By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem
Two days ago, I read in the front page of the SOM that the State Cabinet has approved the proposal to build a new bus stand over a 16-acre area at Bannimantap in Mysuru, at an estimated cost of Rs. 120 crore.
Yes, a mere Rs. 120 crore may seem like peanuts to our government, although the financial state of affairs of our KSRTC has an altogether different story to tell.
Let’s note here that our four KSRTC divisions together are in debt to a tune of a whopping 6,000 crore rupees as on Dec. 31, 2024. Our State government plans to bail them out by standing surety for a Rs. 2,000 crore loan they propose to raise from financial institutions, just to pay the Provident Fund dues of their employees and the diesel bills that are still unpaid. The reasons for this sad mess are anyone’s guess and so I shall not dilate on them here.
And, 16 acres may only seem like a readily available, unused scrap of land to the KSRTC, which has a sizeable amount of land, on which its depots stand at Bannimantap. But just having depots, where they park their buses and service them, is a completely different ball-game from operating a bus stand which will be expected to cater to the needs of thousands of passengers, round-the-clock, every single day, all through the year.
I wonder whose outlandish if not entirely quixotic idea this is, considering the fact that the Bannimantap area is the place where our annual Dasara torch-light parade takes place with the main road leading to it, being the route of our Dasara procession. How will these two historic events take place with a functioning bus stand standing bang in the middle of where the main celebration is going to take place?
Has anyone given even a passing thought to this? Will they be shutting down the bus stand completely for a full month, which is the time it takes for all the rehearsals and route marches to be made, to get the Dasara elephants acclimatised to their role during the festival? And, if they think that this is how they are going to do it, to which place will they temporarily shift the bus stand, with all its accompanying facilities? Or is there a much greater and grandiose scheme of shifting our Dasara itself to some other location so that it does not clash with the new bus stand?
Although not officially notified as a heritage structure, does our Bannimantap ground not qualify to have that status, under which it deserves to be protected and preserved, as it stands now? All these lines I have written here, end with glaring question marks and I’m asking these questions on behalf of all my fellow Mysureans. Can we please have the answers to our satisfaction, before we let the bulldozers roll?
Adieu to a Gentle Soul!
Yesterday marked the passing away of Prof. Muzaffar Assadi, a former professor of Political Science, at the University of Mysore. Though he had retired from service, his departure at the age of 64 years can be considered most untimely.
I say this because though he was retired, he certainly was not tired and he continued to be an unusually active man, constantly involved in academic pursuits and being a member of many committees constituted by many government and autonomous bodies.
Hailing from the village of Shirva in Udupi District, he had made Mysuru his home, quickly becoming a very popular post-graduate teacher here. He was very erudite too, having authored a few books and regularly contributing articles to many newspapers and periodicals. He would constantly be on the move, delivering lectures frequently on the prevailing political scenario of our country, both at the State and the Centre.
He was a kind of activist in his own way. To say that he was an amazingly good psephologist too, would not be an understatement, going by the detailed analysis and the generally correct predictions he used to make about our elections.
Since he was related to me through his marriage, I knew him more as the human being that he was, through our personal interaction, rather than through his academic accomplishments or his abilities as a teacher in his faculty. He stood out to anyone who knew him as a very well mannered, soft spoken and gentle soul, who would be content to sit quietly at most social gatherings, preferring to speak only when spoken to.
Only when he was drawn into a conversation, with some effort, would his deep scholarliness become evident. Since I was well aware of this trait of his, I used to always spend time discussing many current events with him whenever I used to meet him, which wasn’t too often, considering the fact that socialising was not our forte.
The last time I met him was when he came to see me at the Apollo BGS Hospital just a few days ago, to inform me that he would soon be undergoing major cardiac surgery at Bengaluru. That was when I wished him well and thumped him solidly on his shoulder and told him that God-willing, he would come back as a brandnew man, after his operation!
But very unfortunately, providence had other plans for him and that did not happen and I had to see the man only at his funeral yesterday! May his gentle soul rest in peace. Amen.
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