my mother wanted me to go for a Bangalore Walk...
eh?
ah well, imagine being told to wake up on a Sunday morning at about 5 o' clock and arrive at someplace at 0645 to walk down MG Road.
EVERYBODY has walked down MG Road.
so what's the special thing eh?
why would someone who has lived in Bangalore for the larger part of her life want to shell out cash to do something she has done a gazillion times before!?
here is the embarrassing part.
despite the gazillion times she has walked down the road, she figures she knows nothing (zilch) about it. And the revelation is rather rattling....
Ever thought you'd see poultry on Mahatma Gandhi Road....or chance upon Winston Churchill's old plot of land? Ever realised that most of the view from Barton Centre is of trees, and we just didn't know of their existence?
The walk, though not much of an exercise physically, to me seems more important for a local citizen to trudge through than for a visitor to the city. Perhaps it could do that little bit to boost the sagging pride we have in the city in which we live...And perhaps it could get rid of that oh-so-common line, "I have visitors at home, but there is nothing in Bangalore to show them..."
Everyday one sees posters of "I'm Leaving Bangalore".... you really are? Your loss then, I'm afraid...
Perhaps it's time we quit cribbing and began to do something.
Maybe the next time we think there are too few trees around, we could spend an hour at the local nursery to buy some saplings and plant them....It would be better work done than watching a movie, wouldn't it?
Perhaps the next time we feel that the traffic is just too much, we ought to take a walk...and not bang our heads sitting in an air conditioned sedan....
Perhaps....
There is much the city can do to improve...but its rather unlikely that it's going to get about doing it on its own...Maybe it's our job to get it functional again? Maybe we ought to figure out the fact that doing something to alleviate Bangalore's problems is going to boomerang back to us...
Maybe i ought to quit preaching and go do something about this mess...
ciao..
