Team-BHP - Oh!Where have you gone my old Bangalore?

Got this in an email, and I had to share this with us old timers of the Garden city. I had forgotten the days where I'd be headed to school, and we'd drive by the Gul Mohur trees and it used to such a lovely sight, lush green leaves and the bright red flowers. The colorful jacaranda trees, the 'Rusty shield bearers', monsoons where everything came alive and winter time when the sweaters and mufflers came out!

Life's gone by, and everything's changed in Bangalore. But the memories live on, and on and on...
OH! WHERE HAVE YOU GONE MY OLD BANGALORE?

Can anyone put this ode to music?!........Lester?

Oh! where have you gone My old Bangalore ?
Charming old Bungalows with red Bougainvillea
Framed by trees and yellow forsythia
A city of lakes and abundance of shade
Tree-fringed boulevards like South Parade.

Oh! where the cheerful smiles of the Convent nuns?

Lit up your day like a thousand suns
The blushing purple of Jacarandas
Did greet the eye from every verandah

Oh! where have you gone My old Bangalore ?
Breakfast at Koshy¹s after Sunday morning Mass
And off to the jam-session to woo the sturdy lass
Blazered school boys on their weekly walks
And giggling school girls in their frilly frocks

Oh! where have you gone My old Bangalore?
Gone are the days of languorous denizens
Replaced by hordes of Nerdy netizens
Gorgeous gardens with the greenest of grass

Now built up facades of steel and glass

Buildings ravaged by time and fate
Of the MNC¹s and the Conglomerate

Oh! where have you gone my old Bangalore ?
Thronging crowds at monstrous malls
Clogged gutters and traffic that crawls
Undisciplined vehicles driven pell-mell
Transforming the city into a living hell

Chaos of the Metro and Mono Rails
Chopped up trees and current that fails
Flooded streets and fallen poles
Encroached pavements and huge pot-holes

Racuous music from blaring mikes
And the cacophony of drag-racing bikes
Packs of stray dogs barking in the night
Foraging in the garbage of urban blight

Cement ghettos of high-rise apartments
Rampant corruption in government departments
Scurrying neighbours, uncourteous and faceless
A monument to man¹s 'this worldyness'

Oh! where have you gone my old Bangalore ?
Frazer Town is Pulikeshinagar
And Palace Orchards Sadashivnagar
Ulsoor Lake is called Hallasuru
And even Bangalore is now Bengaluru

This is so true. Bangalore is in such a mess now. I studied and stayed in Bangalore from 1998 till end 2001 and it was so lovely there. I was in love with the city. The walk on weekends on M.G Road and Brigade road. The green grass, trees and benches on the other side of the M.G road is all gone now to make way for the metro. I loved the ride from South end circle to jayanagar 7th block. But it is such a pathetic situation. Traffic even then was heavy but now,it's like hell. If the IT industry has given Bangalore , it's place in the world, it surely has robbed it of it's character. I miss the old Bangalore. I drove to Bangalore in 2nd week of August and I was so disappointed again.I kind of feel blessed to be in Hyderabad now.

I really miss the old Malleshwaram and the MG road.
During those good old college days, every weekend we used to hang around in MG road on that elevated garden with nice wooden/iron chairs. It was so beautiful, when it rained, and we used to stand beneath those huge tress which once stood there.
For me, the old MG road was such a sentimental place. Now it has turned into a metro terminal or something. It has lost its charm. Every time, I pass through that particular stretch, feel really bad and nostalgic.
In any regional movies of yesteryears, especially malayalam movies, the first shot when they show Bangalore would be the hero and the heroine zooming on a bike on the MG road with that old garden in the background. All that is history now.

i still remember the first time i saw bangalore in the early 80s.
As i was going to my uncle's house from the station at around 8am,
i felt like "someday even if i land up as a beggar on these clean pavements sprinkled with yellow flowers, i should consider myself a lucky man"
I was in my 5th standard then.

8 years later i fought with my parents to get myself admitted in a college in bangalore and landed up in that beautiful city. Throughly loved this city, for it's greenery and laidback lifestyle.
Now i'm in chennai and whenever i visit Bangalore i feel the city has lost it's charm. It's too commercial now.

I started my Army career from Bangalore in 1974 when I had come for my SSB interview in April the same year. We were advised to bring sweaters and by jove we had to use it. We used to walk down cubbon road to MG onto Brigade -i recollect that just two Landmaster or an odd Fiat crossed us. There were hardly any buses in those days. The roads were lined with trees and Command Hospital was considered far!! Bangalore was a beautiful City. There used to be a drive-in-restaurant on MG road-on the Dickenson road junction-anyone recollects the name??

Even-though, I am from Chennai I too really miss old Bangalore. During my childhood a trip to Bangalore means packing your sweater and shawl, even during summer. The old - rickety front engined Autos struggling to climb the inclined roads of Bangalore are my greenest memory, I used to call them 'Row Row' Auto for the distinct sound they made as they struggled uphill. Again as I child i always wondered if there could be a train to a hill station like Bangalore then why cant there be a train to Ooty or Kodai, so Bangalore was a hill station as far as I was concerned.

Now -- My sister lives there in Bengaluru now. Its soo hot now. I was there last December and I never had to take out my sweater out of my travel bag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judemayne (Post 2034272)

We came down to Bangalore in 1975 when my father was posted in AF stn Jalahalli ( then 3 GTS ). From our house in Mahalakshmi Layout, the 13 km stretch to Jalahalli was considered forbidden at night. The last bus ( hardly 2 or 3 passengers ) to / from Majestic or Shivajinagar was at 7.30pm !

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judemayne (Post 2034272)

There used to be a drive-in-restaurant on MG road-on the Dickenson road junction-anyone recollects the name??

Hotel Ajantha ( MG road ) had a drive - in restaurant those days. Hotel Victoria ( now Bangalore Central mall ) was also famous for british breakfast though it was not a drive-in. Lake view ice cream parlour, coffee house ( till recently ) and tambola at RSI is what we miss now !

For me there are several Bangalores:
- the "old" Bangalore that I remember from visits to my aunt's, back when I was a child. This was in the early 80's. I remember sweaters in May, glorious smell of flowers in the air, lovely bungalows, wonderful "up and down" roads with mostly bicycle and other 2-wheeler traffic. It was idyllic back then.
- the "new" Bangalore that I moved to in thelate 90s. Great pubs, friendly locals, nice roads, wonderful crowd, attractive property prices. This was probably Bangalore's shining moment.
- the cesspool it degenerated into. Crumbling infrastructure, mind-numbing traffic snarls, ever increasing population, unprecedented xenophobia, ridiculous curfews on resaturants and restrictions on live music and STILL no public transport or anything that a metrop this size deserves. This was when I left the city, around 2007.
- the city today: New name. A swanky new airport, a metro coming up, talk of more reasonable policies to encourage tourism and nightlife. Perhaps someday I may actually consider moving back there?