The idiom Better late than never, attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages achieving fame as an author, philosopher, astronomer and bureaucrat, who also composed a scientific treatise on the astrolabe (an instrument used by astronomers to study celestial bodies), is often used to acknowledge (perhaps begrudgingly) that something has finally occurred. Residents of Mysuru in particular and of virtually all other cities across the country may be mentally invoking the idiom after their unending appeals to the civic authorities to provide various services and facilities in the city are addressed, even after a long wait. This daily is playing a unique role in connecting the residents with the city’s urban local body by regularly publishing images of sites across the city serving as visual proof of the delayed restoration of its infrastructure in a state of disrepair. However, the national scene features citizens complaining and government agencies remaining in slumber for days and months on end, if not longer.

The case of cities rising in numbers and hosting residents increasingly all over the country, in addition to the movement of rustic population to urban spaces is not only a different kettle of fish but also getting out of hand witnessing the successive governments doing their best to address the hardship of the citizens. The resulting scenario may prompt somebody to modify the idiom to Better never than late.

Stopping the cities from hosting residents with increasing density of human beings and also automobiles as well as arresting the exodus of rural folk into urban spaces have apparently proved to be a lost cause in the administration’s lap. Bengaluru, described in glorious terms as garden city, paradise of senior citizens and so on where the residents basked in salubrious weather throughout the year not too long ago has fallen into bad times, rather made to be so only to be described as forbidden city. Measures to even partially de-congest the city are bound to face stiff resistance from the resistance, barring a small fraction of its nearly 13 million headcount.

One more emerging feature of land-owners in rural areas parting with their traditional asset for cash calls for action to support voluntary groups pursuing programmes to demonstrate that farming can provide dependable livelihood with higher incomes than seeking jobs in cities. The idiom’s message is loud and clear.