morning walks in bangalore

Citizens of Bangalore have been asking the government where the 20,000 crore rupees allocated for road improvement have gone.

Most have concluded that the money is being spent only on roads in the CBD, repairing and beautifying the same stretches over and over.

True.

Every morning, I walk down one of the beautiful sidewalks that stretch out in every direction from my lane, feeling selfishly grateful for the Smart City Project.

Coupled with our famed weather, mornings are wonderful, and walking 5-6 km is a cinch!

As the newspaper article only quotes disgruntled people I feel obliged to add my voice. As a satisfied citizen. I have waited for sidewalks for decades! Walking in other cities, from Los Angeles to Paris to Kuwait City to Ulsan, I have envied residents their pavements. Finally, now, it’s my turn to enjoy them!

These photos are going to be a record of this time, a time when beauty briefly returned to my part of the city, the short honeymoon phase before the BBMP, BWSSB and BESCOM will dig up these roads and sidewalks and leave their usual debris of jumbled cables, unused pipes, broken tiles and heaps of sand, cement and jelly stones interspersed with discarded paper cups and plastic water bottles left by workers.

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The second picture, the one in the centre below, is of Primrose Road. This narrow lane was part of my route to work, but I always drove – even though it was less than 2 km – as there was no place to walk.

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A lot of work still needs to be done. But each day brings some improvement, so I’m hopeful things will only get better.

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More on this in an earlier blog post: https://drshyamalavatsa.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/paradise-lost/