For a future generation, which doesn’t have to wrestle with memories of the past, it won’t matter, of course. But this, briefly, was how the magical promenade on Mahatma Gandhi road in Bangalore looked, the giant trees providing cover for furtive lovers, the shade for daytime walkers, and the balm for rich men tired of counting the cash (you know who you are!) on the other side.
And then, the monstrous excavators of Namma Metro hurtled along.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
***
The Namma Metro photo portfolio
Saturdays, girlfriends, popcorn and other memories
Every picture tells a tale. Babu‘s can fill a tome.
Not a picture that will make it to Lonely Planet
Amar, Akbar, Antony. Or Ram, Robert, Rahim
Only a low-angle shot can convey its great girth
Well, sentimentality and memories are fine but a mass transit system for the city is long overdue. These things should have been done 3-4 years back, if not earlier. Well, better late than never – Bangaloreans will just have to accept some hardship and some loss of heritage – there is no other way!
Whether Bengaluru needs mass transit or not, but our state politicians certainly need mega projects for their own benefit and for their parties benefit.
yes, this is inevitable.
M. G. Road is not Bengaluru, especially because most of the rest of Bengaluru has nothing to do with it. Of greater concern to me is the issue of water supply to orphan additions to the city like Byatarayanapura.
Agree with PTL here.
Metro and mass transit is all fine, why should the line run bang on MG road? Couldn’t it run on the adjoining defence land? Why cant they part some land?
To sumne hange:
I think the metro lines have to be somewhere anyway. Even if it went on defense land, there would be people opposing it anyway.
to srisri:
completely, agree, mass transit is needed. I strongly believe two lines are not enough at all. New York city subway should be a role model for metro. It is very impractical to take a bus to a train station, take a metro and then to take a bus again to work. In my opinion, metros should be accessible with a 10 minute walk from anywhere in the city (or in most parts of it), only then can it become a complete mass transit…still something is better than nothing.
The no. of comments here sums it all…. The new generation and the people that have not grown up and seen what bangalore was before are more. And the people that actually have seen what the old city was have moved on in life. So, as someone above put “the loss of heritage” could also be summed as a beautiful city raped in the name of development. Yes, we have to develop and progress and provide infrastructure etc. etc. I am not averse to that. But I firmly believe, heritage, history etc. forms a vital part of what we call “culture” of a city. This transition that I have seen going on in a city that I once loved is actually breaking the backbone of it.
there was a time.. when u cud sit in lakeview of india coffee house.. n look the otherside of the road.. which was filled with greenery n in the steps in btw u wud find ppl sitting… mostly couples holding hands !
I miss my good old blr !!
Never heard of the term ‘promenade on MG Road’ till metro actually started tearing it up and I’m sure there are lot of old bangloreans who are in the same boat and I was born and brought up in blr. So ^&%$ it. Real loss is RV road and KR rd.
no city in the world would want to lose heritage for an ugly piece of development / infrastructure i would presume. there should be symbiosis. a development, one which happens and supports heritage. i dont think its impossible as these projects seem to make of it. cutting down trees. demolishing lovely boulevards..!
Sumne hange:
Can you point me to some reliable news article that says that BMRCL tried to acquire the defence lands but was refused? A metro also needs to look at the convenience of commuters w.r.t. placement of tracks and stations. The MG road track was a design decision and not because they were ‘not provided land’.
And anyway, you are so bothered about MG road – how about RV road, Yeshwanthpur, Chord road, etc. etc. where there is no land anywhere nearby?? You need to metro ‘bang on the road’, what will you do about it?
Development Sir, progress of Bengaluru….. Nothing to worry now. With Metro, road widening, massacre of trees, digging of roads and making them fit for cross country race, all the problems of our city will be over. Now people can reach any part of the city from any place within minutes…
Now MG road now looks as ugly as KR market (City market), if not uglier.
Vinay Babu,
The present article is about M G Road. Hence, the comments were only pertaining to that. It is nobody’s case, that other roads like RV Road, KR Road should be similarly defaced and rendered ugly by Namma Metro. The biggest of them of these defacements is Nanda Theatre road, which was the lung space for Jayanagar which has been ruined by Namma metro. If only there was some way of saving those beutiful parks and trees on Nanda Theatre road, I would not mind a cost increase in Namma Metro.
srisri:
You “wouldn’t mind ” a cost increase, but you will certainly mind if the fares are high and beyond reach, won’t you? The city will die of automoble fumes and road rage without mass transportation, and in order to make a financially viable mass transit solution, we need to sacrifice something of our past and present – there is no other way.
And I don’t understand how you will save those parks and trees with a cost increase. If you are talking about alternate routes, I don’t think there are any alternate roads in Jayanagar which are completely free from greenery and have barren land all around! If you are talking about underground routes, I believe even going underground will involve cutting the greenery before using the TBMs.
And I still didn’t get any references or answers from ‘Sumne Hange’ about his sources for the ‘defence land’ comment. Looks like another case of broadcasting second-hand unreliable information.
I would not necessarily support cutting greenery for the sake of BBMPs ‘road widening’ efforts, but ‘Namma Metro’ is different. If you push BMRCL into a corner from all sides, how the F will they get any work done? First it’s the landowners who protest, then the traders’ associations, then the greens and then ‘common citizens’.
Remember that if you don’t get this done now, BBMP will eventually cut those same trees for ‘road widening’ or underpass/flyover construction!
It does feel bad but not terrible. I am hoepful that it will still be a place to come and see once its all done. Same with Nanda Theatre road.
This (our) current generation has spoilt the aesthetics of Bengaluru and have a responsibility to rebuild it. It should be taken as an oppurtunity to make Bengaluru as an example of how to combine modern infrastructure with aesthetics and greenery. Its time to think of infrastructure beyond the steel glass and concrete. Its our reponsibility to rebuild Bengaluru.
One big concern though. I noticed it when I was @ MG Road last Sunday. Why is the platform (Viaduct) not flat and in a straight. It seems to be a bit curvy like the tracks of a roller coaster (although not so much). Has somebody noticed it?
Grass or trees do not make a city green (Siemens Ad)!!
I dont see any great botanical or historical heritage value in bouganvilla plants. Design plans released by Namma Metro indicate that we will finally have an aesthetically good looking MG Road. Now, we should request MoD to handover (or at least after six in the evening) the parade ground to BBMP to covert that into a Hawker’s park.
Vinay Babu,
Have u seen the Calcutta metro. How much of old calcutta has been destroyed to build that ?
srisri:
First off, I will mention again, that even after 3 days, ‘Hange Sumne’ has not provided any information or links to substantiate his rant. Now, coming to you:
You seem remarkably ill informed. You are again putting forth second hand or nth hand information. I have certainly travelled by the Calcutta metro and I happen to have some knowledge about the construction. Now, you make it sound as if the Calcutta metro construction was an example of exemplary construction with zero disruption to public life. Let me shatter your myth now. Instead of typing a long post, I will copy and paste from an existing site, and also provide a link to the post. You can read the gist below.
http://praja.in/en/blog/murali772/2009/09/21/%E2%80%9Cnative%E2%80%9D-calcutta-metro
A small footnote. It took 22years to build it!! The Calcutta Metro construction experience was never repeated even in India because technology has overtaken it. For all the indigenous materials it uses, it also uses the NGEF motors, yes, even today!
I was a resident of Calcutta when the metro construction started and have seen it being built for the first three years of its commencement before our family left the place. The disruption is caused will make present day construction project managers feel like angels! Please have the patience to go through the Stateman and the Amrita Bazar Patrika and Ananda Bazar Patrika and go down memory lane – the reports will be different!
All have the right to feel nostalgic about their creations and feel righteous about the glorious past and Mr Rao too is no exception and is entitled to live in the glory of the bygone days. The reality and truth of the matters is that when the project is finally commissioned, nobody
remembers the bad things. One example will suffice – The Taj Mahal. Who remembers that it took Delhi Metro seven and half years to be commissioned while we will be there in five or five and a half?
You really have no idea of the horrors of the Calcutta metro construction – were you even born then? Why all the misinformation then? Why don’t you guys do some research and reading on your own instead of peddling second hand reports based on hearsay and guesswork?
Vinay Babu,
The link does not work.
Anyways I was alluding to the fact that most of Calcutta Metro is subterrain, unlike the Namma metro, which would have saved so many trees/parks and bangalore heritage for future generations and would have still got us a metro, probably with the whizkid Project managers, in a much shorter time than Calcutta metro. Hope this clarifies.
Bangaloreans should vehemently protest against Metro because of the reasons : 1) we cannot overtake it from left, right, centre and play football, 2) can’t travel w/o ticket, 3) can’t pull it down to one side with 25 persons hanging on to the door, can’t signal jump and argue with the police, 4) can’t cause accidents with reckless driving and escape cool-ly, 5) can’t dig up thetrack for various public works, 6) can’t stop the movements with various processions, parades, funeral march etc. 7) can’t block easy and fast passage for ambulance , 8) can’t make money in the name of asphalting, road repair….. and such other things. Because of these infringement of public rights, we should oppose Namma Metro. Let us all go to Gandhi statue and stand their for few minutes holding candles in our hands with a ‘lost in the jungle’ look!
“in order to make a financially viable mass transit solution, we need to sacrifice something of our past and present –”
The original Mass transit master plan (circa 1988 ) had the main station marked where that Manipal Center building stands today. The plans were shelved and an influential family acquired the notified plot for a bargain. In it’s current version also the Metro route has taken twists and turns to suit some wheeler-dealers. Ex. CMH Rd instead of Old Madras Rd. Even the Station location on CMH Rd was changed to save the property of certain XXXX Horata Samithi Convenor.
srisri:
The link works for me – might be a browser issue or something. Anyway if you want you can go to http://www.praja.in and read the articles and discussions on Namma Metro.
Well, even I was disgusted initially that they are not going underground. I was under the impression that going underground would have saved all our trees, parks, monuments, and so on. Then I found out from people more knowledgeable than me in this field, that going underground will also result in similar disruption – trees will need to be uprooted, buildings will need to be demolished, and so on. The only thing is that subsequent to construction, these trees, buildings, etc. can come up over the ground again. But there is no way cutting and disruption can be avoided even if it goes underground (civil engineers call it cut-and-cover method or something like that).
The highrises drove the first nail in M.G.Road’s coffin and Metro the last one. I am wondering why this stretch, or any of the others for that matter, couldn’t have been built underground. Cost could have been a consideration, but what about aesthetics? What this monstrosity called Metro has done to M G Road and other parts of what used to be a beautiful city is unpardonable.
While it is agreeable that metro is a necessity and will be the lifeline, i am sure there it could have been implemented better than the tall, imposing, sullen, grey structures. Atleast for a few busy streets like MG road they can cover it up with fibre art and sprinkle of greenary. It would greatly improve the aesthetics, business and real estate market of MG road at bare minimum cost.