malgudi series-10

Yes, bengaluru which was once also called as the retirement capital of karnataka is no longer so ! The reason being its fast raising population thereby causing congestion, increased cost of living there by draining money out of retirement savings, decreasing open spaces like lakes, parks and gardens thereby blocking the old and elderly from socialising !

As on date bengaluru has the largest no of two wheelers in the country and second largest no of four wheelers after the country's capital Delhi ! The population of bengaluru has increased more than the existing population of singapore in just last 10 years ( as per 2001 census bangalore had 4.3 million people, in 2011 census this no was 8.4 million and today it is said to be around 11.2 million !). We all know that it is the IT capital  but less do we know that it is also the BEER capital of india and is seeing a lot of activity around micro breweries these days surpassing mumbai, pune, chennai, hyderabad !

It is the fastest growing city in Asia both interms of population and the demand for real estate !         A recent article comparing the office real estate in all the big cities made a interesting revelation. according to which in the last finacial year the demand for office space in bengaluru has increased while it was seeing a decreasing trend in all the other metros. Surprisingly bengaluru is not even able to meet the existing demand and is short by 50 %. Some say this trend is negative for the city which if continued may loose out to other metros who are eager for investments !

What does this say ? though bengaluru has water, traffic, pollution, administrative problems it is still the most attractive destination for investors ! Not because of its pleasant weather anymore or its lakes and gardens, because it has good schools and hospitals around, it can expand in all possible directions for growth ( !), it has a very good mix of companies where one can be employed, it has maximum no of malls and pubs in the country which attracts youth, who would like to be employed in such a place to socialise and spend, to earn and explore, to meet and date !

It is these young people who are spending what they earn in the city which was once known as pensioner's paradise ! Strangely, i am yet to find a person who has come to the city recently and would passionately want to settle down in bengaluru. On the contrary i haven't also found a person who despite continuously blaming the city for all these years  moved to some other city !

In a way bengaluru is a TRAP ! Its a one way traffic ! It just knows how to welcome people ! It's probably a liberal mother ! It takes all the blame but never blames anyone ! It may not have it's own unique culture but definatley knows how to handle the confluence of cultures ! It may not be vibrant as a city but surely attractive enough !

Otherwise how can one explain the sharp rise in its population in the last two decades especially youngsters ? How can we explain the shortage of office realty ? how can we explain the growing malls, pubs and restaurants which have pretty much saturated in cities even bigger than itself ?

How can we explain this oxymoron ?  A Temporarily permanent city !

A Funny but realistic take on development !

Malgudi series-9

We have quite often seen, no matter how the economy is going the real estate is never cheap and probably never will in future ! There is a reason why i say this, when i was growing up in the early 90's a plot 30 x 40 in a decent area (Not in bengaluru) would cost for instance 20,000 INR where as anyone would need 3-4 lakh to construct a decent house on it ! It made real sense then to have a home of your own in a plot of our own !

Fast forwarding to current times a plot 30 x 40 in a decent locality (Not in Bengaluru) costs 12-20 lakhs and the construction of house somewhere between 25-30 lakhs ( assuming 2 lakhs per 100 sq feet). If you were to buy the same in bengaluru especially in the so called old city, a plot ( if available) would cost anywhere between 60 lakhs to 1.2 crore and afterwhich if you are still left with some money you can think of putting a fence or compund around it, let alone constructing a house !

If you are salaried or small time businessman or a decent contractor who makes enough money to save, you obviously think of  buying your own home. Looking at the prices mentinoned above it may be difficult for the average middle class and salaried to reach anywhere near,hence you are left with no option but to be in a home which you call yours, though you neither own the land nor the skies ! which means you agree to stay in a flat to be compromised for an independent house on a plot ! (flats are more sought after nowadays and are a new status symbol with those people who can even afford an independent house !)

A city like bengaluru which has the ability to grow in all directions makes it more interesting for greedy realtors to pick their share of pie or snatch to be precise ! The growing bengaluru can be compared to " Connecting the dots game" where the dots signifies hundreds of already existing villages and connecting them is through building apartments and other commercial establishments without any plan in place for vehicular movement, sewage, water supply, parks, waste dumping, rain water harvesting, graveyards etc.

More often than not an investor let's say a software company gathers a few acres of land in the outskirts of the city from the nexus of real estate aggregator, builds its campus and starts operating, Within few years thousands start working in its campuses and that creates a huge demand for housing, commercial shops, recreation facilities, schooling etc. hence a mad rush to fulfilling them begins and development starts helter skelter ! In such a scenario land prices go up sharply turning the villagers into millionaire overnight, who were in such an anticipation from a long time (in most of the cases) who anyway tend to already have plans to spend the fortune on lavish marriages, gold, SUV's etc. which is considered as the symbol of dominance and showoff !

In some cases because of the very high land prices forward thinking companies buy and keep hundreds of acres of land with the help of the same realtor nexus in the vicinities of the city for future expansion ! No one knows when does future arrive anyway but they buy ! The nexus of real estate makes sure that such a news is widely publicised with company names and make sure they aggregate more and more land prior to such announcements mostly from the farmers who are not really aware of how prizes could be in the near future and what plans government has for that particular area ! If anyone denies to sell his land either he will be offered more or made an offer he doesn't refuse (the godfather way-on the gun point !).

In most of the cases most of these realtors are local politicians or their kith and kin who are very well aware of the future prospects of land or sometimes create prospects themselves by fooling larger public !

In anticipation of great development such aggregated land is sold by the Realtors to builders to come up with apartments, villaments, villas, plots publicising excessively with eye catchy adds like "Near to the proposed so and so campus " " Proposed Satellite ring road" " Proposed peripheral ring road"  etc. fooling people but equally tempting and forcing them to buy ! ( Despite all these adds Bangalore is seeing a steady rise is un occupied properties starting from 2008 - please refer to Moneycontrol article " Despite remaining unsold, apartment prices refuse to come down in Bangalore " dated 15 August, 2013)

Here they also make sure that the cost of the empty plot is much higher than the cost of the flat that they construct making independent plots always costlier for the common man ! The customer who is in denial in the beginning is forced to buy these properties just because the economics of having an independent house doesn't fit their pay check anymore even when both husband and wife are working !

The nexus makes sure that a hype is created by bribing transport officials to sanction BMTC buses to the route once in a while to show that the region is connected well and is not in no man's land ! The builders make sure that paid articles are skillfully written in the property pages of the newspapers explaining the promise the area or the place possesses in near future and how it is the most promising investment and growth destination etc. Excessive adds in the local TVs promising free site visits in air conditioned vehicles, Hoardings kept every 100 meters about the property, specialities, and amenities. BDA, BMRDA, CREDAI, BIAPPA and Bank approvals they have got to show how clean they are !

In the age of excessive Internet usage these properties make their own websites, upload their plan, hire some proxy bloggers /opinion makers who write more and more good stuff on line about the builder, developer and the property attracting more tech savvy crowd. NRI's who save money in great deal usually get carried away by these mirage of growth stories from a distance and invest in couple of properties hoping it will turn into a fortune soon ! But the sad part is these properties never gets occupied by its owners unless rented which doesn't generally happen in the case of NRI's, increasing the no of unoccupied residences creating false demand which further enhances the blind growth story ! (This is explained with greater detail in the first post article dated April 30, 2015 " 1.2 crore vacant homes-This one number tells us all that is wrong with indian real estate")

Competing with the above, many more companies pledge to buy land in the vicinity provided they get it at discounted prices especially if it is government land or given speedy approvals with smoother transitions from land owners to the company ! Here the nexus of Realtors again creeps in who work closely with politicians, land owners, builders and companies to make further aggregation of land and the cycle continues !

In the entire process no body cares about the availability of water in the area, growing requirements, Main and sub road connectivity, sewage systems, movement of heavy vehicles, further expansion possibilities, livability of the habitat etc. People who want to buy a home are in full mood and anything favourable only goes into their ears ! Buyers generally in metros are not worried about whether the land has any litigation from land owners ? Whether the ground water table is adequate for now and future ? Whether all the claims made are real, practical and legitimate ? whether all the necessary clearances been taken etc.

The big buyers who are large corporations sometimes aggressively buy litigated land knowingly or unknowingly taking risks and planning to mitigate them post buying by appointing shrewed lawyers who can turn the table any side ! As they say " as long as the vulnerable exists so long does the cheater co-exists !" perhaps in more numbers !

In this way everyone jumps the bandwagon of development which is appalling !

World environment day : Are we writing our own obituary ?

Malgudi series-8

When i try to put down my thoughts on nature i am reminded of these beautiful and meaningful lines by one of the modern american poets joyce kilmer who says " I think i will never see a poem as beautiful as a tree !" this expression is just sufficient to understand what nature should mean to all of us.

A tree is not just a part of nature but nature itself ! Many of us argue that we don't see sparrows now a days because of the Radiowaves (radiations) out there but forget to realise we have cut down 80 % of the trees over the last ten years in our own garden city and many cities alike, the lakes which were 280 in early 1960's have dropped to meagre 40 today , out of which only 17 are in decent state !

The CO2 levels in places especially in the ORR (outer ring road) area is 50 % more than the rest of the city and the fluoride levels in borewell water is whooping 10 times more than the actuals, the ground water table has dropped from 100-150 feet in 1990's to 1000 feet today and most of the time smells sewage because of the unseen seepages where waste water percolates into the ground to join the fresh water stream ! 
Forget about mining or coal mafia , the water and sand mafia for consumption and construction respectively are more than any mafia we could think of which starts from the corporator level and ends in the corridors of the vidhana souda !

It is really a pity that we drive cars alone and complain about traffic, throw garbage helter skelter and complain about cleanliness, we don't plant a seed but complain about cutting of trees, know so much about the no of tigers left or the percentage of forest cover dwindling year on year but never contribute in any way !

I remember as  a child going to bannerghatta national park and at the very entrance they had a chart in which it was written " Lift this chart and you would see the most dangerous animal in the world ! ", i was curious and made all sought of guesses but could not resist , when i lifted the chart i saw myself in the mirror ! Probably till date this was the most eye opening slap i have ever got !

Despite all the statistics i have mentioned above, i would like to share one thing " These statistics are the ones which are mis leading us and are meaningless sometimes !" know why ? because they don't say much ! yes , most of us read about all types of pollution right from primary school till college and even later on, but do nothing ! Does this syllabi " Inculcate love for nature ??? " A big no !  

This was recently discussed in social media with reference to a white man's article on the subject, but this was told by a kannada writer by name " Poornachandra tejaswi " who himself was a avid bird watcher-photographer, writer of great prominence, fish catcher decades back ! 

Some of the species he observed were not reported anywhere and were new findings all together for instance in his " Parisarada kathe " a collection of his articles on nature, he reports observing an insect which folds the leaf quickly from the tree and throws it down which resembles paan !  Tejaswi wrote about science more than any scientist in the country, which he himslef called it a pity because subject matter experts can not only write authentically with their first hand experience but also can have solutions to the teething problems !

Nowadays how many of our kids are passionate about trekking, mountaineering, swimming in the open, gardening, animal breeding or observing ? whose fault is it ? parents ? teachers ? society ? or nature ! We nowadays talk of saving nature , i don't understand what does that mean, we must instead be talking about saving ourselves because we are dependent on nature not otherwise !

We talk at length about innovation ecosystem, business ecosystem, political ecosystem etc. but never think of NATURAL ECOSYSTEM ! Development for us means widening of roads, building skyscrappers no matter the what happens to the sewage water disposal, we somehow think somebody else will do it for us and ironically so !

Centuries back forest's as Poornachandra Tejaswi puts it were a great mystery for the man kind, during the last century they were explored and exploited, now we have come to a stage where we have to allocate money in our budgets to save nature and forests !  

The only welcoming thing for us is that in the last few years India is seeing a slight increase in the forest belt when the rest of the world is having a decreasing trend, but still China has 5 times more trees per person than India , US has 30 times more and cannada 250 times more ( Note : all these countries have 3 times more land area compared to India) ! we have a long way to go before catching up ! 

But its never too late as the poet puts it bluntly " Poems are written by fools like me, but only a wise man can plant a tree !" . It applies to me, this article and all of us !

So let's plant a tree and be wise so that the disappeared sparrows, mynas, humming birds and parrots will come back home, so that we can get up everyday listening to the chirping birds, so that we really become an active and contributing part of the nature !