Sankey road : "developed" into a desert stretch

Even as the city is reeling under sweltering heat, the powers that be come up with yet another proposal to reduce the city's greenery. This is in addition to the war memorial taking several trees for victim. The claim is that cauvery cinema junction to yeshwanthpur will be made a "signal free" corridor. You would have to be exceptionally dimwitted to fail to notice that the only signals along the corridor are the ones at bhashyam circle and cnr rao circle. And any commuter who uses that stretch regularly will tell you that traffic piles up around bhashyam circle alone but the rest of the corridor is a breeze. Despite the spurt in traffic over the last 5 years, you never hear of a “jam” along that corridor due to the “narrowness” of the road either near malleswaram 18th cross or near palace orchards. While work in already on at cnr rao junction, bhashyam circle is expected to get a "magic box". With these signals removed, pray help me understand what bottleneck remains? Where is the need to widen any road along that stretch, least of all lop trees, when trees in the vicinity of IISc have already been destroyed in the name of development? As per the Deccan Herald article, the plea of residents of Malleswaram has been met with a deaf ear and a response in the form of “we like greenery but we're in favor of development”. In this particular case, the greenery does not come at the cost of development. In fact, the signal at bhashyam cirle could be removed with little (if any) loss of tree cover. That would suffice to ease the traffic along that corridor.

The citizens of Bangalore brought the local government to power in the municipal elections hoping for sensible administration - not to be deprived of greenery and clean air to breathe. It makes you wonder if the decision makers are so obsessed with “development” that they don't mind eroding Bangalore's real heritage - the trees - and turning it into a maze of concrete & asphalt, while turning a blind eye to the citizens' fervent appeals. On the other hand, taking a balanced view of development and restoring the city's lost greenery could win them accolades from all quarters instead of earning the people's scorn this way. We have reached a stage where the city records all time temperature high's in summer with people being forced to purchase air conditioners (and maybe even water in the near future). Do we need to pay a even bigger price for development that we don't need? Are the voices of the people being heard?

Renaming Bangalore to a toilet

I'm a Kannadiga, a native of Bangalore, born and brought up here. And the farthest forefather in my family tree I've known also lived here. So, theoretically speaking, I'm as Bangalorean as one can get. Good, bad or ugly, polluted, crowded by an immigrant population, bursting at it seams, plagued by infrastructural issues and all that, it remains dear to me - my home. The love of my life, really. I've also loved it for its colonial history and the resulting tinge of cosmopolitan quality that its always had. At the same time, its a city that's home to some stalwarts in Kannada literature, theatre, and cinema. And irrespective of what the immigrant population has called the city over the decades (yes, hard to believe, but Bangalore's weather has always attracted a sizable number of outsiders right through the 20th century), we have always called it Bengaluru. And even if you go by the Brits' version of it, I can't imagine a name more charming than Bangalore. And now, as if the rape that the city is being subjected to at the hands of the JDS government, greedy land developers (bringing down historical buildings every day to construct apartments to cater to the engineered real estate boom) and other parasites was not enough, that politician U.R. Anantha Murthy desperately seeking attention (having lost out in an attempt to win a seat in the parliament) proposes a change of name Benga-loo-ru ostensibly to make outsiders pronounce the city's name the way the locals do, and "restore pride in Kannada". Think of this for a second: try as you might, can you pronouce "Allapuzha" like a mallu, or the expansion of DMK like a true tam? Do you care? Do they care that you cannot? No. Because you cannot. You need not. You're not a local. On similar lines, I have enough pride as a Kannadiga & a Bangalorean to not be bothered about how outsiders pronounce the name of my city as long as they respect the city and its culture (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the spelling of the city). A language or a culture is too great in itself to require help from ordinary mortals in "deifying" it. It would've been a continued tribute to Bangalore's culture if it had two equally charming pronunciations used by different sets of people. But no - the attention seeking avaricious "guardians" of Karnataka have now come up with a spelling that has Bengal and loo in it. (I would've even settled for Bengaluru despite that name having bengal in it, but having a toilet in the name is a little too hard to digest. Gives me a constipation ).

From being a world renowned technology center (that never lost touch with its culture, mind you), we are now the laughing stock of the world with toilet in the name of our city. Not to mention the crores of rupees spent on the exercise. The possibilities of using the same cash for developmental efforts in a city groaning under its own weight are, to say the least, countless. Instead, the taxpayers money will now be swindled in the name of restoring Bangalore's pride. And this proposal comes from the same %$^* writer who also opposed English as an additional language in lower primary schools. The one person who's being doing Kannada and Karnataka great service, Mr.N.R. Narayana Murty, has exactly the opposite view on English in schools. But his exhortations fell on deaf ears. The greatest asset of the tech population (including locals) of Bangalore is the ability to converse in English effortlessly. And we will now be isolating ourselves from the rest of the world by imposing such draconian rules. We're marching towards being an incompetent, narrow-minded and, oh yes, "proud" culture.
I'm now well and truly embarrassed of my "culture".