Thoughts down the streets of Bangalore......

(The Yaadein series will be continued. Digressing for two posts.)

I just completed the summer of 2011 doing an internship for 3 months. This internship required me to travel down to a different part of my present city, bangalore, every morning, and return in the evening, by a small bus provided by the company. This was my first real exposure to the city of bangalore, although i have been living in the IISc campus for 3 years. Although i have grown up in a metropolis (Kolkata) that is possibly even more overcrowded than bangalore, and certainly less organized (Kolkatan Hawks pardon me please), a journey through the bustling traffic appeared a very new (and unpleasant) experience for me, possibly because i have grown used to the evergreen, zero-pollution environment of the campus. In this post, i want to write a couple of random thoughts that crossed my mind during these journeys.

At a couple of traffic signals, one near the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium and another on Sankey Road, i saw a sight everyday. As the sea of two-wheelers, cars, buses and company vehicles (like mine) waited, 3-4 people, some of them female, can be seen making their way through the vehicles, holding in their hands some umbrellas, or small toys like aeroplanes or motorbikes, and trying to sell them to the people in these vehicles. Who will buy these in the busy traffic signal? Moreover, even if it was not a busy junction, would anyone buy? In this age of glitterring shopping malls, does the  newly-rich urban consumer ever pay any attention to the small traders or shopkeepers? I don't think so. Even in our childhood in the early 1990s, as young children we were fascinated to see small toys or painting books in roadside stalls, and often craved for them. If i were again a child 20 years later, i would probably be looking for toys in a air-conditioned shopping mall, and throw a condescending look at those being sold on the pavement, or by the wandering traders. The advent of these malls have distracted the urban consumer completely, relegating the small-scale traders to the background. Do these poor people, who are risking their lives daily in a desparate attempt to sell their ware, ever succeed in selling even 1 piece a day? i hope they do, but i fear that they probably don't. I have been crossing the places almost every day, for 3 months, i have never seen a piece being sold. Where have these people come from? And where will they go?

The second thought is regarding the traffic. In the morning the roads are reasonable free, and the journey is smooth. But in the evening, often we get trapped in an ocean of vehicles. Most of these are small private cars, and sometimes cabs. There are many cab companies in Bangalore (Meru Cabs, Easy Cabs, Go Cabs just to name a few). Many of these are A/C, and highly expensive. I have noticed that most of these vehicles carry just 1 passenger except for the driver, while the car can accomodate 5-6 people. Isn't this a gross wastage of resources? More cars mean more traffic congestions, and more consumption of petrol/diesel which is already becoming scarce. Nevertheless, as people of Bangalore are becoming richer thanks to the IT sector, the number of private cars is increasing day by day. People buy cars not just because it is convenient, but also because (or mainly because) it is seen as a status symbol. As the people increase their status, what is going to happen to the city? and to the petrol/diesel stocks?

Of course,  some people may view the issue from a different angle. The more the number of cars, more is the demand for mechanics and drivers. Thus, more jobs are created in the city. More unemployed people find employment. Isn't that good? Why think of tomorrow, let's think of today! In fact, a similar argument was given by some political parties of West Bengal in 2006 to environmentalist Subhash Datta when he demanded that the settlers along the Ravindra Sarovar Lake be evicted, as they are polluting one of the last pollution-free parts of Kolkata. Where will these people go then? How can so many people be evicted for environmental concers? The root problem seems to be the ever exploding population. Unless the population can be controlled, no good can be achieved.....neither for the people nor for the environment.