Bangalore = Traffic?

My advisor is on vacation. This means I do not have to be in the lab at ungodly hours such as 9.00 a.m. and can afford to work whenever I want( I am working, okay!). Looking to kill some time, I typed "bangalore traffic" in google blog search. Lo and behold, there were close to 2000 results!



That was a week ago. Two thousand blog posts on any topic related to India is a lot of posts; one of the most blogged about Indian topics, the controversy over reservations in IITs/IIMs gives around 1800 results! It looks like Bangalore has a massive problem with traffic and that junta there is sick and tired of the massive traffic jams. There are some funny posts, many others are rants and some have even attempted a serious analysis and have suggested solutions!

There is more. I have searched for "bangalore traffic" every two days during the last week and there have been some new posts every time! Some people who are initially bowled over by the Bangalore weather (I was too!), seem to give up on the city after seeing the traffic and the pollution.

Things were not this bad when I was an intern in Bangalore for three months in the summer of 2002. ITPL and JFWTC were both in the middle of nowhere. Whitefield looked liked a locality from the small town I came from; there was a beautiful park in there with independent houses around that were populated mostly by Anglo-Indians. Bangalore was so unlike Calcutta or Delhi, two of the 'big cities' I had a chance of living in for short durations; it looked like a city where someone could make a good living and still enjoy a quiet walk once in a while. Its public infrastructure looked quite adequate for the prevailing conditions. But that was then.

Two things are clear. One: Bangalore has clearly transformed in the last few years, apparently for the worse. Two: I have too much time on my hand to spend on such mundane stuff!