Tagged with Cities …

May 11 2007
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Passing Thoughts

Colombo Calling

My trip to Sri Lanka was long overdue. I was supposed to be there last year, but had a long wait before I could finally make it. From the moment I landed in Colombo, I could see the situation the country is in today. Colombo looked heavily fortified with the police force and the army spread all across the city with vigilant eyes. People were being frisked and asked to show identification papers all over the city.

It was a bright & warm day and I enjoyed the long drive from the airport to my hotel. I realized that Colombo is a clean city, which is quite uncrowded. The infrastructure looked in tune with the times. It was really surprising for me since I didn’t expect this from Sri Lanka. Going a little back, I realized that the Colombo airport too was great and I don’t think even a single airport in India can compare with it!

I set about my work to do a few accompanied interviews for an opinion poll. Colombo was under a fiery thunderstorm and downpour during my stay. My team braved the thunderstorms and managed to speak to a few respondents. While these people were being interviewed, I could sense some sort of hopelessness that is creeping into the minds of the people here. I remember from my previous studies that over 80% of the people felt that the Sri Lankan government was committed to peace. People still believe that the government is committed to peace, but they are not very sure what the government can do about it. With the weakening of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and breakdown of talks, people might be feeling that a third-party intervention is the key. Interestingly, Sri Lankans are in favour of the international community, in particular, India, intervening and trying to sort out the dispute.

Another interesting issue was that of migration. Many respondents I spoke to (including my car driver, an auto-rickshaw driver, hotel staff and folks in ACNielsen) expressed a keen interest in migrating to other countries for better opportunities and a better quality of life. They were really concerned about their family’s safety as well. However, the key barriers that they saw in doing this was availability of funds to take such a step and migration risks.

While dwindling tourism revenues had left many people concerned, people were upbeat about the economy clocking close to 7.5% growth. However, the cost of the war has left the economy grappling with inflation levels close to 18%.

My return journey is nothing much to talk about with flight cancellations and re-routings and long waits at the airports. But, on the whole, it was a great experience.



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Nov 15 2006
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Passing Thoughts

Oh Kolkata!

Recently, I had a chance to visit Kolkata over a weekend. Having spent about 9 years in the city, I do love the city a lot. The roads and streets reminded me about the time I had spent traversing them as a student. The people looked distinctively familiar and the feeling was very warm. There was something that didn’t feel very familiar to the spirit of the city. I saw something that I was longing to see in the city for a long time, but was elusive – Change. Kolkata is evolving fast and it’s catching up really fast with its counterparts in other parts of the country. Here’s a short list of what struck me -

  • Gone are the days when eating out was a weekend business. Gone are the days when there were only two cuisines – Punjabi and Chinese. It appears that the people are eating out more often these days. And, there are restaurants of all kinds, Mexican, Italian, Continental, Moroccan, Greek et al.The weekends obviously see packed restaurants and people throng to the discotheques and lounges to shake a leg to the latest bollywood numbers. But, interestingly, I saw most Park Street restaurants packed even on a Monday! I had to wait for about 30 minutes to get into my favourite sizzler joint in the area!
  • It’s not only the neo-Bengalis who are going for eat-outs. We have a whole new breed of neo-Marwadis who are flocking to these places. This is encouraging popular restaurants from other cities to set up shop in Kolkata. Read This.
  • It looks like money is pouring in the city with consumerism on the rise. For instance, Tommy Hilfiger and Swarovski have higher sales in Kolkata than that in Bangalore.
  • IT is happening. There are well-paying jobs and swank offices. The Salt Lake electronic city is abuzz with techies from various parts of the country. I also heard that a large chunk of the IT workforce worked on a “bandh” day, which is simply incredible for a city like Kolkata.
  • The upcoming township of Rajarhat looks extremely promising. I could see construction work by developers like DLF and Unitech, among others. Given the cost of living in the city and the relatively lower real estate prices (compared to a monster called Bangalore), IT companies are setting up huge off-shore development centers in the area. To complement that, there are tones of housing projects to take care of the needs of the workforce.

Having stayed in the city for so long and seen almost no positive changes at all, I had almost given up on Kolkata. But, I have been proven wrong. The journey of change is slow, but it is surely underway. The world of opportunities is just opening up and it doesn’t look like a bus that you want to miss.



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Oct 03 2006
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Passing Thoughts

Bangalore – R.I.P.

After Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, it is Bangalore’s turn now. Sometime next month, the anglicized name ‘Bangalore’ will be replaced by its Kannada cousin “Bengaluru”. Sometimes I wonder what we achieve by changing the names of our cities. What do we really gain out of it? Does it really make a difference apart from satisfying the politicians’ hunger for populism and the urges of people who raise a hue & cry for everything that matters to nobody? Instead of a forward-looking constructive approach, which focuses on building our cities, we confine ourselves to mindless debates of nuisance value. Moreover, a change in names is a drain on public money. Changes would need to made in official stationary, office supplies, banners, websites and in so many other things. Instead, this money could have been used for more productive purposes.

Shakespeare famously remarked, “What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other word would smell as sweet.”

Bangalore, call it what you like, will remain the same. Life in the city will not change unless you do something about it more than changing its mere name. The same traffic woes. The same beautifully created potholes. The same narrow roads. Flyovers that take ages to complete. Digging up of foot-paths. Rash traffic. Auto-wallahs demanding obnoxious fares in the night. No party post 11:30pm. Uncontrolled office-space absorption. Sky-rocketing rents.

Life will go on as it is…

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Jul 29 2006
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Passing Thoughts

Monster on the Roads of Kolkata!



Kolkata definitely has bad traffic, like most Indian cities. I visit the city every few months and realize that it keeps getting worse.

I wondered how this can be taken care and came upon an idea – kill the monster taxis! Most other Indian cities extensively use auto-rickshaws as a part of their transport systems. Moreover, autos substitute taxis.

How can autos make life better? A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation (figures may vary a little depending on vehicle models) –
Taxi (The great Indian Ambassador)
Length = 4325mm
Width = 1622mm
Area = 7 sq. meters

Auto (Bajaj)
Length = 2625mm
Width = 1300m
Area = 3.41 sq. meters

West Bengals’s road density stands roughly at 105km of roads per 100 sq. km. and Kolkata’a area of 1036sq. km., Kolkata has about 1100 sq. km of roads. If we start using auto-rickshaws instead of the over 30000 taxis plying on the roads of the city, we can easily free up about 107700 sq. meters of road space! That doesn’t look like a huge number, but it surely can provide some relief. Moreover, consumers too benefit from the move in terms of fares. Today, taxi fares are upwards of Rs.10 per km in the city. Compare this with an average Rs.7 that auto-rickshaws in major Indian cities charge for a kilometer of travel. I am sure there are other benefits too – autos definitely cause less pollution, noise and are more efficient than the monster Ambassadors. Is anyone listening?

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