Anagha Speaks

Ganesh utsav is just over and streets are in the process of regaining the sanity (?) that they had prior to the festival in Pune. Last week, everyone (that is, every middle class person who drives a car), was talking about the inconvenience of the streets - the large pandals, the distracting banners and generally an atmosphere where groups of people were together on the streets. The result was obviously, traffic jams, delayed travel times and generally high level of frustration! Despite tha above, I cctually feel that the ability of Indian cities to 'multi' use its streets is amazing. The conversion of streetscapes from plain to festive, overnight, is something that amazes most people abroad. The informality of the use of our streets, or their 'adaptability', is something most cities in the West try and fail, while we have it here in our Indian cities. Of course, you will argue that conversion of streets is fun, but what about the traffic jams! But I will counter arg...

Recently, I was in Stockholm, Sweden to attend an academic seminar at The Royal University of Fine Arts, Department of Architecture. And in a typical European way, Stockholm was a great city experience - pedestrian friendly streets, lots of cycling tracks, the efficient & connected Metro network and of course very few people to enjoy all this, which made it even more fun for us Indians who are often faced with unending lines and bulging crowds. But, more than these urban amenities which have been written about everywhere, what struck me was the fettish of the malls and particularly, the small shops to close at 5 pm on weekdays and at 4 pm (would you believe it!) on weekends. So just to clarify your unasked questions, yes, the shops and all shopping related services (malls, streetside stalls etc) operate typically only between the "conservative office work hours" of 10 am to 5 pm. "How is that possible?" was my first question to our hosts when much to our frustra...

Last week, I had a chance to visit and stay in Gurgaon, a new face of suburbia in India. I was appalled at the chaos that is Gurgoan. I had heard about the glitz and glamour of the city. The NH8 that connects Gurgaon to Delhi is lined with tall glass facade buildings, showing prominent corporate brands on their faces. The NH8 itself is a multiple lane freeway, where cars speed to and fro between Delhi and Gurgaon, carrying in them elite business class of India, churning wealth and pouring money into the country's economy. While this is happening at one end, where the private sector is complacent in its own wealth, the roads and the urban infrastructure is terrible. The minute you step out of your own glass building and stand on the road, you see a high speed vehicle access but no place to walk! Footpaths are not only non existent, its extremely unsafe to walk along the road sides at dusk. The dusty landscape of this region spills on to the new roads, so the road sides are sand fill...

. . . And that is the classic question that Punekars have been asking since the last 10 years. Frankly, I have been unable to take either side. At one end I know that the remaining 'open' space will disappear surely if permissions are given to build on the hill tops and hill slopes. At the other end, I am not sure if Pune, via its municipal corporation, has the capacity to develop hill tops and hill slopes as natural preserves for biodiversity. Is there a middle way? I often ask myself. What is it that it prompting activists to react on one end, while the municipal government is pressured to act on the other end? Is it just the developers lobby seeking more core city land to build premium condos and earn money that is pressurizing action against biodiversity preservation or are their other forces at play too? When in San Francisco, I had a chance to look at a hilly and completely contoured terrain of California being developed as breautiful city suburbs, which led me to thinkin...