METRO, MIRAGES AND THE ROAD TO THE AIRPORT

Whenever I’m on my way to/from the airport, I never miss checking on the “progress” of the metro line running alongside. It’s almost become a ritual, the kind that tests both faith and eyesight.

Our politicians, meanwhile, never miss a chance to claim credit for the metro. If they aren’t busy inaugurating the same pillar for the third time, they’re hurling abuses at each other over a fare hike. What’s fascinating is that even they seem confused about who’s responsible for it, a rare moment of bipartisan bewilderment.

The recent spat between the Dy CM and the Bangalore South MP over the underground tunnel only reinforced how effortlessly politicians can toy with citizens’ hopes. For those of us bouncing over potholes, the idea of a tunnel felt like divine intervention. The leaders knew that too, and promptly packaged it as the all-purpose cure for our daily suffering.

Then came the masterstroke: they tossed Lalbagh into the debate, perfectly aware of the outrage it would provoke. The outcome was predictable, one camp claimed credit for dreaming up the project, the other for stalling it. In the end, everyone emerged a hero, except the motorist.

So, what began as a traffic solution turned into a grand illusion, one politician throwing a calculated “hope bomb,” confident that public anger would soon be redirected from real potholes to imagined environmental threats. The opposition, never one to miss a performance, stepped in with its own sermon: that extending the metro to 300 km would make all our problems vanish, possibly including inflation and tooth decay.

Now, during my regular airport rides, I try to find solace in these optimistic announcements. But after months of watching the same stretch, I think I’ve cracked the code behind the metro’s legendary pace.

Almost every trip, I spot one or two workers,  always one or two, never three, precariously perched with helmets and powerful lights, seemingly more to prove that work is happening than to actually use those lights. Their task: to tie a THREAD around iron rods and fabrications, at a pace that would make a tortoise blush. The best part? I only ever see them after every three or four kilometres, never anywhere close by.

At this rate, I suspect the metro might be completed, not in my lifetime, but perhaps in time for my great-grandchildren’s airport commute, assuming air travel still exists by then.