"Mamma, why is India like this? No other country we've been to is like this." And he's been to Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia and Egypt.
This was my 11-year old lamenting as we walked on the footpath on one of our Bangalore roads. We encountered numerous obstacles on the way – mounds of mud and rubble, poo, burnt leaves, a broken commode, packets of old clothes, stinking garbage, fighting dogs, a pani-puri cart and its customers, an old man stretching his hands out for alms, a man relieving himself at the 'footpath urinal'. Some places had gaping holes filled with rubbish, clogging up the storm water drain that ran beneath it. We even encountered impatient two-wheelers who found the footpath quicker than the four-lane road. We finally did most of the walk on the road instead of the footpath, dodging the oncoming traffic whose space we were using. All this because we decided to do the 2 km distance on foot instead of taking our car. The driving road and the walking road are two different things.
On another day, I needed to take my 92 year old grandmother to the diagnostic lab for a routine blood test. The lab is hardly 500 metres from our house and very convenient for her to walk, but where would she walk? The footpath, if it does exist, is too high for her to get on to. And even if she manages to climb the step, it is so uneven that I would be putting her life at risk. So I took her by car, dropped her off, and took the car back to the house because I couldn't get a place to park the car near the lab. We walked back home… we walked on the road because the road was the safest place for her to walk.
These two examples are mainly about footpaths (traffic is one of the major challenges that our cities face today), but if we look deeper, there are challenges everywhere and in all the basic human necessities – in food, housing, education, healthcare. 'Growth', 'GDP', 'Development' are meaningless words when we lack the basic amenities that are a given for people in most other countries.
This was my 11-year old lamenting as we walked on the footpath on one of our Bangalore roads. We encountered numerous obstacles on the way – mounds of mud and rubble, poo, burnt leaves, a broken commode, packets of old clothes, stinking garbage, fighting dogs, a pani-puri cart and its customers, an old man stretching his hands out for alms, a man relieving himself at the 'footpath urinal'. Some places had gaping holes filled with rubbish, clogging up the storm water drain that ran beneath it. We even encountered impatient two-wheelers who found the footpath quicker than the four-lane road. We finally did most of the walk on the road instead of the footpath, dodging the oncoming traffic whose space we were using. All this because we decided to do the 2 km distance on foot instead of taking our car. The driving road and the walking road are two different things.
On another day, I needed to take my 92 year old grandmother to the diagnostic lab for a routine blood test. The lab is hardly 500 metres from our house and very convenient for her to walk, but where would she walk? The footpath, if it does exist, is too high for her to get on to. And even if she manages to climb the step, it is so uneven that I would be putting her life at risk. So I took her by car, dropped her off, and took the car back to the house because I couldn't get a place to park the car near the lab. We walked back home… we walked on the road because the road was the safest place for her to walk.
These two examples are mainly about footpaths (traffic is one of the major challenges that our cities face today), but if we look deeper, there are challenges everywhere and in all the basic human necessities – in food, housing, education, healthcare. 'Growth', 'GDP', 'Development' are meaningless words when we lack the basic amenities that are a given for people in most other countries.
"Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him."
– Mahatma Gandhi
Most of our 'city improvements' would answer 'No' to the above. We've had the guiding light and we've failed to follow it.
Today, our cities are just surviving. It's day-to-day survival. It will take a lot of will and courage to change things. But it's never too late.
About two months ago, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) sent out a public notice for Revision of Bangalore's Master Plan 2015 inviting citizens to give inputs/ suggestions in writing by July 7, 2012. This is a statutory requirement starting the process to define and guide how Bangalore needs to develop till 2035. In asking for citizen inputs ahead of the process to construct RMP 2035, BDA is seen as being sensitive to the views of citizens. The document that will finally result from this exercise is Revised Master Plan (RMP) 2035.
The Namma Bengaluru Foundation (NBF) has been consolidating the suggestions of Bangaloreans, RWAs, NGOs, industry associations, social groups to send to the BDA. PNLIT took this opportunity to list out some of the things on our mind and we have sent inputs/ suggestions to NBA for inclusion in the document that they will submit to BDA.
Being no town planner myself, I've been doing some reading to see how other countries have planned their towns and how they have managed to provide their citizens with the quality of life that they have. And I have concluded that the master plan of any city should be developed with public open spaces as the foundation. Read PNLITs inputs/ suggestions here.
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." – Mahatma Gandhi
We have the capability. We just need to honestly do.
- By Arathi Manay, Trustee PNLIT
Views expressed are those of the author.
1 comment:
I'm pasting one of the PNLIT email response here as I felt it was really thought-provoking:
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Nice one. If you also think, why is traffic the only point of discussion among upper middle class Bangaloreans/Indians. It is the only problem which we have not been able to buy our way out of - if there were helicopters available at Rs.50 lakhs there would be no talk of bad traffic. Witness how Infosys and other companies funded an elevated highway that would just bypass the mess.
Bad government schooling - no problem; we can put our kids in private and international schools. Bad government hospitals; we can buy the best medical treatment in Apollo or Manipal. Poor power; buy UPS or generators. No time to follow governmental procedures; just pay a service fee and get it done without taking a day off to get the work done. No clean water; buy Bisleri 25l refills and tankers.
We have slowly stopped participating in public life and becoming apolitical because there is nothing the local corporator can do for us that we have not already bought off with our new found wealth
Please - let us stop pretending we are a spiritual society with an ancient heritage and one that respects elders, etc. We are possibly the most morally corrupt society in the world, one in which money is the only thing that matters, in which we cannot wait for 10 seconds to let an elderly person or a disabled person to cross, one in which a 75 year old woman is made to run pillar to post for her Rs.400 pension. I remember about 22 years back (on the day that the Indian Airlines plane crashed) I was walking an old woman to a bank after helping her cross the road and she wept and she told me that her children were trying to get rid of her so that they could take her property.
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