The Waste Land

 

This black spot on Wind Tunnel Road, Murugeshpalya, has acquired an air of permanency. This patch of land adjoining the HAL airport compound wall remains perpetually overrun by leftover food from households and eateries, and discarded household items like sofas and toilet commodes. 

Both BBMP and HAL have tried all the tactics in their rule book, but this area continues to be a sad reminder that we as a society still have a long way to go in keeping our surroundings clean.

During my morning walks I often see dogs, cows, and birds such as crows and eagles rummaging through the garbage pile for food. This foraging sometimes even results in ugly confrontations, with fights breaking out among the dogs or between crows and eagles. 

The volume of garbage piles varies – when BBMP marshals step up vigil and lie in wait to catch and fine the litterbugs, the pile appears relatively diminished, though the stench lingers on. 

But once they relax their vigil, ‘normalcy’ is restored. Most of the littering, I guess, happens during the night when the area becomes deserted and there is barely any traffic. There are no streetlights either.

But sometimes I come across some intrepid litterbugs who do so during the day, say around 7 am. They come in two-wheelers with the pillion rider carrying a large black polythene bag. The bike slows down near the spot, the pillion rider tosses off the bag, and they scoot off.

On social media we often come across social service organisations carrying out ‘spot fixes’ or makeovers of such black spots, but no such luck for this area.

This particular patch badly needs such a fix as it is not like any other black spot with garbage pile-ups causing inconvenience to nearby residents. Its close proximity to an airfield poses a potential hazard to planes operating out of this airport.

After commercial flights were shifted to BIAL in Devanahalli, HAL Airport has been mainly catering to Indian Air Force aircraft and some occasional VIP flights. 

As numerous birds frequent this garbage dump, this aggravates the risk of a bird-hit for aircraft operating out of HAL Airport. It also endangers the lives of our airmen, who fly fighter plane sorties and test flights on a regular basis. 

Their jobs are fraught with numerous risks, with death stalking at every step. In addition, they now have to contend with this occupational hazard of bird menace mainly because nearby residents and others have scant regard for civic sense.   

As people, we are ever eager to carry out token symbolism to show our love for armed forces like say changing the display picture of our WhatsApp status during Independence Day or Republic Day or posting pictures or videos on social media of soldiers carrying out some risky tasks in Siachen Glacier and other places that in turn attract numerous 'likes' from friends and followers.

But when it comes to doing something more concrete that may help our men in uniform, apathy reigns supreme.

So this spot continues to be in a mess and the stench becomes unbearable especially when it rains.

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Deconstructing Suranjan Das Road

Apart from the usual suspects – the civic officials and the contractors – the 4-5 kilometre long Suranjan Das Road, which provides a vital link between Old Madras Road and Old Airport Road, is also a conspiracy involving automobile mechanics, orthopedics and of course those offering quack remedies for neck and back pain. For the medical fraternity the road can be an ideal place to carry out experiments to determine the threshold limit of strain a human bone can be subjected to, before it reconciles to plasters.

In its monsoon glory the stretch near Gitanjali Layout resembles poor man's Venice. The road was meant to be four-laned, but now it has two lanes of antiquated concrete road and two lanes of mini-canal with nearly four-feet deep trenches all along. With the jurisdictional C V Raman Nagar MLA belonging to BJP and a Congress government at Vidhana Soudha, much water is expected to flow down these trenches before a four-lane road becomes a reality.

The stretch from the BEML Gate to HAL Aerospace Division has an uncanny knack of getting inundated with knee deep water, even if there is a 15-minute drizzle. During heavy rains it acquires the menacing ability to even make burly Tata Sumos gasp for breath, due to inundated exhaust pipes.

For those who wish to get a hang of what off-road racing is all about, but loath to drive all the way to the city outskirts, the stretch near the HAL vegetable market could be ideal to learn the basics.

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Morning Walk Vignettes

The shifting of airport to Devanahalli has freed the approach roads to the HAL Airport from eternal traffic snarls and honkings, and it now resembles one of those sleepy boulevards that Bangalore was once famous for. However, it somehow has not caught the fancy of morning walkers in the area. Probably the stigma of those horrific traffic jams still remains.

I once chanced to come upon this stretch and decided to abandon other trails. The road at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine end and the other one which has the Blue Dart office present a chalk and cheese contrast. The former is well maintained while the latter is unkempt with garbage strewn on the footpath and taxis and lorries parked on both ends. There are even some makeshift eateries and their wafting sambhar smell often aggravates my hunger pangs.

As for the walkers, barring few guys most seem to be the strolling types and are more engrossed with their cell phone, iPods or in conversation with the walking partner.

In most instances it is the husband and wife team and I guess burning calories is the last thing in their minds when they put on the walking shoes. Probably they were following some doctor’s advice with much reluctance. There is one bespectacled guy, mostly in blue t-shirt, who comes solo and seems to be doing what may best be described as a Tai Chi version of jogging.  

There is another guy – a six foot plus, who probably is in the police force or the army. He does some real brisk walking and I must confess I am no match to his pace. A couple of times I did try to catch up with him but his lanky strides were too much for me.

There is one middle aged couple who are quite regular; the man is tall and gaunt with pepper and salt hair, with more of latter. They are serious walkers and do it quite briskly. They seem to be a friendly lot and often nod at me and I nod back out of politeness, all the while wondering who the Dickens they are.

I do come across some women walking their dogs. A middle aged woman with a Dachshund seems to be a regular and sometimes I do see a young woman with a Golden Retriever. The women with Dash often tosses biscuits to stray dogs and even pats them. Probably this is her way of buying peace to prevent her diminutive Dash from becoming their mince meat.

The road is lined with trees and some of them do provide a visual treat when they flower.  The road and the footpath often gets ‘carpeted’ by leaves and flowers, but they don’t remain so for long as the civic workers diligently sweep them away.

Among civic workers I often come across a husband and wife team with their toddler son in tow. Often they take turns to keep an eye on him as they move on with the job of clearing leaves and other wastes.

The trees are abuzz with various birds, mainly crows, and squirrels. One day I happened to come across a squirrel tail on the road, wondering how it got cut asunder. For this gentle looking animal it must have been really painful.

At the erstwhile car park of the airport compound what struck my attention was a Contessa car. I have been seeing it parked ever for too long. Most probably the owner just abandoned the vehicle for a sleeker and less fuel guzzling sedan. He may not have found a buyer or even the scrap guys refused to take it. This rusting jalopy stands in contrast to more contemporary cars parked there.

This luxury offering from the Hindustan Motors’ stable was quite a rage in the late 80s and early 90s, when it had a competition-free ride. Now sighting a Contessa on the road is as rare as sighting a sparrow in our cities.

However, quite recently, to my surprise, I saw the car had disappeared from the parking lot. Often wonder what happened - probably it caught the fancy of some scrap dealer or maybe, at the risk of sounding too optimistic, the owner thought it is worth a makeover.

Apart from the rains, the only spoiler to my morning walks is the 'VIP movement'. Though the aam janta has to trudge all the way to Devanahalli to catch a flight, the netas still use this airport to fly to Delhi. On these days the road at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine end gets cordoned off and police men land up in droves. These stoppages become all the more frequent when there is some political uncertainty in the state and these VIP trips to and from Delhi become all the more frequent.

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Tree-less at Suranjan Das road

When I came to Bangalore about six years back, driving through the Suranjan Das road, off HAL Airport Road, was not exactly a pleasure (probably only NICE road in the city can offer that), but it did offer some pleasant takeaways. The rows of trees on both sides of the road was a soothing sight, even while snailing though the traffic jams or negotiating a pothole.

Many of the trees looked quite ancient and imposing, providing ample shade even in April sunshine. Drives during rainy seasons though was sometimes dicey, as with most Bangalore roads, with the threat of trees with roots weakened by footpaths giving up on life. Moreover we had filled-to-brim potholes to contend with.

I was not a regular at this road and my forays used to be during those rare weekend visits to meet relatives and friends either at CV Raman Nagar or Banaswadi and beyond. During one of those visits, I was shocked to see some trees near the HAL market pulled down. The once imposing trees were reduced to mere stumps. As I moved a little further I saw JCBs and other earth movers at work.

Just couldn't figure out what it was all about. Have been reading in papers as to how residents in the city were vociferously protesting felling of trees for Metro construction, but here it seemed conspicuous by its absence. No signs of protests were visible. I guessed the trees were cut to widen roads, but left me wondering why dig such deep trenches using JCBs? Moreover, barricades of Namma Metro added to my confusion. However, I dismissed the thought of any metro coming here as I remember seeing these barricades at almost all infrastructure sites ranging from flyovers to drainages. Guess some corporation guy thought this would be a bright idea to create a hype over city's next-gen mode of transport.

Later on I read in papers that the a four-lane road was coming up to ease congestion for vehicles going to Bagmane Tech Park. When I happened to pass through Suranjan Das road a few weeks later it was sheer massacre. The line-up of trees on one side of the road had been almost wiped out and the remaining ones were being felled using motorised blades. Traffic was getting diverted through parallel roads and men were busy hauling up tree trunks to mini lorries. Huge trunks were lying strewn all over the road and it almost resembled a lumber yard. For the timber contractors I guess it must have been, quite literally, a windfall.

It made me wonder as to why transplanting these valuable trees was not thought of as an option. How old these trees were and how many years it would take to have such full grown trees, assuming that the authorities keep their promise of planting fresh trees. 

A Google search revealed that the road was named after a pioneer IAF test pilot and it was built way back in the 1940s to connect its Aero Engine division with the main factory on Airport Road. So I am assuming that these trees were planted in the 1940s or maybe even predate the road. One entry also said that "for over five decades, this road had remained calm and pollution-free, where people jogged in peace". Looks like a another era altogether!

On my last visit the stretch between HAL junction and BEML gate had huge pipes dotted on the sides. It seems the pipeline has to get over before the road is made into a four-lane one. The only saving grace is that the park opposite to HAL Public School and the adjoining teak park have not been touched yet.

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