E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Purvankara, Shobha, Sankalp and Brigade are some of the biggest names among property developers and builders on the horizon. As Bangalore is growing faster than Kempe Gowda’s wildest dreams and is on the verge of becoming a nightmare at his grave, people have resigned to the fact it can’t be contained anymore. Everyday new developers come on the scene and offer features that make the ones offered the previous day, a big yawn.
Recently there was an exhibition at Kanteerava Indoor Sports Complex (The stadium is also known for conducting National Games, Binnys Vs. Blues Football Match etc) of builders, landscape specialists and developers on the future of the industry. Some of them explained their USPs to the media and public.
“Italian marble floorings, Thai furniture, Turkish bathtubs are passé. The future is already here! Whenever the CM and Deputy CM of the Jugalbandi or Jagalabandi fame move around or ‘Siddu’ sprints to Congress Bhavan with a new found zeal, the traffic is always a mess in Bangalore. We cannot depend on these roads and the auto rakshasaws anymore! We’ll be offering a helicopter drop service—‘ Jatayu’—to our residents from our proposed 100-storey “Himalaya” complex to their schools, offices and back. Jatayu will also pick up and drop boarding-pass holders to HAL and Devanahali airport and back. We are constructing a helipad on top of our building.” This was from Dhruda Sankalp.
“The future is now! We offer fantasy to our residents. We will have our own Airbus 380 parked at the tarmac. During weekends, we will fly them to London for breakfast, lunch in New York, dinner at Dubai and bring them back to Bangalore for work on Monday! Depending on the season, we’ll take them to Holland to watch tulips, Wimbledon for tennis, Oscar awards in Hollywood, World Cup at West Indies. Some of the names that have applied for accommodation in our “ 2 V- Vishwakarma Villa” are : the Bills, Clinton and Gates; Beckham and Zizou as well as Sr. and Jr. Bush. Triple A, if you still don’t know who they are, i.e. Anil, Amar and Amitabh will be our weekend guests,” said Prabha Developers.
“There’s no future anymore. It will always be present! We are unrolling our new concept for the first time. We‘ll be building a city that will have everything in it. Shopping Malls, Water Falls, Skating Rink… you name it. The works. Those who are our exclusive members of our ‘Siti City”, will have a lifetime of only new experiences! If they want to listen to Bryan Adams, Bhimsen Joshi, Britney Spears, Lata Mangeshkar we will get them here. If they want to watch the World Cup, cricket or football, we will sponsor and get them to play right here in Siti City. At the flick of a button, they can have the rains of Mumbai, the New York Snow or sunshine of Bahamas. No need to wait for seasons anymore!” That was from Paschimankara, who is known to specialize in features that tickle your funny bone.
The media whose collective mouth was wide open, managed to squeak in a question. Will there be any takers for the dream house or fantasy, which surely would cost a mega bomb?
“Takers?? We are over booked!! There’s one problem, though. We know how to take approvals and ‘ reguralise’ things from BMRD, BIAAPA, KEB, etc!! Since the roads here are generally either under water or always bursting at seams, we want to fly our residents. We don’t know where to apply and the ‘rates’ for license for flying our helicopters, and planes in and around Bangalore!”
A good humourous essay.
With numb emotions I would like to share that, I left B’lore in spite of owning a house. The claustrophobic feelling, the lost in the wild place, made me to shift to my Mysore. Spl in our road there are hardly few kannadigas left. We were surrounded by teluguvallu in our neighbourhood, with sparsely spread kannadigas in the midst of northys, tamils etc. Even in the park I could hear more of telegu and hindi which made me feel “out of place”.
And nowhere to go!
People people everywhere,
not a soul to speak!
The restlessness is omnipresent, the frustration on the roads are openly exhibited, the filthy exhibition of money, total lack of moral values and ethics especially among the youth, the ‘I just don’t care attitude’, utter disregard for everything, etc, etc., reminds me of T S Eliot’s “The Waste Land”.
I am sure we can never see the old Bangalore again.
MY only hope is that Mysore with its BOOMing real estate will not become another sathvavillada city like B’lore.
Yella raajakaaranigalu, lanchakoraru hottebelasi biddiralu,
halagiththu namma bengalooru
Devare kaapadabeku eega mysoorannu.
Having settled down in bAngalore from my Mysore in 1965 ,to eke a living
I really am feeling suffocated for the same reasons.Right now feeling like settling down in my good old Mysore in probably Saraswatipuram,where I grew up and studied. I can attend the alumni association functions at NIE at least from then on.Will my wish come true?
Hi KSG
Nice thoughts. Perhaps you are of my age reading your message that you settled down Bangalore in 1965. Also perhaps you may remember that in 1950s, Bangalore was a beutiful city. This is before the HMT,ITI etc.. started coming up or exapanding putting Banglore out othe reach of kannadigas, not many of whom were recruited in these new industries then any way.
I do not blame you for dreaming about settling in Mysore. Please remember that this is Mysore 2006 and not the Mysore when Prof Narasimha Iyengar gave such wonderful lectures in NIE. Living from a very long distance from NIE I am hearing through friends that politics of the NIE alumni assocation will really choke you.
Dream what you can and about NIE of early 1960s which shoul be locked into your memory. But 2006, it is a different story.
Some one said to me talking about an old school/college, if your reminiscences are to be sweet, keep way from the bloody place.
Dear VNA,
I share your frustration about Bangalore and its people. I expressed it even in 1964 when industries there stopped recruiting Kannadigas. Even the NGEF had generous sprinkling of prople from the neighbouring states. Malleswaram and Ulsoor, particularly the latter were Tamil ghettos. I could not afford to settle in Banglore.
From what I hear from friends, Mysore fast-tracking into the same lane that took Bangalore to a choking land, and within the near future Mysore will reach the state of Banglore in late 1970s/early 1980s.
I accompanied my father to visits to Bangalore in early 1950s and it was a joy to walk around places there. Mysore then was a paradise with green fields and trees every where. Relatives from Bangalore who visited us would say that Mysore was a ‘sleepy town’.
The issue is popultation. What was the population of India as whole and Mysore state ( Karnataka now) thosee days? What is it now?
Dear firends,
With Murthy’s ugly shadow looming large over, mysore has entered its phase of shanikaata. I used to work for Infosys at mysore and what a northie paradise it is..kannadiagru obbroo illa.And every nothie at mysore is buying 40×60 or 50×80 land..Innocent mysoreans encourage these companies thinking that this wil provide jobs for their children but hardly do they realise that they will get none… ommomme ee murthy mysorna innashtu ekkustake munche bega elkondbiDappa ansatte
Manja
Hi Manja,
I appraciate what you are saying. Our so called industrialists do not care who they recruit and they least bother about providing jobs to local aspiring youngsters. A few months ago a friend of mine an IT expert who is working in the West cautioned that what these IT outsourcing companies are program code sweat shops, and called the so called software engineers working there as ‘ IT coolies’. When this was published as a letter in SOM, there were howls of protest. My friend was speaking the truth. The bonanza for these socalled IT industrailists would last as long as cost differentials between such kind of jobs in East and west exist. If another country comes up with a better proposition-China is most likely, you will see all these IT industrialists with their Northies will melt away leaving a waste land.
The other danger with these IT coolie shops is that higher education is skewed to favour Computing and the youngsters become nerds with no concept of appreciation of arts and literature which produces a ’rounded ‘personality.
Bang on the point. But if Mysoreans dont wake up, It is just time which will turn Mysore in to an unmanagable monster which Bengaluru already is. These flats should be banned and Mysore should not be the place for these IT industry leeches to descend to.
Hi Suri,
You are right.After my graduation at NIE in 1965,I got into a state PSU and worked till I took VRS in1996.
True- Bangalore was really nice with pea soup fog in mornings,Rs 37-50 for 30 meals at Kamath, Rs 4 for train ticket to Mysore I getting less than Rs500p/m.Things degenarated over 40years ,city got overpopulated with migrant labour,Kannadigas coming down to 37%!
Now one meal costs Rs30,Rs45 fr train ticket,with a 5 figure salary!
It may be higher cost of living-true,but the quality of life went down here.
For us mysoreans,feeling claustrophobic and longing for a familiar surrounding like Mysore.
May be its true Mysore is going Bangalore way but I hope it sure takes a long time for that! There is an added benifit in being a sleepy city’.
Attending NIE alumni functions-Of course I know is all not that nice-I only felt I could just witness one AGM atleast as an audience.
Agreed I will keep my reminiscence locked to 1965 and no false hopes
Hi KSG,
Nice words you have said. I worked in a private firm until 1965-66 in Bangalore and even then I could see the direction that Bangalore was heading towards- an abyss! I could affors to live in Bangalore then and soon returened to Mysore.
Six years ago, I visited India , Bangalore and Mysore. Bangalore was choking
with traffic and the pollution was unbelievable. The expenses I incurred for a few hours before I a bus to Mysore was also unbelievable. Whoever I met seemed to speak in a language other than Kannada!
True that Mysore will take some time to catch up with the kind of mess that Bangalore has sunk in. But I am told that many industries particularly the IT outsourcing companies are taking Mysore on a fast lane to an abyss! I am also told more and more people are arriving with no knowledge of Kannada!
About NIE alumni association and its AGM, enjoy as a spectator. Its politics can teach politicians there a thing or two!
Hi KSG,
Nice words you have said. I worked in a private firm until 1965-66 in Bangalore and even then I could see the direction that Bangalore was heading towards- an abyss! I could not affordto live in Bangalore then and soon returned to Mysore.
Six years ago, I visited India , Bangalore and Mysore. Bangalore was choking with traffic and the pollution was unbelievable. The expenses I incurred for a few hours before I a bus to Mysore was also unbelievable. Whoever I met seemed to speak in a language other than Kannada!
True that Mysore will take some time to catch up with the kind of mess that Bangalore has sunk in. But I am told that many industries particularly the IT outsourcing companies are taking Mysore on a fast lane to an abyss! I am also told more and more people are arriving with no knowledge of Kannada!
About NIE alumni association and its AGM, enjoy as a spectator. Its politics can teach politicians there a thing or two!
I was at the NIE alumnus function this year a few days back and it was to much of my chagrin that the nemesis of mysore shri NRN was to drop in there as well, along with one his lieutenants, Srinath Batni. He was waxed eloquent in his abuse for NIE management, who refused to accomodate him into the board. “Im in the boards of oxford harvard, tokyo etc, how dare this this lowly college refuse my request” was his tenor. “I would have turned NIE into a world class institute. It would become the MIT of India” was what he was connoting.
Had he become the board member, all the best global talent from the best of the global locations(anywhere except karnataka) would have descended onto NIE and the few locals who are lucky enuf and studying here would be readily booted out. I thank the NIE management for their wisdom of not entertaining this GLOBAL mahapurusha with a visceral hatred for localites. Thank you very much sampat iyengar and CKN Raja
Guys,
Technology and growth are here to stay. Fortunately so is nostalgia. Meeting the two to ones own satisfaction is a beautiful thing. I am a Mysorean by birth, NIE from 1958 to 63, have lived in Bangalore and seen everything grow all over. Learn to enjoy diversity. Life is very good if you do so.
Dear Friends,
I too share the same fears about the immense harm caused by NRN and others like him. If it matters, I am from the ‘enemy’ college JCE:), 1984 barch but with a Mysorean heart in the right place.
May be we should fight this phenomenon in a constructive way: how about getting the Government to strictly implement the Sarojini Mahishi policy of giving a majority of jobs to Kannadigas even in private companies? How about launching Kannada schools that teach non-Kannadigas, the basics of spoken and written Kannada in cities like Bangalore and Mysore and other places? This will promote better people integration. Surely the Government can do this and we can all help.
Also, it is time to be more assertive in promoting Kannada. Just look at the ruckus it caused when we renamed Bangalore as Bengalooru! It is also time to shut up guys like Girish Karnad and others who start issuing opinions on why Kannada is not a classical language and so on. People like Karnad would like to see local identities completely destroyed and see it replaced by some Leftist symbols. Frankly, the fictitious antiquity of Tamil has been discussed threadbare and torn to pieces by our own BGL Swamy in his magnum opus ‘Among the great Tamil thinkers’, or “Tamilu Thalegala Naduve”. IMHO, all Kannadigas should read this book to see the perfidies caused by jingoist Tamils.
Even if the government-mandated classical tag is good enough for Tamils and so it should be for Kannadigas. I hate to see the day when Tamils because of this classic tag may want trilingual boards in Karnataka at all government offices. OK it may be a far fetched scenario but better be prepared for such strange eventualities. Who knows or cares why this language classical tag was issued, say 25-30 years from now? It is best that Kannada boys and girls have the same pride and joy as the sometimes none-too-subtle jingoist Tamils. We Kannadigas remain modest but I see no harm in getting the classical tag for Kannada on merits alone. In fact the sooner we get the classical language tag, the better.
Nice to see so many opinions on kannada and nie in particular.I am also an alumni of nie mysore 2004.i also fear that nie in future and bangalore in particular would be catering to indians rather than kannadigas in future.nie gaetting autonomous status its going to be reality.
how about a mass upriseing against this onslaught of outsiders.
what say
Being a bangalorean i hav come across many such incidents and we kannadigas r becoming rarer and rarer. The bloody outsiders hav caused a lot of menace here and pay no respect to the mother tongue.its high time bangalore is out of control amidst a lot of haphazardness the govt should take immediate steps to curb outsiders and ensure well being of residents of karnataka
Elladaru iru enthadaru iru endendigu ni kannada vagiru jai karnataka mathe