Monday, February 21, 2011

At what price, development?

I am in Bangalore for a couple of days and needless to say, I am happy, very happy. So too is the missus.

However, the trip was not without its shockers; and deeply saddening shockers -

1. The way the entire roads have been dug up for Namma Metro made me go absolutely crazy. The IISc and CNR Rao circle area look like a bombed out wasteland.

2. And this really sucked the life out of me. The well at home, which has always been a faitful and plentiful source of water has gone dry. Apparently it is the 5th or 6th well to go dry in R'nagar over the last few months; and everyone is unanimous in their verdict - the culprit is, you guessed right, the Namma Metro.

Apparently the slab setting/pile foundation work of the Metro has sucked so much water from the water-table, that never before seen water scarcity seems to have hit R'nagar! :-(

Do we need development of such nature? I am all for making commute of people easier; and at one point I have been a great fan of the Metro; but having had exposure to sectoral development and economics, I strongly feel that a massive fleet of AC buses will do much better than the Metro.

Less, ROW, less cost, and will replace lots of vehicles. Yes, it still remains to win over a lot of the big shots who are used to travelling in their own car(s); but that is far more easier than alleviating the pains of being displaced by the metro (ex: lots of old time shops on MKK road) or depleting water table!

Have a look at this slideshow to understand the economics of bus versus metro!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Unexpected Likes

Its strange when you still have an open mind to verify what pre-conceptions your mind had - just to see if the pre-conceptions were true in the first place. Best would be not to have pre-conceptions at all, right? :-)

Watched 'Band Bajaa Baaraat' and 'Yeh Saali Zindagi'. Was bowled over by the performances of Anushka and Ranveer in BBB. I was expecting it to be like any other Punjabi-Bollywood movie. It was different in a nice way.

Coming to YSZ, I entered the theatre expecting to be mesmerized and floored by Chitrangada Singh's performance; I certainly was, but by Irrfan Khan. The man's awesome!