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Bangalore's gridlock and Metro digging stun a returning visitor

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CA visitor returning to Bangalore after nearly 20 years found short drives taking two hours, Metro-dug roads, balmy weather and a drought worrying Dharwad farmers.

A social commentator returning to Bangalore after almost 20 years found a city where covering just a few kilometres by car or cab can take up to two hours, and where half the roads have been dug up for a Metro meant to ease the very congestion it is now worsening. Catching an early morning flight, she said, means leaving home by 4 am to reach the airport by 6 am.

The trip paired a conference in Hubli with several days set aside in Bangalore to meet friends the writer had not seen in a long time. The leafy neighbourhoods and parks she remembered had given way to towering high-rise apartment blocks. The trees still stand, she wrote, but survive as a dwarfed and apologetic presence in what she called a new concrete jungle.

The roads themselves are narrow and winding, choked with cars, two-wheelers, buses, trucks and delivery vans. The logistics of simply meeting friends at a club or restaurant, she said, cancel out the pleasure of the outing. The experience left her resolved never again to complain about the Delhi-Noida or Delhi-Gurgaon traffic she is used to in the north.

Balmy weather, but a dry spell

The one thing unchanged, she wrote, is Bangalore's balmy weather. Over roughly 10 days in the region she needed neither a fan nor an air-conditioner. That comfort sits against a harsher backdrop: the area is in the grip of a severe dry spell, and farmers in Dharwad are worried about the prevailing drought.

The visit also delivered a full plate of South Indian hospitality. Lunch was a sadya, served with dozens of small helpings of pickles, chutneys, papads and avial alongside rice, sambar and rasam, topped off with payasam and aromatic filter coffee. The lectures that followed, she admitted, were a struggle to stay awake through.

BRICS empties out Delhi

Back in the National Capital Region, a different disruption awaited. The BRICS conference led authorities to cordon off large areas of Delhi for delegates, sending ordinary traffic on long diversions for anyone forced to enter the city. Office-goers were encouraged to work from home and schools were shut, handing children and parents a long weekend. From Noida, the writer described unusually quiet streets and welcomed the calm, while noting the concentration of hospitals across the NCR as reassurance for anyone facing a medical emergency during the shutdown.

'Hanuman Ansh' fills every hall

The column turned finally to a film breaking box office records. Made on a shoestring budget of about Rs 2 crore, 'Hanuman Ansh' has taken in almost a hundred times that amount and is now being dubbed into Tamil and other languages. Demand has been so high that halls have no free seats, with viewers staying on for two consecutive screenings.

The writer's interest in the film is personal as well as curious. Her husband's family were devoted followers of Neem Karoli Baba, the saint whose admirers are said to range from Steve Jobs to Virat Kohli. Babaji was a regular visitor to their home, and trips up to Almora always included a mandatory stop at Kainchi.

She described a figure who never dispensed sermons. He would recline on a takhat, clad in nothing but a rough blanket, accepting no gifts or offerings, and would sometimes shoo a visitor away for reasons known only to him. Neem Karoli Baba died in September 1973, the same year the couple's first child was born that December. He had told her mother-in-law, "Main tere ghar aaunga" - I will come to your house - leaving the family to believe that their first grandson was his reincarnation. For them, the writer said, he remains the protector of the family.

Bangalore traffic, Bangalore Metro construction, Dharwad drought, BRICS Delhi, Hanuman Ansh box office, Neem Karoli Baba, Bangalore weather

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