A promenade of memories

A promenade of memories

Alladi Jayasri

BANGALORE: It was a week after the bulldozer's first blow fell on the promenade on Mahatma Gandhi Road, which will have to make way for the Metro Rail, and the tears, recriminations and hand-wringing had subsided. But a view from the air-conditioned chambers of the Chairman of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board brought one a bitter-sweet smile, as a desultory procession of determined Bangaloreans ambled past to protest the death of the promenade.

Road show

As the little procession moved slowly, there were other scenes on this road show.

There was a solitary figure furtively turning his back to the wall, and, a few minutes later, walking nonchalantly towards the procession, obviously a much-relieved man. Another one — it's always the male of the species — a pro, one reckons, who makes the time to perch his burden of a small briefcase on the ledge near the wall and disappears behind the large tree, to surface again, presumably light-hearted.

As a much-loved landmark begins its passage into history, memories of another day when the Metro was not even a distant dream flash before the mind's eye. A Chief Minister strolling down Bangalore's Gen-Next street and rushing towards another ardent practitioner of the shoot-and-scoot mantra. The news of Ramakrishna Hegde's outrage over putting the rhododendron hedge to such uninspired uses took up not a few columns in the press.

Sigh. The Metro is going to make one helluva Memory Express!