Sometime back, in a post, I quoted Paul Theroux “My own feeling is that city dwellers invent the cities they dwell in. The great cities are just too big to be comprehended as a whole, so they are invisible, or imaginary, existing mainly in the mind.”
The other day, during a cleaning exercise, I came upon an ‘old’ Bangalore map we had taped together from printouts. (I remember the site had separate maps for north, south, east and west 🙂 ) Back in 2003 and thereabouts, this used to be our reference when we had to travel to places unknown. Unknown at that point included Malleswaram, Cantonment, Jayanagar and such. 🙂 The city that we had created in our mind included Koramangala, Indiranagar and MG Road. Yes, just about that much. 🙂 But the outdoor media selection that my brand job entailed ensured that I soon became familiar with many parts of Bangalore. In an earlier job, my office was at VV Puram and those not familiar with the place would say that it was far. Actually, my travel time from Koramangala was quite less.
A few weeks back, we decided to check out Haralur Road as part of the Realty Check endeavour. Despite the advanced features of Google Maps, and its time estimates, we thought it would take a while to get there from Koramangala. Not only did it turn to be near, we got back much earlier than expected. I’m sure the area will be unrecognisable 5 years down the line. Just like say, HSR has evolved. 🙂
As Bangalore creates its own little self sustaining bubbles, it’s not just the city that will be created in the mind, it’s probably the distances too.
until next time, cityscape