A Tale of two Cities

Caution:

1) Whenever I start with a caution, this might be a pretty long post. This might be biased. This might be of no interest to you.

2) Lots of people would want to argue with me on this post.

3) If you think Chennai is the “City of the World”, then ignore.

Planned a hectic weekend trip to B’lore for various reasons. The first was that we had an “offering” that was pending at a temple about 100 Kms from B’lore that was made when we were residents of the City. The second was to get away from the daily conundrum of office life and do something special over the weekend. The third and the most important was that the visit was to a City my wifey loved! (To this day, after almost 3 years, she still curses me only for bringing her back to Chennai-her home town, from B’lore).

This is not purely about my weekend trip, if it was, then it would have been titled differently. This is about the observations I made over the one and a half days of driving around B’lore and comparing it to Chennai.

We took the Saturday morning Shatabdi to B’lore and after a 41/2 hour journey reached B’lore. The first thing that struck me as the train was crossing the familiar stations of Whitefield, KR Puram, Byappanahalli and Cantt. was the clean roads. This gave me a hint that this was not the B’lore I had left on Jan 25th 2008, The roads were so clean, that I was just thinking of a similar situation in Chennai and almost fainted.

We were picked up at the City station by my “cousin” Hari. The cousin is under highlight purely because he is more of a friend than a distant (my aunt’s brother) relative. I have known him for the last 28 years and we share everything that is bothering us in our lives between us and seek the other’s advice. That is the kind of friendship we have. So, he came to the station to pick us up and drove us back to his apartment near Hoody village in Whitefield in his new Suzuki Swift Diesel. The topic of discussion on the way (a one hour trip) was on the roads and he gave me some updates that were astonishing to say the least.

All the roads in B’lore are clean and newly laid. They are wide enough to allow a T-72 Tank to pass through and many of the crazy ‘one way’ restrictions have been removed. Wherever there was an unwanted Signal, that has been replaced with a round-a-about that makes life that much more easy. There were traffic policemen at all the places (not sure if it was because of I.Day), but what my cousin told me blew the brains out of me.

My cousin, to introduce, is the kind of guy who faints after just having a sniff of hard liquor. The max he can take is a small tin of Beer! This guy got caught in a DUI offence a month back. I could not believe what he said until he fully narrated the chain of events. The guy had a tin of Beer at a place near home and drove all the way across town to meet a friend. There they had another tin of Beer and started back. That is when he was caught!!! The cops were very polite, took a breathalyzer test and certified that he was drunk. They were empathic that he had only a couple of tins of Beer but used their ‘Black Berry”s to type out a charge sheet which came to his email in a couple of days and he paid it online in the next couple.

Now, I knew that B’lore was an IT city from my resident days. Never have I stood in line to pay an electricity bill or water bill. Everything was online and I used to utilize that to the hilt. But paying a fine for a driving offence online was something that I had heard of only in the US.

The other big shock was personal. As many of you know, the writer is a connoisseur of liquor. My cousin showed me a store called ‘Madhuloka’ which was a “drinker’s paradise”. This is a liquor boutique with 5 branches across B’lore that sells not only liquor of every kind, but also all the accessories including ice cubes, snacks, cigarettes, cigars, lighters, crystal ware etc. In short, it is the ‘Big Bazaar’ of liquor. Compare it with Tasmac that we put up with in Chennai!!!

The next big thing that hit me was the infrastructure development of B’lore in the last 3 years. The Metro is almost complete, with a Dec 2010 launch date. There is a model station on MG Road and the Grand Terminus which also houses the Metro maintenance yard on Old Madras Road (OMR) was really breathtaking. I could also see some work on the next phase of the Metro near Whitefield before the first phase is even completed!!! The roads are well laid and broad with trees that line both sides. The traffic is still poor due to the indiscipline of the people who use it though.

The highlight of our rides across towns: Travel on the NICE (Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise) and the elevated IT Corridor.

The NICE is a circular link expressway that links all the roads that lead in and out of B’lore. This is a BOT scheme promoted by an NRI and has come to fruition after many years of struggle. What it means in simple terms, you can skip the city of B’lore and go either north, south, east or west using this link. The NICE connects Hosur Road, with Kanakapura Rd, Mysore Rd, Tumkur Rd, Bannerghetta Rd. It is a toll road with minimal traffic that cuts down travel times by more than half. (The one instance when my cousin gave his Diesel Swift to me, I took it to 150 kms/hr on the NICE. He got so scared that he was glad to be the driver for the rest of the trip!!!). The next is the IT Corridor which is a 10 km elevated expressway that starts at the Electronic City and ends at the Silk Board Jn. We took it on the way back (see pics) and it was awesome. We covered 10 kms in less than 4 mins. Once we got off the IT corridor and turned onto Sarjapur Rd, it started to pour. I was unable to recognize my old office at the Agara Jn and Sarjapur-ORR Jn due to the new presence of a couple of fly overs. The ORR (Outer Ring Road) is in itself being transformed with the construction of 3 new fly-overs at crucial junctions. I was all the more amazed at seeing stores like ‘The Office Depot’ and ‘Staples’ at the Marthahalli Jn. It was one ‘hell of an experience’ being in B’lore after almost 3 years.

The best thing is that the real estate is still down in B’lore and you can get a very decent flat for around 45 lacs in the outskirts with all amenities including lift, generator, CCP, children’s play area etc. unlike Chennai where you just get a shell of an apartment for the same price. Now to the comparison, B’lore has always had the edge in development being an IT city. But, with the new Govt. it has gone far ahead compared to Chennai. While the politicians in TN are concentrating on just lining their pockets with every project they approve, the KA politicians line their pockets, but also take extra care of executing the projects on time and in a people friendly way.

My Verdict (hugely biased by wifey) – B’lore is way ahead in infrastructure development than Chennai. If Chennai is to remain competitive, we need a massive change in the way projects are planned and executed, if not for an entire change in the vision for this metro.

(If anyone disputes this, show me a road in and around Chennai where I can drive a Swift VDi at 150 kms/hr for a distance of 10+kms.) and I will surrender.

P.S.:

1. I did not have the opps to visit Airport Rd, Malleshpalya (where I used to live) and the Inner Ring Road due to the short trip. But heard that all these areas have also seen a vast improvement in Infrastructure.
2. I still have no regrets in leaving B'lore for Chennai purely because of the kind of job opportunity that Chennai gave me.