The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 18, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Reporter's Diary

A taste of traffic jam

ON A dull Sunday morning, you expect the usually jam-packed roads to let you clip on high 60s and even 70s. But your eyebrows are bound to be raised when you see the roads back to a weekday jam at one of those junctions. You ask a waiting traffic policeman and you know a VIP or VVIP is on his way.

Stuck on such VVIP triggered jams, you could spot ambulances in a hurry to reach the nearest super speciality hospital, passengers in a tearing hurry to catch a flight, cursing youngsters in superbikes and gas guzzling sportsutility vehicles with their engines switched on.

But this Monday, the city's Varthur Road was witness to a strange sight. The country's National Security Adviser was heading towards the airport, back from a function to inaugurate the ISRO Satellite Integration & Test Establishment.

The motorcade was, strangely, forced to wait for other traffic to clear. The VVIP had to share the road with ordinary people.

Of course, the traffic police soon realised the folly and went back to their usual practice of jamming. But in those little moments of waiting, the harried Bangalorean reluctantly acknowledged that even VVIPs could be made to hang on. If only that was the rule.

Those good old days

ON TWO days last week, some of the main thoroughfares in the city resembled what they were 30 or 40 years ago. Those old enough to remember could look back with nostalgia to what Mahatma Gandhi Road or South Parade as it was once known, was. There were only a few bicycles and pedestrians along these roads. Even a few stray cows and abandoned jutka ponies were bold enough to graze on the greenery of the promenade.

We cannot turn the clock back. These roads are again choked with traffic. But something can come back. Little courtesies which once were common like a motorist stopping to allow an elderly pedestrian cross the road or indicating with hand signals that he was slowing down. There is much that was good in the old days.

Rasheed Kappan, K. Satyamurty

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