Dear reader,
March was as busy as February seemed not to be. Work or home, the stench of desperate urgency permeated the air on all fronts. Or, perhaps the miasma emanated from the open drains in Whitefield, Bangalore where I had the misfortune to recently spend some time.
To say I have fond memories of the place would be a downright lie and not good form so early in this post. Once upon a time, Bangalore was a lovely city (even with privileges checked), distinctive enough to find regular mention in geography texts of my youth as the 'Garden city' and 'Lake city' of India.
Unfortunately for Bangalore, our country's IT experiment began there and it was the first proverbial lamb that fell to the slaughter model of urban planning. I won't bore you with litanies about the traffic or drastic change of climate. Instead, let me tell you a bit about Kenneth Anderson, an Anglo Indian native of Bangalore who called most of South India's jungles "home" for decades. One feature of his stories came back to haunt me time and again on this trip. In Anderson's time, Whitefield was a village, a day's journey away, a verdant getaway from the city, where he built a farm to house an interesting menagerie of wild animals as pets and also the place where he moved to from central Bangalore, after a divorce.
Whitefield's transformation over a few decades is both remarkable and terrible.
It still feels like a day's journey from the city but that's because of the roads, random construction activity and traffic. It is a concrete jungle, monolithic corporate parks and forbidding, gated residential tower communities as far as the eye can see. A dingy, dreary grey atmosphere seems to cover the whole area, reminding me of Minas Morgul. The only thing more common than a sense of disgust is the pestiferous My Gate app which has completely infected Whitefield, if not all Bangalore.
And then, there's the Uber / Ola scams. Around the outskirts, it's impossible to get app-based autos at any time and cabs during rush hours. The cars are in horrible shape, dusty and dented from the outside and usually choking in the knockout odour of old sweat inside. Though blame can be laid at the drivers' doors to some extent, I also believe the apps and their nefarious practices are the real Fagins. However, the ultimate con is the airport ride. The cab will go by the Google Maps directed route up to a point. Suddenly, the driver will take a detour off the flyover, turn off the tracking on his cab and take a circuitous 20-minute route through various hamlets which eventually brings you somewhere near the airport. He then turns on the app again and delivers you to the airport. Except, that little detour reflects as a wait on the app, so the passenger gets charged approximately Rs. 150 extra. Why these backstreet calisthenics? To avoid the Rs. 100 toll the driver would have to pay to reach the airport.
Living in Bangalore, in Whitefield is hard. But the water is harder.
Look, Pune and Mumbai can rather spoil you when it comes to water quality, which we essentially take for granted. The filth that emanates from the taps of Whitefield has to be seen to be believed. Installing a 15-layer shower filter was about as impactful as my Bumble profile and I believe there's potential for a study to check if more balding men live in that part of the city than anywhere else. If your hair follicular genes aren't up to the fight, watch the hairline retreat towards the bathroom drains and despair.
I predict that the quest for potable water will kill Bangalore earlier than the nexus of greedy municipal officials, politicians and construction barons. Bore-wells do run dry, you know.
A long time ago, Bangalore was a charming, quirky and yes, livable city. Today, it feels like a never-ending strip mall filled with liquor stores, breweries, biryani houses, gyms and supermarkets. Suburban Americana in a city. Places like Whitefield and Greenfield (nary a patch of actual greenery of course), Sarjapur, Marathahalli, etc. are too much of a contrast to the older, ultra-rich enclaves of Cunningham Crescent Road, Ulsoor, Magrath Road, whatever is left of the 'Towns', and the like. An invisible line of caring seems to have split the city and it definitely feels like the twain are never fated to meet. And if they do, it will be the remaining nicer parts of Bangalore that get sucked into the maelstrom of urban decay.
The only saving graces of the whole Bangalore experience were dosas and an evening spent drinking beer with two gents. And even that was a bit of an uphill climb, juggling work schedules, kid commitments, the need for reservations at pubs (who'd have thought!) and the lack thereof, resulting in much rudeness from the staff at one place but also unexpected kindness from one chap at Aurum, wet chairs, tedious cab rides and consequent cab fares that totaled more than my bar bill. Phew indeed.
Bombay isn't particularly great, Delhi even less so and Pune is going the Bangalore way, all far-flung gated communities and dusty roads. In any city, there will always be enclaves to coo about and consequently, neighbourhoods to boo, but in doing that, I think we miss the point. Bangalore is not a city to be hated or disliked. It is an example to be pitied, a portent for the future of every other Indian city. At this point, it's hard to decide who is Frankenstein and who is the monster.
Song for the moment: Wasted Years - Iron Maiden
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