Bangalore: 

Past glory: This road in front of Town Hall no longer looks the same FILE PIC

Studies conducted by NIMHANS have shown what a mentally sick city we are in danger of becoming, victims of angst. In an era of burgeoning prosperity, there seems little to worry about. But read the statistics of depression, suicide, road rage, child molestation.

We are breeding a whole new vocabulary to describe new maladies. Anger (and anger-management). Global warming. Carbon footprints. Double-digit-inflation. Suicidal tendencies.

I remember in my early twenties, trying to describe how confused I felt about myself and the world. "Something inside me is too big for something else inside me. And something else inside me is too small for the rest of me." Now it is so true of Bangalore, greater Bangalore, the urban sprawl gobbling up trees, lakes and villages. An unimaginably large urban footprint like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. The IT industry doesn't  have huge carbon prints like, say, the iron & steel industry. But its devotees and beneficiaries (us) are fouling up our world with self created problems pollution, conspicuous consumption and sheer gluttony. They give pleasure, which is not to be confused with happiness.

Just off the coast of capitalist-industrialist- militarist USA, Bob Marley and his Caribbean band celebrated a totally different philosophy, which I have borrowed as the theme song for this piece. 'Don't worry. Be happy' (not confusing happiness with pleasure.)

I live in North East Bangalore, a large part of the original Pensioner's Paradise. The gracious old houses are being ruthlessly demolished, but the old folks here live at least into their nineties. Now we are part of the network of arterial roads that explode into the city, to the new airport. There is no easy bypass because of the railway line which runs right through. It can only be crossed at specific points, via overbridges and underpasses.
The hazards of venturing out are too well known to keep writing about. I mostly stay close to home, within walking range. Not that  pedestrians, regardless of age, get much consideration. I have been brushed by speeding vehicles many times and knocked down twice.

That is a lot to worry about; but what is there to make one feel happy? The answer lies with the people. Apart from roadhogs and gluttons, there are also people who are concerned and kind.

There used to be traffic signs Go Slow; Intersection Ahead; Halt & Proceed; Pedestrian Right of Way. These signs are ignored, or knocked down, just like a pedestrian would be, if he were foolish enough to believe that the green light gives him right of way.

But twice when I fell, people rushed to my rescue. Once, three youngsters came and pulled me off the road out of harm's way. (The overspeeding traffic gives me vertigo).
 
Another time I got marooned on the divider between two streams of insane monster speeders.  I managed to collapse safely on the divider. The policemen on duty were too busy chatting, to do anything. But a wiry old man, older than me, came to my rescue and took me right up to the house I was visiting.

Isn't that something to be happy about?