Dear future Karnataka CM,
First of all, we don’t need another expressway to get to the airport. If people want to catch a plane, they will get there on time. We have an airport, it is there. Whatever is supposed to fly, flies properly, bathrooms are functional, okay? Let us please move on.
Second of all, what is the point of building flyovers if the roads drown after a brief shower? Or is that why we have become obsessed with
Dear future Karnataka CM,
First of all, we don’t need another expressway to get to the airport. If people want to catch a plane, they will get there on time. We have an airport, it is there. Whatever is supposed to fly, flies properly, bathrooms are functional, okay? Let us please move on.
Second of all, what is the point of building flyovers if the roads drown after a brief shower? Or is that why we have become obsessed with flyovers so that we have something to hold on to when our two-wheelers are pitifully floating away from us? The one thing Bengaluru still has from its aa dinagalu time is its relationship with rain. We can’t afford to lose our only flex that the rest of the country is jealous of just because of dabba roads. Kindly build roads, leave flyovers alone otherwise we will all be flying under them. Indeed, if we were entirely a population that likes hanging out in balconies 24/7 doing thatte-banging (plate-banging) and watching the rain, then it would have been fine. But we are not, so kindly excuse us.
Third of all, let us revisit the idea of a city and what it means. A city doesn’t only mean its infrastructure or weather. It also doesn’t only mean its pubs or cafes or dosas. A city is its people? There are all kinds of people. Especially those that leave theirs and come here to work and study. Some will say that a city is a good chow chow mixture. The Bengaluru I see in the classrooms that I go to is a city where students stretching from Nagaland to Coimbatore and from Tirunelveli to Jharkhand come to study. But the city can only boast of such a diversity if its people, and especially students, aren’t denied homes for eating things the owners don’t eat or for looking and talking differently than they do. Differences are what make any city a city. If it’s alright for cops to take pictures of women smoking (it’s not), why is there nothing in place to stop landlords from declining tenants on the basis of what they eat, which caste they belong to, and what clothes they are wearing?
Fourthly, the government wants college committees to ensure uniformity among students – hence no hijabs – but is our vision of a student in the classroom only some well-oiled Chhota Bheem? The right to education is in place for a reason. We need to envision classrooms where a Muslim girl or a Dalit boy or a transwoman can be students without feeling threatened.
Fifthly, I am not saying that the Bengaluru of aa dinagalu was the best Bengaluru but why does it feel like everyone I know and their grandfather would like to return to the Bengaluru of Naguva Nayana? Some of us are not even saying this out of fondness for Anil Kapoor’s chest. Not that things were perfect during Naguva Nayana time but people had places in which to be imperfect and in which to complain about imperfections. Places like libraries, parks, bookshops, and theatres. Take us back to that time where we didn’t have to break our fixed deposits to watch one film and eat one bucket of popcorn. Every time someone who lived here in the 80s-90s talks about Bengaluru and what they did here, and where they ate and where they walked, I feel a dull pain in my chest which may or may not have anything to do with how much I am spending on petrol.
It was a different time, they say. But outside of my sepia imagination of the city from that time, young people had spaces to discover themselves. Footpaths may have been wider, if there were any, but so were the spaces available for people to be other people, for lovers to meet, for trees to breathe. Today, the only creatures to have that kind of leisure and space in the city are the cows of Bengaluru who build fortresses of solitude on your roads. At least they are happy with your roads.
Lastly, let us quietly agree that there isn’t a single Kannada love song you would dare to remove Cubbon Park from. When you can’t remove Cubbon Park out of our best songs, how can you remove lovers out of Cubbon Park? Cubbon Park belongs to the people. Return it to them. Whether they come as lovers, students, cows, dogs, laughers or sleepers — the city cannot afford to lose them. If you lose them, you are forever stuck with NRI makklu who come here once in five years to go to Brahmin’s coffee bar to feel like they are finally in Bengaluru.
Vijeta Kumar teaches Communicative English at St. Joseph's University, Bengaluru
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