Bangalore: About a decade and a half back, with limited means but urgent need to rehabilitate my parents in Bangalore I bought a small house in JP Nagar, 6th Phase. The reason I chose it was a) it was a plot of land as against an apartment, b) it was opposite a park so though my living space was small, my visual reach was more. Things happened, parents died, I left the city in 2008, came back now, with Lakshmi Karunakaran, and renovated the house. It has become much more airy and better lit. Do come, visit us, stay with us. Yet, the point of this note is not that. It is the elections. Now that the campaigning has ended and we vote tomorrow, I want to share my reflection on what I have seen in my neighbourhood in the past few weeks.
JP Nagar is part of the constituency where the Congress Nandan Nilekani takes on the BJP five-time winner mighty Ananth Kumar. Nina Nayak and Ruth Manorama are in the fray from AAP and JD(S). Over the last decade and half JP Nagar has seen dramatic changes. Located along the outer ring road, JP Nagar was once the end of Bangalore. Now its two off shoots have developed: Bannergatta Road into a real-estate hub and Kanakpura Road because it has Bidadi, the industrial hub. JP Nagar has now become sort of central to South Bangalore. Rangashankra, all major outlets, hospitals, IIM and the NICE road on the outer side add to the cultural, economic, health facilities and transportation boom. My own colony, 6th Phase, was created when a slum near Sarakki was demolished to urbanize Bangalore. The slum dwellers were given small plots which they quickly sold and the people who moved in were more middle class. Ever since I left and came back the configuration of the small local market has changed: more non-Kannadigas, a greater mix of pan-Indian people. Sarakki will now have a major Metro station.
The landmark Siddeshwara talkies, where every new Kannada movie is released, still attracts crowds. The now big temple is magnanimously called Kashi Vishwanath. The temple once threatened to overtake the whole ground. The ground was also used for RSS drills on Sunday mornings, Kannada Chalavali Vatal Paksha functions, night long live bands, general youth hang out and as a huge garbage dump. The ground has now been transformed to create a play space for children and a park for morning and evening walkers. The initiative is local. Concerned citizens with the help of Corporaters have managed to salvage the space.
A Member of Parliament is a very high post. The MP works on policy matters. Maybe that is why, this election we saw no one from any party visit us, our colony. We saw no rallies, none of the famed door-to-door campaign. Except a few autos rickshaws making routine announcements, a motley group of youngsters throwing or sticking pamphlets on our walls, I saw nothing that makes me believe that elections are on. We local people managed to salvage the park. I hope we can work on other issues. Thanks to the policies that our MP will create for us.
Do vote!
(The writer Amandeep Sandhu is based in Bangalore. He was a journalist in his earlier avatar)
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