A mauled Bangalore lost in dust, should we say?

I just found a press note where a bunch of Bangaloreans, greens and the like-minded, came together to walk and `reclaim' Bangalore. Reclaim - the word is too magical now. Obviously their target was the Metro project that has killed any bit of green left in the city. Mauled at. Its very symbols of glory butchered by bull-dozers.

The discovery: that Metro projects have been abandoned elsewhere in the world. Am not sure how true it is. But I have been to Bangalore after hardly four months and got shocked to see the face of the city change so much! An entire stretch of CMH Road lost in the metro madness...in reality...lost to dust and concrete. When it gets completed after some years (looks like forever now), I bet not a soul in the elephantine government machinery will bother to replant trees on the spot or even make some effort to restore greenery.

So what if the MG Road boulevard, a tourist attraction and the remnant of a bygone Bangalore's South Parade, is lost? So what if it succeeded in hitting the last nail on the coffin of CMH Road's serenity or Race Course Road's lovely green stretches?

The Ulsoor Jhatka stand that till recently housed traditional shops selling pooja items, symbolised an erstwhile rural and religious Bangalore's confluence with modernity. To me, the obscure structure facing Someshwara Temple's chariots, was a showcase of the very essence of Bangalore. But in the insensitive eyes of a city population now infested with Software bees, it looked every bit a traffic hazard. Metro was the best excuse to sting it to dust. No talk of rebuilding it, no idea where it is gone! Bangalore's heritage? Did someone whisper that? Sorry, I heard not even whispers.

Metro's various patrons who threw public opinion to winds when they conceived the project in the name of technology, will care little for these things in later years. They will do best to garner political mileage. As for the technology fixers, the firms that will become `We built it' icons, they will make many more millions selling its pictures. At best, the babus and white-collared honchos will plant stories of self-praise in the media -- a media eager to fall for anything metro and anything `infrastructure'.

Can any of them dare to bring back same number of leaves on the trees, the same number of branches, and manufacture the same amount of oxygen as from those many trees at those very spots? They dare not yes. They dared to axe them though.