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

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 08, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Reporter's Diary

Wooing the voter

OUR CITY fathers are quite busy these days. With the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) elections fast approaching, the corporators want to ensure that they do not miss any opportunity in getting closer to the people of their wards.

After a woman corporator recently used the occasion of her daughter's wedding to familiarise herself with the residents of her ward, last week another influential corporator literally threw a "bash" for the voters of his ward during the house warming ceremony of his new home.

With almost every resident of the ward being invited, hundreds turned up for this "bash" and relished the lunch. While a buffet was organised for some "important" persons, a "cocktail" party was also reportedly arranged for the "very important" persons.

But hope our city fathers realise that all these efforts will work only if the roster of reservation for the wards they represent now does not change after the delimitation process is completed.

Laughter, the best medicine

THE LINES are long going in. When they are coming out, there is laughter and some actually chuckling over a joke or two. More than half of the Bollywood movies now being screened in our city are full-length comedies.

Some romance, dance and songs aside, a string of jokes and comical situations all along. Screened at posh multiplexes and downmarket cinema halls alike.

You cannot really expect much subtle humour, but can see a lot of slapstick. And the most improbable situations that out in the West go by the name "sitcoms."

All with a big city touch, that could well belong to Bangalore as Mumbai or Delhi.

Movie audiences are obviously fed up with too much sentiment and melodrama and that is what makes the movies click at the box office.

Real stress-busters for this fast paced city. Laughter of course is the best medicine and all that.

Where is the train?

RIGHT WHERE the Jogger's Park stands today, entrenched between an asphalted Suranjan Das Road and a concrete side road, there was once a railway track going all the way to the Helicopter Division of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

The Vimanapura railway station was where HAL employees would dismount from their coaches and walk up to the overhaul division.

Today, there is no sign of the track.

But the residents of the area still get nostalgic recalling the days when schoolboys would hop into the slow-moving compartments from the BEML gates and alight just before the railway station, heading straight to nearby schools.

The train would remain at the station till dawn when the harried employees trickle out of their factory.

But the station, being open to all, was always at the mercy of urchins, petty thieves and miscreants, never missing an opportunity to walk away with bulbs, fans and toilet accessories from the coaches. The railways always refixed them with almost parental care.

K. Satyamurty,

Rasheed Kappan

Afshan Yasmeen, K. Satyamurty, Rasheed Kappan

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