Jammed!

Jammed!

The stranded multitude wrung their hands in despair and swore that come election time they would pay back Deve Gowda

Bangalore Mirror Bureau
Posted On Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The JD(S) did not win any fans for having disrupted Bangalore’s traffic for the best part of four hours on Monday afternoon. All roads leading to Palace Grounds were choc-a-bloc with vehicles. Roads near Cantonment, Vasanthnagar and M S Ramaiah hospital were worst affected. The stretch between Yeswanthpur Circle and Mekhri Circle virtually came to halt as busloads of JD(S) workers headed towards venue of the rally.

Tensions were running high as the bumper-to-bumper traffic barely inched forward. Abuses were aplenty for Gowda and sons as motorists braved the loud horns, thick smoke and rising dust from all the construction work.

At Yeshwanthpur circle, a part of the road has been dug up for sewage work. Many two-wheeler riders came perilously close to falling into the hole as frustration drove them to make risky manoeuvres. Jayanth, a software professional who tried to get on to the footpath, was shouted down by other motorists. His reason for trying to get ahead: “I have an interview at 3 pm and cannot be late.” Last seen, he was still trying to push through the traffic near IISc overbridge at 3.30 pm!

PATIENTS WORST HIT

Among the worst-hit were patients and their care-givers who were stuck in the jam. Manjunath, a media professional who was travelling with his ailing mother, was stuck in the jam. “I am taking my mother who was operated upon recently to R T Nagar for her check up. She is on a feeding tube and I had to feed her in the car because we had been stuck in this jam for over two hours,” he said.

His was not the only case were medical care was badly effected. At least three ambulances were stuck in the jam with their sirens blaring. In one of the ambulances, a mother with her sick young child stared helplessly at the chaos in front of her even as the ambulance driver tried his best to get them out. Vijay Rao, who was also waiting for some sign of movement in the traffic, made a pertinent point, “How do we make way for them, because short of sprouting wings and taking a flying leap, we can’t move an inch.”

SCENES OF DESPAIR

Dipesh Korbu, a resident of Vasanth Nagar, said,”I saw an ambulance not being allowed by traffic cops for 15 minutes even though the siren was blaring”. Jis George, another victim of this chaotic mess, added, “There was an accident victim near Mekhri Circle who was lying on the divider bleeding profusely. No ambulance could have made it through because the traffic was jammed from both directions.

People formed a crowd around him, but did nothing to help the poor man.” The BIA passengers also seemed be clueless as to how they were going to catch their flight. Neeraj Malhotra, a techie who had a flight at 4.30 pm, was certain he was going to miss it. “It does not look like that jam will clear anytime soon and I am still here at 3.40 pm. There is no way I can make it in time.”

CADRES HAVE THEIR WAY

There was some comic confusion too. Bus after bus passed by and would-be commuters were seen asking conductors and drivers, ‘Market?, Majestic?’ unaware that the buses were those that were ferrying cadres to the rally! The road from Mekhri Circle towards Cauvery junction was closed for traffic and the predominantly rural crowd surged through, jumping over the Palace Grounds walls and darting across roads, forcing motorists to screech to a halt. The fact that most JDS supporters were nicely sloshed didn’t make matters any better.

These supporters didn’t even spare their former minister C Chennigappa, who recently joined ruling BJP along with his son and rained blows on him when they spotted him near Sadashivnagar.

Geetha, a commuter, was seen walking away from the bus stop, perspiring heavily. “I have walked from RT Nagar main road and waited here for over an hour for a bus to Majestic. I have given up now and will go back home instead,” she said. Sharmila who trying in vain to catch an autorickshaw complained, “I have asked more than 15 autos, no one is ready to take me to Unity Buildings. One driver was ready but asked for Rs 250 when the fare is no more than Rs 60. Traffic policemen, already a harried lot with the traffic situation at the spot threw their hands up in despair at the chaos around them.

Acharya’s phone adieu to pilgrims

Home Minister V S Acharya, despite having all the traffic policemen at his disposal, failed to wriggle out of the traffic logjam. Acharya, along with wakfs minister Mumtaz Ali Khan, was all set to go the airport to bid adieu to Haj pilgrims at the Bangalore International Airport (BIA). Acharya was indeed the chief guest at the farewell function for pilgrims who were to take off at 3:30 pm. Though he left the city at 1.30 pm in a red-beacon car, he was stuck in a traffic jam near Malleswaram. “I could have reached the BIA, but was stuck in the traffic. My driver could not find any alternative route to reach the airport. While stranded, I got a call that the plane had already departed. I wished the pilgrims over phone,” Acharya said.

Lift for stranded police officer

Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-East) Basavraj Malagatti too was a victim of this traffic jam. After having lunch at his residence, he was on his way to his office in Devanahalli, but his car came to a grinding halt as there was a huge pile-up of vehicles ahead of him. “Several motorists had abandoned their vehicles on the road and they were not to be seen anywhere. There was no way of finding who the vehicles belonged to,” Malagatti said. While his vehicle was caught in the snarl, Malagatti reached his office by taking a lift from a two-wheeler rider, who was adept at ‘maneouvring’.

Home near, yet so far for Ambi

Actor-turned-politician Ambarish and his wife Sumalata were caught in the jam near Mekhri Circle for over four hours while returning from the BIA. Ambarish was returning from Hyderabad after receiving the prestigious NTR Award for lifetime achievement (2005), from the Andhra Pradesh government. He arrived in the city at 4.30 pm and was on his way to his residence in JP Nagar. It usually takes him 90 minutes to reach home, but on Monday it took him over four hours.

ALL GRIDLOCKS!

When the JDS leaders were busy making political statements, hapless kids were stranded on the roads without a clue. “Those little kids are stranded somewhere on Bellary Road for the past three hours! They cannot go either to toilets or find food to eat. This is just pathetic, those little ones are held to ransom. This kind of condition is possible only in Bangalore and nowhere else,” shouted Anaita Pinto, an angry mother of a nine-year-old student of Mallya Aditi International School.

Thousands of worried parents flocked to the bus stops, hoping against hope that that their children would return safely from their schools. It was but natural that tempers flared, as harassed parents vented their ire on both the political parties and the administration.

NO FOOD, WATER OR LOO!

Students of schools like Poorna Prajna Education Centre on Sadashivnagar, Sindhi High school on Kumara Krupa Road, Vidya Niketan on Hebbal, Delhi Public School and Mallya Aditi International School in Yelahanka had to bear the brunt of the rally. They were stranded on roads for almost three to four hours.

“My children don’t carry mobile phones as the government has banned mobiles in class. I had no clue where they were. Oh god, these were the most terrible moments of my life”, exclaimed Keerthana Nagesh, a parent. “I have been standing here (Bangalore Club) for the past three and a half hours and my child has been stuck in some godforsaken place. Thank God, there are teachers in the bus, who brought some biscuits for the children.I don’t understand why these politicians can’t hold these rallies on a weekend or outside the city,” said another parent whose son is studying in Mallya International School.

The common feeling, other than tension over their children’s delay was shock at the magnitude of inconvenience caused by the politicians. Satish, whose 11-year-old son, who studies at Jai Nanda School located at Hebbal, had not returned home from school even at 8 pm, said, “If they want to have a rally let them have it, but not at the expense of causing inconvenience to the public.” He later went and picked up his son from some common point where the bus dropped him.

If the parents were troubled, the students were even more worried. Shashwathi Rao, a tenth standard student of Vidyashilp Academy in Yelahanka had left school at five in the evening. It does not take her more than an hour to reach home by cab, but she was not back home till eight.

When BMTC users were forced to walk...

Waiting for the bus turned out to be a pain in the neck for the ordinary Bangalorean as the state-owned BMTC and KSRTC had taken 2,500 buses off the roads and had hired them out to the JD(S) to ferry party workers from different parts of the state.

BMTC commuters had to undergo either of the two experiences: Board a jampacked bus moving towards their destination or hire an autorickshaw. But what compounded the woes of the commuters was BMTC’s decision to take the Parisara Vahini buses, fares of which are low compared to the Pushpak and Suvarana fleet. BMTC has pressed 1,000 buses out of its 5,200 fleet for JD(S) service.

However, BMTC MD Syed Zameer Pasha said: “We have taken care of commuters’ interests, schedules of the buses were increased after 4 pm and we have even extended the hours of operations. We are running BMTC buses as per the requirement of our client and inconvenience is bound to happen in such situations”.