GENRE: Voices

Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike released a manifesto on Saturday, October 17th. Here goes the text of the manifesto: Next to their workplace and home, Benglureans spend most of their time on the road, travelling. Bangaloreans spend a lot of time and money in order to travel for education, work and leisure due to the lack of an effective transport system. Our transport system is so costly that some people cannot afford even the bus and choose to walk, even long distances. A reliable, affordable and comfortable bus system will ensure that the 58 lakh bus commuters in Bangalore will travel…

“Wish you a wonderful weekend”, screams the RJ through the radio as my car labours through the serpentine traffic. For the happy weekend to begin, I must get first home, and so must the lakhs of office-goers. Friday evenings in Bengaluru are not like any other day. I am now at the nerve centre of the city, Majestic, which seems to be bursting at its seams. Throngs of travellers scramble towards the KSRTC bus stand for their weekend trip to their ‘native’ or some holiday destination. Private buses are parked haphazardly along the roadside, and travellers have no other option…

Anything in plenty loses its value. Anything–even human life! That’s why when we read of treacherous genocide of thousands of innocent people somewhere away from our vicinity, the intensity of the sorrow that we feel is short-lived—we are able to carry on with our lives quite normally. We know, as individuals we can do jolly little to change anything on this planet.  Is that wholly true? I went to Calgary in Canada recently to spend time with my son and daughter-in-law. The wonderful roads, neat and even footpaths and walking trails and the marvelous traffic sense of the drivers of…

The relatives were visiting from the Tamil country. It was May 1967. The exact dates slip my memory. (They do say that memory is the second thing to go. I don’t remember what the first thing is. Oh, come on! It’s a tried and tested gag!) In those Good Old Days (when nostalgia was much better than now), booking a train ticket was rather an accomplishment. You had go to the railway station (SBC in our case), get a blank form to fill in, fill it in, and then stand in a queue. Remember that story you were told about…

In the early 70s, my visits to Delhi and Calcutta involved late night travels within the city. During my trips to Japan during 1985-95, my working hours were most unpredictable extending beyond midnight most days and I’d travel back to my hotel by myself. Recently between 1995 to 2009, my usual practice was to drive back home from e-city in the late hours. I am not sure whether cities was safer or I was just lucky. Nevertheless we have to face cruel realities of today. I understand as young women you are raring to go and want to have the freedom to…

Early this century, Whitefield caught the attention of the world with the setting up of IT Parks and world-class gated ­­­communities. It became a symbol of modern India, a hub of smartness. Whitefielders, including techies and farmers, immigrants and locals, rich and poor, bicyclists and water tanker drivers, are still working hard to stay in the limelight. It’s hard to stay in the limelight by creating a few startups and a couple of fancy homes, Whitefielders have found. It’s easier to gain attention by extraordinary egregious behaviour as a community – lessons learned from the reality TV shows. Famous lake…

Jesus is supposed to have said that "Man does not live by bread alone". Whether I eat only bread or other things along with it, though, a lot of the stuff I'm currently learning will be of no help whatsoever in acquiring it. That's what I feel every time I sit down, or, as the case may be, try to keep my head off the desk, in class. My main issue is with the amount we're expected to write - by hand! I'm not expecting to spend much time writing going forward—after all, this is 2015, not 1215. And anyway,…

Pic: Sameer Shisodia The vehicle-free street initiative being tried out at HSR layout as an experiment is a good idea, for reclaiming common spaces. Its success and viability, however, depends on ‘we, the people’, who are responsible for making it workable. It can be done, and I have seen it working elsewhere. In Cambridge (UK), car owners park their vehicles on the periphery of the city and take feeder buses so that the city centre doesn’t get clogged. No one grumbles; no one seeks exemption; no one tries to break the rules. No fare concessions are offered, either. Around Harvard…

Buildings being razed down at the demolition drive at Sarakki Lake. Pic: Rahul Ravi It all started a couple of years back. Some NGOs like People's Campaign for Right to Water ( PCRW) and Sarakki Lake Area Improvement Trust (SLAIT) had begun to worry seriously about Sarakki lake. The severe pollution caused by ingress of sewage from nearby houses and apartment blocks, and the shrinking size of the once-pristine standalone lake because of the rampant encroachment by unscrupulous elements was the cause for concern. Construction debris and garbage dumped into the lake reduced the size of Sarakki lake, which covered…

If an accident is caused by the poor condition of a road, should the BBMP be held responsible? And should the corporation be forced to pay compensation to such victims? There's been a lot of heated debate about this following the unfortunate recent incident, in which a woman fell off a scooter and died as her husband swerved to avoid a pothole on the street. With the cops booking the husband for negligent driving, and the BBMP pointing fingers at BDA, it seems that we were only too ready to add insult to the tragedy, whereas what is really needed…