he’s young. he has more money than his parents ever had, the fancy flip phone being testament to that. he likes to talk incessantly on it. he’s impatient with the traffic. he knows he can get another job at the drop of a hat.

 is he a software engineer? close but not the right answer.

he’s just one among the breed of rash drivers that populate the “Garden City” (there are no gardens anymore, all the trees have been cut down so I think they should effectively remove that name). anywhere you go in Bangalore, you are likely to hear the same refrain- oh we are not able to get good drivers…if you know of someone, please let us know….they are always talking on the cell phone when driving, we tell them but they never listen…and so on and on it goes.

So what’s the big deal? rather obvious, don’t you think. Our driver, young chap, employed only temporarily until our permanent driver was supposed to come in, got into a car accident seriously injuring some people (they are all out of danger now). why? speeding and talking on the phone at the same time.

i can hear you say-it’s your fault; you should have trained him properly. i laugh at your naivete. Don’t you think we tried? we literally breathed down his neck whenever he used to drive- don’t cut corners, drive slowly, not so fast, no cell phone…

it was of no use. the minute we were out of the car, he was a free bird. no rules need be followed then.

he had just dropped me at my office and was speeding along when the accident happened. Along with the fact there were a number of people involved, my parents were misinformed by the police- they were told that “the girl was in serious condition and has been shifted to St John’s hospital “. the last person in the car with the driver was me. My parents put two and two together and were shattered.

Till date, they have yet to recover. My dad just collapsed on the road in front of the damaged car because he thought I was done for life.  The police had to escort them to the car and explain to them gently that I was not there in the car when the accident happened.  This is the worst thing a parent can go through….

After that , the whole rigmarole starts. Bribes to get the car back, the car has to be sent for repairs, insurance, hit and run case, bail for the driver, FIR, hours and hours at the police station, praying for the victims and so on….

my father has just been wrung dry….

in all of this chaos, I ask myself- what’s going on? what am i seeing taking place in this city? this city is not the city I grew up in.  you must be thinking: why is there a problem with the city just because you had an accident?

if you think that, then you have not been to Bangalore recently

in work, almost everyone in the bangalore office has been an accident or narrowly escaped them. all of them are beleaguered victims of the ridiculous traffic jams and the poor infrastructure that plague this city. the office has just been opened and is small so you can imagine if 100% of the people in it agree to have been in similar situations then what it must be like in the bigger offices?

every 15 minutes there is a mall! no wonder you will have huge traffic jams! what is the point in putting up that Oasis mall on ring road right at the junction of an important traffic light? won’t it just exacerbate the traffic situation with vehicles queuing up after the other to get into the mall, choking the road for the others who just want to get into Koramangala. Who thought of this monstrous stupidity? would it have really hurt them to construct this silly mall little further down this road away from that junction? of course not! why you see, it’s all about the greens. you can advertise its “accessibility” (right at the junction) hoping it will turn into a people magnet. which leads to wonder- don’t people have anything better to do rather than go to malls all the time? how much money can they spend? what did the human beings do before the advent of malls?

but i digress.  on top of poor placement of buildings, you have every soul that lives in this city owning a car plying it on what Bangalore parades as a sorry excuse for roads (how dare you think of car pool!they are earning money, they have a right to travel all alone in their car even if it means choking this earth as a result!). the number of cars on the roads is astounding. As the middle class in India progresses, this is a natural consequence I guess; probably is happening all over the country. the pollution in Bangalore is unbearable. Worse than that, it is unhealthy. These are toxic fumes that one is breathing in and out. how come the authorities have not thought of the health effects that the citizens will be undergoing? i guess they are too busy giving their “approvals” for those wonderfully placed mall and office projects all over the city.

i won’t be surprised if 20 years down the line, a huge majority of Bangaloreans will be found to be suffering from ailments directly related to these toxic fumes.

don’t even get me started on noise and water pollution.

added to that is the construction of metros trains and stations in  the city. MG road makes nightmares look good. The days of going there are over- just travelling on that road end to end is taking an hour or more! that’s the most ridiculous thing I have seen! oh no wait, take that back. being stuck in a traffic jam on a flyover is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen!

what’s the point of the flyover?what’s the point of ring road? they were supposed to facilitate the easy flow of traffic and they have become huge bottlenecks themselves!

aaaarrrrgghhh! i could go on and on!

can you see what conditions do to people? how frustrated they become? no wonder Bangaloreans don’t respect traffic rules and cut corners like crazy! anybody who has been here can testament to the fact that Bangaloreans don’t follow any rules and drive all over the place.

Obviously, the probability of accidents will be high. on top of that is the urge to get home fast (made literally impossible given the n number of obstacles present). Tempers rise. Road Rage is in the air. Irritated and Frustrated by the conditions, people become rude. 

ever heard of the refrain that Bangalore auto drivers are rude? they are tremendously so. when I was growing up, however, they were not . this is a fairly recent phenomenon that has been taking place in the last 4-5 years. in fact, i used to contrast the auto drivers in this cities with those of other cities to drive home the point that Bangalore was a pleasant place to live.

at this point , I want to make an important observation about the side effect of prosperity: with the money flowing into the city like water, the divide between the haves and the have-nots within the city is growing. only a certain segment of society has benefited from the economic boom but the poorest segment of Indian society has remained where it was. The auto drivers. The watchmen. The servants. They see the wealth all around them, everyone has it and is enjoying their lives, prices are going up and up and then they began to feel resentful and envious- I want my share, my pound of flesh as well…you can afford it, so give it to me!

that’s why the auto drivers always overcharge- subconsciously or consciously, they feel they have a right to do so. everyone has the right to enjoy but we can’t? no way.

why them, that’s why everyone wants to overcharge.

that’s why they are rude. Resentment and anger has set in.

Prosperity has also brought about the destruction of good work ethic.  and this is where my driver comes in.

put quite simply, it’s the curse of the plenty. why do I need to listen to you? if you fire me, there will be hundreds of others queuing up to buy my services.

 after all, every day you get to hear of companies moving thousands of jobs into  the city. The demand is so much that the native does not care to improve himself. he is assured of an income under any circumstance.

put up with it or suffer.

The laziness and the lack of respect towards your boss and your job will reflect in the way you perform your duties.

it doesn’t make a difference if you pay higher salaries. they’ll just buy a fancier cellphone (my driver had a fancier cell than I did!)

the curse of conspicuous consumption has hit them as well. if you try to counsel them otherwise, it will just lead to further resentment.

lastly but not the least-mob fury. I had written sometime back about the culture of mob justice that is overtaking the country right now. that is what happened in our case as well. after the accident, the passersby (don’t they have jobs to go to?) decimated the car. now today, the headlines scream about a mob torching 4 buses because of a motorcycle accident resulted in a death. I reiterate the same observations here.

people are angry, dissatisfied and frustrated. when incidents such as these happen, the beast in men is unleashed and is manifested in mob justice.

the government needs to be very careful about this. it is a true threat to peace and security.

this is not the city I grew up in. in fact it is the complete opposite of what it was….

i am not sure we can  ever capture the essence of what it was like ever again….

Ladies and Gentlemen- motive being greed, gross neglect or both notwithstanding , a murder has taken place-

The Murder of Bangalore.

Now my only question is- can we revive the dead?

Readers, do tell.