THE DIARY OF Z

HSR Layout is a beautiful city within a city. It’s self sustaining and has just about everything needed for peaceful existence: long roads, less of pollution, innumerable department stores, hospitals, clinics, gyms, beauty parlours for men and women, spas, creches, schools, and also a beautiful lake gone to seed. Just when things were looking up - the lake development authority had decided to hand over the lake’s upkeep and beautification to Christ College - the Bangalore Development Authority handed over the layout to the Bangalore City Corporation, and things went back to square one. The cleaning of storm water drains leading into the lake has stopped, resulting in a stench that can be felt miles away. The lake is gathering weeds, and there is no one to clear the manicured lawns of litter that is strewn all around. What’s more, even the security guards arn’t doing their job. Only the other day, the daughter of a high ranking government official was robbed and molested at knife point by a gang of hoodlums. Will someone wake up and do something before it’s too late?

The media breaks a good story, starts a new campaign, but midway loses steam. There goes the real impact of those stories. Take the recent Bangalore campaign by The Times of India to depict the sorry state of roads in the city. It ran for just about a week and stopped abruptly. Not that the roads were in a better shape after that. This is the bane of journalism. Is their glamour in starting a new campaign but no such thing when it comes to following up on it? Does the city have too many scams breaking every day that there is no room for follow-up stories? I don’t think so.

Just the other day, The Times of India reported about how a civic amenity BDA site in HSR Layout meant for use as a playground/park was allotted by the then Kumaraswamy government to judges in the city. The best defence in the story came from BDA commissioner MK Shankarlinge Gowda who said, “Even a civic amenity site is a BDA site.” Agreed, sir. But that doesn’t give the BDA the right to violate it’s own law.

The saddest part of this story is that there has been no follow-up story in the other newspapers either?  What is Deccan Herald, The New Indian Express and The Hindu doing? Forget the mainstream papers, even tabloids that are generally known to raise a ruckus even on a trivial issue aren’t doing much in this regard, be it MiD DAY or Bangalore Mirror. Can’t they take up cudgels on an important issue like this? Start campaigns on how civic amenity sites across the city are being gobbled up by land sharks that come in many guises, including the BDA that in this case became the proverbial fence eating its own crop?

Here again, it’s important not to stop just here. There has to be a concerted follow-up done on the case until the problems are redressed and the law is restored. And I don’t think it’s an impossible thing to do. All you need is the will and sensitivity to do this. And for this, what the media requires are die-hard reporters and equally supportive editors. If they wield the baton responsibly, much can be done. After all, like Rome, Bangalore wasn’t created in a day. It takes a sustained campaign on just about everything to make things happen. And for this, the media needs to first ‘feel’ for the city and not treat it like just another news story.

Another major grouse against the media is that films that do well in Kannada aren’t really written about, particularly in the English media. Take the box office success of Aa Dinagalu (Back in those days) that dwells on the underworld dons of the 70s. I am talking about doing serious stories underlining the theme. Why can’t Deccan Herald carry a series on the diminishing power of the Bangalore underworld today and dwell a bit on its not-so-flattering history? Why can’t The New Indian Express do an interview with today’s small-time underworld dons and how they are faring today? Why isn’t the English media standing up and applauding when Kannada cinema does some good work? Beats me.