Talk about globalisation…
I’ve been in Bangalore for a little over a year now. Many of my friends had greeted me for having landed a job in the Silicon Valley of India. My brothers-in-law had given me gyaan on how to keep switching jobs until I landed a lucrative one and how it is a nice place to do so. To say the least, Bangalore is the most disappointing city ever. It’s overly hyped. It’s all talk and no walk. It’s emotionally a very wrung-out city. One would hardly call it a city looking at the infra-structure. But what is more disturbing, is something that has started recently.
A section of Kannadigas is against the city being so outsider-friendly and is demanding a change. “Bangalore hardly looks like a Kannada city. We want our city back.”, says the Karunada Sene, a jingoistic pro-Kannada group.
It is not uncommon to see hoardings displaying products manufactured by MNC’s, blackened out. There were violent protests and mass vandalism when theatre owners didn’t follow the moratorium sought by the Kannada film industry. The Karunada Sene has big plans for the ‘We want Bangalore back’ movement. Their demands are simple (yeah, right):
Locals should be given preference in jobs
Kannada should be spoken in public places
Hoardings should be in Kannada
Kannada should be made compulsory in school
Roads should have Kannada names
Out of these only the one about Kannada being made compulsory in schools sounds cogent.
A retired central government official recently sought help for his educated, unemployed, 27-year-old son at a counselling centre. His son had been participating in an anti-outsider demonstration and was arrested by the cops according to the director of the counselling centre. His frustration was obvious. Outsiders hogging all the attention. MNCs not beign fair to local kids and not offering them the lion’s share of the job pool. Not only that. They have a problem with non-Kannadas dominating Bangalore’s economic and cultural life. Azim Premji and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw being the richest business people in the city is a matter of concern for them.
My only intention behind this post was to warn people of an impending threat. To uncover Bangalore’s true image to most people who have a highly roseate picture of this city. It may have been a peach a few years back, but it’s no longer so. It’s a very expensive city with very little to offer in the form of housing facilities and public infrastructure. Transportation is darned expensive and the traffic police make life a living hell for the outsiders. Accidents are commonplace due to bad roads and even more non-sensical drivers who mistake city roads for drag racing strips. It is highly unsafe after 10 pm, which is pretty much a safe time in most major cities.
I don’t see any reason why any person in his right mind should not stay away from this place.
Sad to here that! Wonder what if Maharashtra starts saying give our Mumbai back;)..I dont understand why do these people dont understand the importance of overall development of the country and not just the state and its people…and i bet this is just some thing raised by the politicians or some “religious” people around…
Comment by sneha — August 29, 2005 @ 7:19 pm
whattt?? this is ridiculous. if you want a developed and advanced city, be prepared for the “side-effects”. third world mentality in a first world city (well almost). this is what is keeping india behind. disgraceful!
Comment by KetZ — August 30, 2005 @ 7:06 am
boy oh boy anup,u ve actually underplayed the scenario out here in bangy…it sucks!
Comment by Vandana — September 1, 2005 @ 7:15 am
sneha that actually happened in mumbai, thats when the shiv sena became heros, becoz it stood up for the marathi man, anupa welcome back wtf have u been, no contact at all!!!
what are u plans now??? banglore or someplace else??
Comment by NIRANJAN — September 1, 2005 @ 1:26 pm
This is a hyed up article.. please tell me that you didnt take ‘karunada sene’ seriously.. this is the first time i heard of this nonsensical organization.. a few people seem wronged when their dreamworld was no longer around them when they were asleep- hence they form an organization which is but invisible forits once-in-a-bluemoon vandalizing activities, but to hype an unheard organization’s demands to an extent to dengigrate an entire city as if it had nothing to offer is just not done!
regarding driving up prices of property..there are 2 things.. with a massive influx of people.. and an impending influx of an equivalent number, people require the basics of roti kapda and makaan.. the crowd coming in are the ones willing to earn and pay that much..so ur prices are being driven up, if you expected paradise when u landed and after the it boom i am afraid no place would give u that..
we bangaloreans ourselves are confused abt how these massive changes are happening to our city, and we are saying that these changes were inevitable but for someone to stand up and scream back at the city is bad!
roads? the city is as corrupt as any other and it hasnt changed much though it is expected.the tirade against summing all these up and saying its not a nice place to live is stupid.
I am in my sane mind and hell i wont give this city up
Comment by Keerti — September 6, 2005 @ 10:16 am
heh heh … we meet again ….. this time thru blogs !!!!!
Comment by deepa — September 7, 2005 @ 6:04 am
heh heh … we meet again ….. this time thru blogs !!!!!
Comment by deepa — September 7, 2005 @ 6:05 am
@keerti…the whole screw up about this city is that the people who run it dont care a damn about where it is going or at what pace it is dying!its true that theres a massive flow of people flowing in every day in search of jobs and what not.this is supposed to be a symbiotic deal between the bangaloreans and the non-bangaloereans.dont u think the fact that there are other people from various cultures in this city has actually cosmopolitanised this place?bangalore was fine with all this for so long…all of a sudden, protests and patriotism galore?!!
petrol prices increase every three months and the reason given is,infrastructure needs to be bucked up…tell me, where is the infrastructure in bangalore?or did they mean their personal infrastructure?
this is not about bangaloreans vs non-bangaloreans..this is about frustration due to the fact that some people are born with common sense…and it is not targetted toward only bangalore..if we were at some other city and this kind of a situation previled there too..these would be the same arguements.
RIP!!
Comment by Vandana — September 12, 2005 @ 4:51 am
bacche..kya baat hai ??…Bangy ke theatres me Mithun da ke movies nahi dikhaate kya?…why so pissed with the city…
Comment by Arka — September 13, 2005 @ 4:13 pm
arre bhosadichya kuthe mela ahes
Comment by Niranjan — November 2, 2005 @ 2:34 pm