13 December 2012, 11:29 AM IST
Bangalore is paying the price for the ineptitude of the civic agency responsible for the well-being of its residents. The BBMP's most spectacular failure in recent times has been garbage mismanagement and the fallout is there in plain sight for all to see, and smell. After months of running around like a chicken without a head, it's nowhere near a solution and Bangaloreans can only hope the New Year will bring some relief.
Nevertheless, it has taken at least one good decision, and we hope it doesn't give in to the usual pulls & pressures and does a U-turn. BBMP has decided not to deface walls along major roads with ghastly paintings of famous persons.
In a misguided venture some years ago, BBMP decided to commission artists to paint textbookish paintings of freedom fighters, visionary leaders, sundry other inspirational personalities and representative scenes from the state. While the objective was never quite clear, it served at least one purpose – men stopped peeing by these walls. Which is probably one reason why my colleague is strongly in favour of these paintings, but that's just a guess, and I'll leave it to her to make her case on her blog.
Anyway, the net effect of BBMP's decision was that suddenly, the walls along arteries and other main roads became unwilling canvases to depict stern visages of leaders through India's history. I somehow felt these forbidding faces were designed to keep us on the straight and narrow but perhaps not. The accidents kept happening anyway.
The whole idea, and, for a change, expeditious execution, smacked of an effort to remind us of the past and the men and women who, by their selfless service, helped us reach where we are today. I have nothing against this, but it has its place, and that's the history textbooks.
If at all, the BBMP wanted to beautify the cityscape, it should have thrown open these walls to young artists and given them a simple brief – make people happy. Cities elsewhere in the world have done this informally, with artists putting up murals on walls which bring a smile to the grumpiest of faces.
So, for a couple of years, we've had to endure these paintings, but now the writing is on the wall, and thanks to a fast-depleting kitty.
The severe resource crunch, which has been a blight on the BBMP's plans, has had at least one good side-effect. It doesn't have money to refresh these paintings. The downside is that till they completely fade away due to the ravages of time and weather, they'll be ugly in a different way.
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