Reason #7: Neither Garden Nor City

This garden city doesn’t have many gardens and it’s not much of a city.

Bangalore does have more trees and parks than the average Indian metro. But an appallingly large number of these grand, elephantine trees have been sawn down.

And if you can actually cross the streets in an area to walk to the local park, these islands of green are usually filled with jittery lovebirds and evening-walking retirees glaring at them through their monkey caps. For children, there might be a steep concrete slide and some jagged edged play equipment that can cause serious head injuries and tetanus. Some parks have topiaries and lovely soft grass tended by gardeners who shout at people to stay off it.

What strikes you most about Bangalore is how unremittingly filthy and unswept it is. You can go through major streets and see piles of litter, smelly open drains, dug-up footpaths with slabs of concrete jutting unevenly, amputated trees with their remaining foliage brown with dust.

At night, vast stretches of street are routinely dark. Even the old Airport road along HAL, a major provider of military hardware and helicopters, is unlit. Roads outside swanky IT parks look like they were recently bombed.

Laid-back neighborhoods have their trees ripped out to accommodate vehicles and the Metro. And all these are overseen by a municipal corporation whose main function seems to be to preside over the planned degradation of the city.

Bangalore feels like a small town thrust and unwilling stuffed into the ill-fitting clothes of a large metro. You can sense the city’s discomfort and resentment towards this forced transformation everywhere. It is sad to see this sprightly small town reduced to such a resigned shuffle.