Marathon and Bangalore’s true colors
Unaware that a Marathon was on, instead of taking Outer Ring Road, I decided to drive through the city on my way to Belur temples early Sunday morning.
Groups of cars, bikes, buses and taxies intersected with the Marathon runners at several places around Vidhan Soudha, Golf Course and Windsor Manor. I waited patiently at these points, watching the slowest of runners pass by. And I witnessed Bangalore’s true colors as well.
People were honking endlessly at one intersection, while some runners looked in amusement. At another intersection, I saw a group of bikers taunt some slow fat and old runners, “hey, swalpa bega hog ree“. (Translated: can’t you run a bit faster)
But a few “shows” around Windsor Manor took the cake. Traffic cops were holding up all vehicles to let marathon runners cross by. But this “dam” broke a couple of times, and at least once, a runner had a close call. A few autos and two wheelers zoomed off while stunned cops and not-so-surprised runners – must be Bangaloreans themselves – watched the ‘breach’.
Not sure if any regular newspaper caught or reported these events. These may be small and insignificant, but to me – this is how we are, and these are the true colors of Bangalore.
For a moment – call this a bad thought – I hoped for a runner to get injured from one of those vehicles. Because only an incident like that will bring us some serious shame, and make ‘someone’ do ‘something’ about hopelessly bad manners we preach and practice on our roads.
Silkboard, Thanks for bringing this up. This just goes to show how much those people are bent upon spoiling the image of a city that largely made up of more courteous people. What does that person mean by “swalpa bega hogu ree” when it is a marathon? If he was so much in a urgency, he better not be taking that route.
And I do not know how can you even expect an accident to be reported in the media. *sarcasm* Only the good things get reported, my dear friend.
Actually R_C, it is not ‘some’ people who do these (jump lights, bad road manners etc) things. Let us move out of this state of self denial, shall we?
Willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unaware, most of us break the rules or drive rash. No matter which side you belong to, the traffic Mahabharata is always on!
I suspect things will get serious attention only when roads get a bit better. Because then a lot more people will die, and a lot more money will be flowing out of insurance agent’s hands.
“Hey, swalpa bega hogu ree”. (Translated: can’t you run a bit faster)
corrected version:
“Swalpa bega hog ree” (Translated: Make it a bit quicker)
…meanwhile, continue to learn Kannada :)
hogu -> hog slip-up accepted and corrected. But translation was contextual, not literal.