the ugly indian

Monday morning, 950am Damn – why is the bus stuck here for so long at Mekhri Circle today?I had left home at 9am with the intention of reaching the Spot by 10am, but looks like I will reach only by 11. Bangalore has this brand new bus system, the G-10, that has made commuting from far-flung suburbs to city centre so much easier. But it seems like everything collapses when a VIP is in town, as all the main roads of Bangalore leading to the airport are blocked this morning. This is ridiculous – why should the overcrowded city be…

  I had seen V & X for the first time on Thursday, the day before their ‘hit’. I was walking down Church Street after a coffee at Koshy’s and was heading towards Blossom Books, when I saw these two guys photographing this ugly garbage pile outside the Times of India building. One of them was literally standing in the pile and holding up a shopping bag he had extricated from the dump, and the other was photographing it.  I did look at them but did not stop – assuming they were from the media; the city’s garbage woes are…

Bengaluru is very quiet on a Sunday morning. The city centre area wakes up slowly, recovering from a busy Saturday night – even Ramanna opens his tea shop at eight. The mood is relaxed, and everyone is looking forward to a day of rest and relaxation. Many of the security guards, immigrants from the eastern reaches of India, normally work 2 shifts – or 16 hours on the trot, so Sunday morning is a big release. V and X shoot the breeze with this small group, whom they have now got to know fairly well. Hindi is the common language…

  V and X are not the only ones trying to fix Bangalore’s filth problem. Unknown to them, there are several citizens out there, trying – in their own small way – to fix the mess on the streets outside their home or office. We are not talking here about NGOs or civil society organisations, of which Bangalore has plenty, but regular citizens. There is P, a software engineer, working on weekends at defeating an ugly garbage dump right in front of a huge technology park near the Koramangala Forum Mall in which his MNC employer occupies two large buildings.…

V and X had done a simple exercise the previous week – something done by thousands of Bangaloreans everyday. They took a walk from Cauvery Emporium on the Brigade Road – MG Road junction to the famous Koshy’s cafe, along the length of Church Street. This is probably one of the most well-trodden paths of Bangalore’s entertainment, food, book and beer seekers, and takes in all the well-known landmarks – Cauvery Handicrafts, the Levi’s store, the Magazines store, Nando’s Chicken, Matteo Cafféa, several icecream and dessert parlours, the popular Queen’s eatery, Shrungar Shopping Centre, the venerable Indian Coffee House, the…

The Ugly Indian (TUI) is an inspired community in its truest sense. One of the forerunners of large-scale citizen movement to clean up the streets of Bangalore, they have inspired large groups of people to take ownership of their locality and do their bit. It was only a matter of time before it picked up. Now the movement seems to have touched most of the educated elite in Bangalore. Several TUI-inspired spotfixing groups are getting formed across various localities of Bangalore. The groups that are currently in operation are: Whitefield Rising: All areas from Kundalahalli to ITPL Banaswadi Rising: Kammanahalla-Kasturi…

Chapter 2: The Hit! Friday, 1145pm. Two shadowy figures walk furtively along Bangalore’s fabled  Mahatma Gandhi Road – the pubs are closing, the autorickshaw drivers are haggling with late night customers, the night shift call centre employees are going in to work, as the heart of the city of 9 million people is winding down after a busy Friday night. They rush past the popular 13th Floor lounge bar (where they earlier had dinner and plotted the night’s ‘hit’), past the paanwala and KFC outlet, and pause briefly.  A 5-floor building looms above them – it houses the offices of…

  Are you an ugly Indian? Why is India so filthy? Why do we keep our homes clean and our streets dirty? Why can’t we do anything about this pathetic lack of public hygiene? Who is to blame for our lack of civic sense? Is it our corrupt politicians, our dysfunctional governments, or ‘the system’ ? Or is it us, the people? Is it time to admit that many of India’s problems are because we are all ugly Indians – that we, the people, are as much part of the problem – if not, the problem. It’s about our rooted…

The initiative to clean up Lottegollahalli was the brainchild of a few residents of Raj Mahal Vilas (RMV) clusters phase 1 and 2 who were keen to do something about the waste that had accumulated on our recently tarred main road. Like the garbage, our anger, frustration and the need to act was also piling up. So, after deliberating this issue many times, we decided to greet each other 'good morning' on 17th February, 2013 armed with face masks, gloves, brooms, rakes and shovels and most importantly, our will. When the group of us who had been strategising and motivating…