Koramangala Water Tank Signal
Out and about #8 : impressions from the cities we inhabit
Note: this piece is about a place I had to frequent in the past. These are impressions collected while being out and about the city. Hope you enjoy reading it.
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I manoeuvre my scooter to the right-most lane when the traffic signal approaches. It is at the intersection of two roads. To call one of them ‘a road’ would be a stretch. A simple google search for the meaning of ‘road’ says - a way between places, with a hard surface which cars, buses, etc. can drive along. It fails on all three counts. Most of the so-called roads in Bangalore would. Hard surfaces don’t crumble at the slightest of touches; whether buses can drive along is determined by the width of the road, which is often almost equal to that of the bus; and these ‘roads’ are ways between abstractions, not places. Abstractions like life and almost death. One way to ensure that you’re traveling from life to life is to stay in the lane despite having the luxury of slithering through gaps between cars, autos, and buses; hitting a few rear-view mirrors with the edge of your handle; and standing at the front of stalled traffic like the idiot who thinks he can single-handedly win a war.
Since I have to turn right, I am standing at the right-most corner and waiting for the signal to turn green.
This place is called Koramangala Water Tank signal. Colloquially. Officially it might be called something else. I got to know about it not through the presence of a humongous landmark one can’t help but notice. In fact, it is barely noticeable. I got to know about it, instead, while crossing this place in a BMTC bus when someone had shouted ‘water tank’ and it had taken me a couple of seconds to register that he was referring to the bus stop. Usually, water tanks are hard to miss but this one isn’t. There’s too much drama going on, on the earth’s surface.
There was a time when I crossed this signal almost daily on my scooter, though I had never taken a right turn. I used to go straight to the St. John’s Hospital signal. Crossing this stretch of two hundred metres could take anywhere between two minutes to twenty four minutes. I know this because I had measured it. There used to be enough time for me to get a quick glimpse of my watch while entering and leaving this stretch. The time in-between was spent in avoiding collision with buses pretending to be snakes; and while stationary, just looking around. With St. John’s Medical college to my right and a cricket ground to my left, there was enough to keep me entertained. Between the cricket ground and the road, were a few pavement food stalls. Of these stalls the only visual that comes to mind is their dingy and dark background redeemed by the yellow-red colour of fresh pooris being fried. The air infiltrated by the whiff of fried food - neither strong enough to induce nausea nor weak enough to let itself be drowned in the smell of burning fuel. If the whiff was not adulterated occasionally by the smell of urine, I would have parked my scooter every day to have a bite. This stench came from a spot fifty metres down the road the passersby had unilaterally converted into a urinal. It was not a corner so it was unclear why the first urinator must have chosen that particular spot. The subsequent ones would have just followed the smell and the wet patch. It’s usually at this point that I used to turn my attention to the opposite side of the road, lined with the boundary of the medical college. Someone had painted an angry-looking Wolverine on this wall. Even today it’s hard for me to dissociate this superhero character with the smell of urine.
I am still on the signal on my scooter and getting desperate to cross it because I have inhaled a kilo of dust in the last five minutes. I would love to stop breathing altogether if it was possible to not perish without oxygen. Metro construction has just about started on this stretch of the road. It is at a stage where huge machines dig through the proof of progress accumulated in layers of bitumen, with the single-mindedness of a woodpecker. The result is the laying bare of raw elements of the earth lying beneath the surface of the road. There’s little more than yellow, unfaithful dust here. It leaves the earth at a mere hint of some wind, forms a cloud that infiltrates our eyes and nostrils, and settles reluctantly on stationary objects. One of those objects is a huge cylindrical metal scrap, presumably iron since the red rust coating is all too evident. A mere look at it reminds me of decaying wounds.
The signal turns green before I’ve had a chance to notice anything else. I take a right turn. On the opposite side cars, buses, and mini-trucks are standing as if in battle formation. A few excitable scooters in front of them, pining to get going, are waiting for the signal to turn green. A couple of them aren’t even waiting for the signal.
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Immediately clicked on the post. I too have frequented the place so often. Lovely read.