From Green to Grave : Bangalore

I had come to Bangalore for the first time when I was eight years old.Everything from the weather to the people was completely different from what it is now. I stayed at Jalahalli then and distinctly remember being down with flu during my entire stay but still loved every moment of my visit.The colours and the flowering trees of the city tugged at my heart everytime I passed through a quiet street lined with these huge , green trees bursting with red leathery blooms.The streets used to be completely carpeted with these flowers falling gently in the wind .
For a city which got transformed from a sleepy 'Pensioner's Paradise' to being the hub of Information Technology, the change has been anything but smooth.It's true that development brings along with it changes in landscape, people and the attitude associated with any location. But how does one ensure that important characteristics of the city stay as it is ? When I look around Bangalore I am painfully aware of the frenzied pace at which it is moving and somewhere unlike other cities totally forgetting what it was meant to be....what it stood for.The people,the visitors,even the animals here seem to be in a hurry always.The terms 'Pensioners Paradise' and sleepy city have been relegated to the background.Probably for growth and progress all this was essential, but still it does cause a lot of pain.If this is the feeling of someone like me who had visited Bangalore just once during childhood and then came years later to a city bursting at it seams ,I wonder what would be the feeling of thousands of those citizens who are in their seventies,eighties and even nighties(yes thats true,I know for sure that there is a nonagenarian lady living somewhere in BTM.) who were born and brought up in this garden city.
Circa 2000 : There was no BTM flyover,no Richmond Road flyover,no Silk Board flyover and ofcourse no (old) Airport road flyover or Marathahalli Bridge (The last two are my favourite topics to crib about,so I would cover them in a separate post).So here I was trying each and every day to cross Hosur Road traffic and still maintain my cool.But one fine evening in 2001 august (or was it 2002 ... my memory fails me here),I was caught in the worst traffic jam of my life.So I happily board the shuttle at 5 only to reach home at (hold your breath) 9:45 PM.I slept off at 7:45 (the shuttle was yet to reach Silk Board after crawling for two and a half hours in the rain from electronic city.).Thank god for small mercies I finally moved from that company as well as south Bangalore only to be blissfully caught in the Koramangala and Old Airport road traffic melee very soon.
So,thanks to the traffic I have visited Iskon temple only twice in eight years,Seshadripuram once in 4 years and have never been to Sadashiv Nagar ...never.
Circa 2008 : New Airport,Whizzing traffic,speeding metroes,perfect connectivity and no traffic jams....Ha ! ...Get real.We are still stuck,perpetually stuck and in case things continue the way they do we would be stuck forever.The progress is slow,mired in metres of red tape and slugged down by callous authorities.And yes unlike other cities, with the exception of a few the majority of the population here which cribs most does not do anything about it.Taking the authorities to task is a far cry,they do not even bother to make sure to exercise their fundamental right of franchise.
So till the attitude of people changes they would be taken for a ride and terms like 'Public-Private Partnership','International City', 'Well Wired' , 'Bangalored' and all such similar Wifi...oops HiFi terms coined by geeks and wannabe geeks would fall flat against the crumbling infrastructure.They would amount to nothing but mere rhetoric in this city that doesn't want to sleep but is forced to do so by 11:30 PM every single night.