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| The power of surveys! |
Now, most of us travellers have relied upon a portly copy of
a Lonely Planet to guide us in our sojourns far and near. But the glibness with
which they are mouthing niceties about Namma Bengaluru makes me begin to wonder
about the seriousness of their research. Or is it the case of a high spirited
(all-puns intended) junior factotum, high on a barrel of beer, with air-guitar
in hand, and a metro pass sticking out his (I am presuming this fictitious reporter
to be male) back-pocket, annotating and indexing facts in a whirlwind
whistle-stop tour of the city, all in a traipse of 4 kilometres of metro-track!
Exactly a week ago, another piece, titled, “Bangalore; best
Indian city to live in: Survey” (The
Times of India, Bangalore, November 30, 2011) anointed Bangalore as an
Indian prima donna in terms of standard of living. This survey, by HR
consulting major, Mercer, was not too kind to Bangalore when stacked against
the rest of the cities around the world. Bangalore breasted the tape at 141 out
of a total of 221 cities! In fact all our metros were packed sardine-like in a
narrow band of ten places: New Delhi (143), Mumbai (144), and Kolkata (151). In
terms of safety though, the Indian metros fared marginally better.
The findings of two pieces of research exerts tremendous pressure
on us citizens (or should I say, Netizens) of Bangalore. The world’s third most
favourite city, just after London and Muscat, and just ahead of Hong Kong and
Stockholm, indeed would dilate our telangiectasias with joyous pride and bring
a proverbial lump to our collective jugular. Now, had it not been for that
Mercer survey, we could have wallowed in sun-drenched bacchanalia, much akin to
a beach resort during Lent! But alas, the arbiters of Bangalore’s position on
the world-map select trifling attributes of mensuration to capture the soul of
a city. The validity of facile surveys also needs to be questioned: the effort
and money that goes into generating a global ranking, seriously, could be better
used to capture a drop of water for the parched throats of Bedouins in
sub-Saharan geographies!
But continuing on a lighter vein: how do we reconcile to hiccupping
polarities of gradation when it is thrust upon us by the pleasant side of
corporate posturing? What gift-wrapped largesse Lonely Planet distributed in a bout
of not-so-lonely camaraderie was ripped open, a week earlier (sadly), by the
pen-knife of the Mercer-siders! Well, as Indians we certainly know how to gambol
with such extremes: take the good with the bad, the high with low, and keep a gilded
hope for the future – damn! We have to beat the Muscat-rats next time! And as
for London: how do purveyors of a divide-and-rule colonizing dictat upon the
unsuspecting third world continue to brighten the skies of a gloomy and rainy
city!
