Here’s a message from a friend, about a meeting I consider it important to attend:

There will be a meeting at Environment Support Group (ESG) at 3.30 pm tomorrow (Sat. 5th), to discuss and strategise on two very important issues concerning the city.

1)The BBMP has touted a road-widening program on 91 roads ( to be extended to 123) of Bangalore. Since the announcement of the scheme, ESG and Hasiru Usiru have been opposing the project, as it is irrational and against all basic principles of design and planning.

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The new Bangalore Airport has been written about & talked about a lot largely due to the fact that it is far off from the city. A not so positive point that but then the fact is The Bangalore Airport is up & running. Flights are taking off & landing, getting delayed & canceled. I was there a day after the inauguration and came back…well…read on…

First facts, yes the Bangalore International Airport is far from the city. This fact is so drilled into all of us by now that I suppose we are so mentally tuned to a long travel & starting off well in advance. Once the mental tuning is done the ride becomes that much more bearable. Largely the road from the Hebbal flyover is wide & good so a good car should be able to travel 80-100 km/hr. It took us about an hour to get to the Airport from Commercial Street that Saturday evening.

I really don’t know what a layman should expect from an Airport or from a new Airport for that matter. And especially for someone like me who doesn’t travel around by flights then it is once again of very little significance. But all the hype of the new Airport mostly for the wrong reasons got me curious & I wanted to be there & check it out functioning. Luckily, Brother was off to the US so we went there to see him off.

Only the passengers are allowed entry in to the terminal building while those who travel with the passengers to see them off basically have to hang outside the terminal building. Entry inside is allowed only in the Arrival section. That said the facilities for people who go all the way there to see off someone are not great at all.  The Terminal building is all glass & completely see-through type. So the only activity for most people who go there to see someone off is to follow the progress being made by their traveler in the check in queue. Apart from doing that we looked around for two things. One, some place where we could sit & two, for the toilet. Both were not to be seen. When we enquired with some uniformed facility management chaps their answer was, ‘there is no toilet outside’. That definitely had to be wrong. How could BIAL miss out on something as basic as that? Some more enquiries and we got the directions. We had to walk about 500 meters from the Terminal building for the toilet. And honestly there was nothing International about this toilet, at least in its maintenance. It is very Indian & very local.

I was keen to know how different can an ‘International Airport’ be from an ‘Airport’. I mean really what can be the difference? Well this is what I realized. There is no difference. An Airport is an Airport. And that’s pretty much it. For all those of us who hang out a lot at the malls in Bangalore, we are already used to the escalators, glow signs, uniformed facility management chaps, colorful chairs in the food zones, the organized parking & so on & so forth. The Bangalore International Airport is no different. But yes where the Bangalore International Airport can learn something from the Mall’s facility management chaps is in the maintenance of the toilets. One other area where they can take tips from a mall is in putting up some displays as to where the toilets are. I guess the kind of people who make malls & airports are the same. Because at both places you cant sit.

But yes where the feel of International comes in according to me is in the fact that you don’t see any autos & two wheelers around (I didn’t see any two wheelers at the air port that day but can’t confirm if they are not allowed there). Another area where you get a feel of International is in the size of the entire thing. It’s big & especially so when it’s compared to the previous HAL Airport. Despite these stand out features where it probably lacks in the International tag is Security. It does seem relaxed. Even the area next to the terminal building where some flights are parked can be clearly seen from the distance. The flights are only about a stone’s throw away.  One other area where some improvement would be great is in the food area. Is darshini type food or South Indian food per se not International? Why is it that we get more North Indian & the burger/sandwich type fare there than South Indian? Where is the promotion of local culture there

To sign off on a good note there is one good thing and that too with the most dreaded aspect about the airport, the connectivity. One can rest assured about the connectivity. BMTC has buses every half hour & round the clock. We took a BMTC Volvo well past mid night. This definitely is more cost effective & convenient but only to get into the city. From there you will have to rely on the auto or a taxi again. Other wise of course there are taxi services round the clock as well at the airport.

A few days ago, as a birder and the author of a light-hearted article on the Bangalore Bird Race I was interviewed by Archana Pai, who wanted to write an article about birders in Bangalore. Later, Hemant Mishra of Mint called me up and we organized a gathering at Lalbagh to do the photo-shoot.

Also called were Nirmit (18) and Abhijna Desai (14)…Abhijna was accompanied by her dad and her younger brother, Ganesh. Here they all are:

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There’s much that has been already written about the new airport including the sneak peek and the discussion on the road and the associated problems for travellers.

I read a couple of days ago about helicopter services to be provided to some of the high flying business class passengers, but that’s a very small percentage of the population and my question was, “Hamara kya hoga?”

Today’s Times reports that BMTC is going to start of its Volvo service in March to the new airport and this will be via 7 routes covering a large area of the city including JP Nagar, Electronics City, Koramangala, Hebbal, HAL etc. There will be around 40 of these Volvos plying to the airport in intervals of about 15 minutes so they will provide an alternative to catching an auto (which will take forever) or a cab (which will possibly cost as much as the flight fare).

Well, the countdown is now a little over a month and it will be interesting to see how things shape up!

Today I drove all the way to the BIAL airport in Devanahalli. It took me exactly 50 minutes to reach there from Banaswadi. I took the Outer Ring Road from Banaswadi until the Hebbal flyover and then a right turn there to get onto the highway. From Hebbal, it took me exactly 22 minutes to reach the Trumpet Interchange on the highway, from where the airport is 5 mins away.

Some notes:

1. The highway is wonderful after Kodigehalli cross. You can easily drive at an average speed of 70 kmph until the Trumpet Interchange.

2. But there are numerous villages on the way and there are no barricades to prevent people from walking on the road. If you have a fast car, you have to ensure that you have very good brakes. You never know when that old man will get in your way all of a sudden. These villages check your speed too. And thats the reason I say that the average speed could be 70 kmph. It can easily go up if the authorities take note of it.

3. Another thing that checks your speed is the ubiquitous road hump. I found plenty of them and most of them were unmarked. There were neither warning signposts nor the white painting on them. Just imagine that you are cruising at a speed over 100 kmph (which is possible on lots of stretches) and suddenly you find a very steep road hump in front of you. Nothing should shock you more. So, it means you have to concentrate on the road or else you can find yourself jumping up and down so badly in your vehicle that you will do some damage to your spine.

4. The Traffic signal point on the highway at the Yelahanka-Kogilu junction consumes a lot of time. Probably a underpass here will solve the problem.

5. The road between the Hebbal flyover and Jakkur, near Sahakaranagar, is where you lose a lot of time. BMTC buses stop in the middle of the road here. Bus bays here should solve the problem.

I think the road between Hebbal and the airport is not a problem at the moment. The problem is getting to Hebbal from say Banashankari. A person who has to get to the airport from Banashankari or Jayanagar has to negotiate traffic in South End Circle, JC road, Hudson Circle, Queen’s statue, GPO junction, Chalukya junction and CBI juction to reach Hebbal.(Assuming that the underpasses at cauvery junction and BDA junction solve the problems there) This journey will surely take more than 120 minutes in peak hour traffic. And add to this another 30 minutes for the journey from Hebbal to Airport. What do you get? 150 minutes to get to the airport!! And if the destination is Chennai which is a 40 minute flight, nothing can get more frustrating than getting to the BIAL airport.

The airport begins functioning in less than 4 months. And we still seem to have great problems at hand.

The Bengaluru Habba has had meant a bonanza for us…theatre,music,and dance at various venues all over the city…and all of it free!

Yesterday I could not make it to the Palace Grounds where I had wanted to hear the Ronu Majumdar/Kadri Gopalnath jugalbandi…but instead, I went to Lalbagh, and enjoyed the wintry evening, and after going around the park, wound up at the Janapade Jathre at the Kempe Gowda tower area. There, sitting on a sheet rock that is amongst the oldest known to man on the surface of the earth, I sat and enjoyed the Dollu Kunitha and the dances…

Here are some of the dancers and drummers:

And here’s a section of the audience (yes, I did buy peanuts from that girl and sat contentedly munching on them!)

And for those of you who are interested…the Spot-Billed Pelican, a winter visitor to our city, can now be seen at Lalbagh in the evening as well…here’s one of the birds on the lake:

Birders and photographers are vying to get a good view of these birds!

If you did a double take on the title, I wouldn’t blame you. The similarity with my earlier post aside, I can assure you that what follows in this post will make you even more aghast.

On my way home after a filling lunch yesterday, I came across the culmination of Durga Pooja celebrations by our Bengali brethren. Couldn’t help but screech to a halt to take pictures of the event. The first of the idols were arriving at the ‘Kalyani’ section of Ulsoor lake for immersion. There was lots of dancing and merrymaking. More revelry was visible than an occasion that called for piety or devotion. Is this what our festivals have come to? Anyway, thats another issue for discussioni. Meanwhile, here’s a first hand look at the events yesterday (pls. excuse me for not setting the right date in the digicam) followed by pictures taken today that reveal the extent of the devastating effect of these immersions.
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I was amazed to read that following the Ganesha festival last month, about 1.50 lakh immersions of the idols took place into the Ulsoor lake.

Of particular concern was this paragraph from the Hindu report of Oct 16 which stated:

Exactly a month after the Ganesha festival, the Ulsoor Lake continues to be strewn with remains of large idols of the deity and offerings devotedly made to him. What is worse is that public disregard for pollution norms has meant that the water surrounding the kalyani (the structure built specifically for idol immersions) has also become dirty and malodorous.

Since seeing is believing I decided to check out the lake for myself. Here are some snaps for your viewing.
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Each of us must have read in today’s newspaper ….about how 6 full-grown trees were felled, with one government agency saying that they were a saftety hazard, and another citing road-widening. We seem to be inteent on destroying as many trees as possible in the name of progress, without a thought to the ultimate cost to the city and its people.

We are also aware of the candle-light vigil to mark our protest against the privatization of Hebbal Lake; this would be a blow to other surviving water bodies in Bangalore, too.

Yesterday, I received an email from Environment Support Group (ESG) through another egroup that I belong to, proposing a meeting to discuss both issues.

Here’s the body of the email:
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Sri Guruvayoorappan Bhajana Samaj Trust (SGBS) is conducting the annual Gokulashtami series of concerts at the Odukathur Mutt,Ulsoor, adjacent to Ulsoor Lake on Gangadharam Chetty Road.

Details are here at

SGBS Gokulashtami series concerts

The series is on until 23 August.

The SGBS Trust has been active in Bangalore for nealy 30 years now: to know more about the Trust, go to

about SGBS Trust

An organization worth of support from all the rasikas of this city.

Yesterday, the concert by Shri T M Krishna was just superb….

The accompanying artistes were:

Shri T K V Ramanujacharyalu- violin

Karaikkudi Shri R. Mani- mridangam

Shri V Suresh-ghatam

Here’s the review of the concert…do attend the rest of the series!
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