Malleswaram goes Tirupati

"Bangalore's decade old dream is realized" says the head priest. We are getting our own version of the Tirupati temple, right in my own neighborhood. I would have had no major problem with this development if not for how badly this new construction is going to affect the quality of my own life, especially the traffic situation around here.

I shudder, because Malleswaram has been victim of this kind of indiscretion quite often in the recent past. First was haLLimane, a restaurant that made life hell for the residents on 3rd cross. More recently, it was that monstrosity of a mall that made traffic unbearable in a radius of at least a kilometer and is almost certainly going to cost the lives of all the beautiful rain trees that line Sampige road. Now it's this temple on 16th cross. But I don't want to be irreverent enough to mention a mall and a temple in the same breath. They are of course different. One of them is a symbol of splurged money, disregarded building codes and a harbinger of horrible traffic jams, and the other is Mantri mall.

Notice how these always seem correlated, that in countries with abject poverty and pitiable infrastructure, there live gods with obsessive compulsive disorders. This particular god apparently loves gold. He's just been established here, but I'm sure that in no time, he'll have a throne, crown and a sanctum all made of gold. I guess, if I overlook the ecological cost of digging out gold, you could say that a deity's lifestyle choices are none of my business. But what justifies the problems of traffic in what was thus far a peaceful residential area? Those truly awesome laddoos, perhaps?