An urban disaster in the making

Happy as I am about my decision to switch jobs, there's another factor which, over the last few days, is making me even more cheerful about joining Dell - and that is the fact that getting to office will be that much easier since I only have to traverse the Ring Road and bingo ! - I'm there.

Seriously, when are the morons in the corridors of power going to wake up ? The current government has used the non-Bangalore and pro-rural focus attitude to get to power, but they seem to have failed to realise a crucial fact - Bangalore is, by far, one of the brightest jewels in the Indian crown, and neglecting this city and its needs is a perfect recipe for disaster.

This latest rant of mine has been triggered by an article on pg. 3 of today's TOI, which, shamefully, reports the pending projects of road-repair and flyover-construction, the lack of ANY new development projects, the interminable delay in the airport (years of delay, no less), the pathetic state of the infrastructure, and to top it off, the disbanding and shutdown of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), which was supposed to be instrumental in Bangalore's development.

At this rate, its only a year, or two at the most, before the city's infrastructure completely breaks down into shambles. Adding more pubs isn't a solution - your intoxication from an exotic cocktail can only last so long - after that, you have to make your way home over the same old potholed alleys, which we call roads.

Garden City ? One Lal Bagh does not a city make.

And to make matters worse, even the climate seems to have deserted this place - I've just about had enough of people telling me "don't worry, the rains normally start in another month's time" - I've been hearing that for more than 2 months now ! Half of May is gone, and all we have to show are 3 showers - this, from a city touted as having a hill-station climate, being the "cool" place (quite literally), and what not.

I love this city quite as much as any other person - but I'm sad to say that the way things are right now, its not long before it degenerates into an urban hellhole. The writing is on the wall.