Last week,Poonam Jain and Maria Janani,both 17,got on Bangalore Namma Metros Route No 0006. They jostled with the crowds peering at the route maps. They propped themselves against the doors marked,Danger,do not lean. They posed for pictures for each others cellphone cameras as they hung from the hand rails. They werent the only ones. Bank employees,autorickshaw drivers,students and software industry workers in Bangalore are all thronging to MG Road. The excitement levels are so fevered that those within could care less that the scenery outside is unchanging. The coach is a stationary dummy. Bangalore,Indias city of the future,will soon have a pet crematorium. Its university will be the only one in India to have three gender slots male,female and transgender. Its bar girls will have a dress code. But Indias public-transport challenged city is clearly most thrilled about the impending arrival of its Namma Metro. The first leg of the much-delayed,over-the budget Metro is scheduled to open this December. But the shock-and-awe greeting for the dummy coach shows that the Metro is being perceived as a lifeline that will rescue residents from traffic-clogged streets and jams. Two decades in the planning and under construction for the past five years,the project will cost Rs 11,600 crore. The 42-kilometre network will cover a little over a third of Bangalore with 41 stations. The display coach stands minutes away from a Gan-dhi statue,below overhead rail tracks. Hundreds of residents are snaking through,getting a first glimpse of its steel grey-green-and-violet theme colours,trying out the seats and peering into the drivers cabin. Bangalore will shine, says Jain,a student at a college nearby. She and her friend Janani are invariably late for classes right now,dependent on an inefficient bus system and autorickshaws to get them to college at 8 am every day. Luckily for us,our professors get stuck in traffic jams too. So we do get a few minutes of leeway, says Janani. Nigel Christopher,25,a call centre employee,is glad that Namma Metro would touch Baiyappanahalli in North Bangalore,not far from where he lives. What a relief that our Silicon city will finally get a solution for the mayhem on the roads, he says. So ecstatic are residents that even 42-year-old autorickshaw driver Hakim Khan showed up for the viewing,unmindful that Namma Metro might affect his daily earnings. Bangalore needs it, says the khaki-clad Khan,adding: God will take care of my income. West Bangalore resident Rajesh M brought his aunt and cousin to see the dummy Metro. There has been furious digging near his home,but Rajesh isnt sure whether it is for the Metro or just a routine road mess. Posing for pictures in front of Bangalores hottest photo-op,a group of five women says they have taken time off from work all are employees at a public sector bank to see Bangalores latest wonder. While Shashikala Padmanabhaiah,a clerk at the bank,is sad that so many magnificent Champak,Neem and Peepul trees had to be chopped to make way for the Metro,apart from wider roads and flyovers,she adds: To gain something,we have to lose something.
