No place to settle scores!
Bangalore’s shrinking open spaces amid the fast-rising concrete jungles continue to worry old Bangaloreans who pay odd visits to the City. For a war veteran, who was on a visit to the City after many years to deliver a lecture at his old school, the heart-break was worse.

Recollecting his days as a school boy and how he enjoyed playing in the large open spaces of his school, he said, “It’s sad that the playgrounds are vanishing and in their place today stand concrete structures. Those days, we used the ground for football or hockey, while the open space behind the school chapel was where we settled scores with mates. Today, even that has vanished and in its place is another building.” The flashback was also followed by a question: “Where do the boys these days settle their scores with each other?”

— C S Hemanth

Connectivity in the dark
Talk of timing. During a recent round table on connectivity to the upcoming airport in Devanahalli, the participants were at it, slamming the administration for neglecting the NH 7 that remains the only connecting road from the City Centre to the airport. Even as the debate — that also involved officials from the Infrastructure Development Department — was heating up on the condition of streetlights on the stretch, power at the round-table venue went off. The pause that ensued acted as a dampener on the heated discussion. But only till someone quipped in the dark, “This is how we’ll be driving to and from the airport in the night.”

— R Krishnakumar

Guv and the balloons...
The sesquicentennial celebration at St Joseph’s Boys’ School was indeed a star-studded event. Well-known personalities from various walks of life who are also old students of the school — including Rahul Dravid, Robin Uttappa and Sabeer Bhatia — participated in the celebration. With rains coming down, the organisers had to put up a small tent as cover for the chief guest, Governor Rameshwar Thakur. During the programme, the compere requested all the guests to release about 150 balloons to mark the occasion. Even as the other guests were set to release the balloons, the Governor had difficulty in releasing them, what with the roof of the tent causing an obstruction. In spite of repeated attempts, he could not let the balloons free and finally, he had to pass them on to the other guests to release them.

— Shruthi Balakrishna

Garland of obstacles!
Rallies have become a nightmare not just for the aam janta, who curse them when stuck in traffic jams, but also the anathema of police personnel. It was one such day when a senior police officer, trying to monitor a rally, at the end of a four-hour drill, was confronted with a strange request.

The protesters who staged a dharna in front of the State Secretariat, for being denied an opportunity to garland the statue of a national leader, struck a deal with him. “They told me that they would disperse if they could garland me instead. I had no option but to say ‘Yes’. So they all garlanded me, made me light the lamp and then dispersed,” said the harried officer, who wound up the day, with a new learning — “Join them if you can’t win over them otherwise.”

     — Bala Chauhan                                                 

Of extinct species...
Politicians seem to be losing respect from all corners of the society. And it is obvious in the case of Karnataka, which witnessed high political drama in the recent months. Politicians have apparently lost the charm in the world of fiction too!

And good politicians are an extinct species in fiction literature! Prof U R Ananthamurthy, Jnanapeetha Awardee, pointed out this trend when he was speaking at the inaugural session of a workshop on Popular Fiction in Indian Languages, organised in Bangalore.

He explained that popular fiction has been depicting the victory of good values because people wanted to see good to win, always. Hence, popular fiction authors created many characters with a lot of good values. He commented, “Earlier, writers used to create characters of virtuous politicians. However, now even in popular fiction, no politician is depicted as good.”

— Rashmi R Hebbur