Namma metro?

People from all over the world come to Bangalore for making a mark in the IT domain. I was surprised to see people from so many different countries knowing the name Bangalore and linking it to the IT field.

Even though the people of Bangalore have accepted the people from other parts of the world, as more and more diverse people settle down here; it creates an invisible walls among the people.

Immigrants are more likely to interact with people of a particular language; some people do business with people from their people of their region etc.

Also, based on their experiences; people tend to make good or bad prejudice against other races. Ex : An immigrant recognizes the name or face of Dr. Raj kumar and links it to the riots which are considered as unfortunate by everyone in the state. They oversee the fact that he is more popular and respected in the land of Karnataka for his larger than life roles in cine field.

Bangalore is often referred as cosmopolitan city or a melting pot of cultures etc. Melting pot refers to the idea where a place/society formed from a variety of races, cultures, or individuals assimilate into a cohesive whole to produce new hybrid social and cultural forms.

Seeing such prejudices and invisible walls among the people in this city, a question rose inside me; is this melting pot theory real? What’s the best possible way to have a cultural assimilation?

In words of sociology, Bangalore is trying to preserve its culture in the face of the influx of hordes of persons from different nationalities.

Population dynamics of a place that has human inhabitants will always have two ethnic groups, a minority and a majority. Minority members can choose whether or not to assimilate into the majority.

Globalization, and the technology that is its foundation, has in a sense allowed us to see everything that we could possibly imagine. Sitting in the city of Bangalore, I can figure how the system works in different parts of the world.

Lets take the example of the Metro station which is coming up in our city.

These are the metro stations in few cities which are considered as cosmopolitan and melting pot of cultures.

Paris : Metro station website of Paris : http://www.ratp.fr/

It’s available in 5 different languages, but the primary language or default language is French.

A sign board in the city of Paris.




Budapest, one of the upcoming vibrant cities in Europe also has got its primary language of its metro operations in Hungarian language.

Metro website for Budapest : http://www.bkv.hu/

It’s available in 3 languages.




Our very capitalistic economy is based in the assumption that someone will copy someone else only to do it better in the future, hopefully.

So, cities like Paris , Budapest etc are able to maintain a high degree of diversity and still evolve without losing direction. When we see something that works, that we like, or that makes us feel good, we copy it, its in our nature.

Seeing those cities, I would have expected the officials in the Namma metro dept. to go ahead and have a system which is designed to understand the Kannada language.

But, what have they done?




The instructions are in English , which can be understood by a small section of people.




Lets see what has Namma metro done for other signage like doors, windows and other areas of the coach.


Safety instructions has omitted Kannada and has made way for English and Hindi. Public transport system in different countries have all the info in local tongue. I just hope this wont be the case with the actual or real coaches and expect the info to be in provided in Kannada along with any other language.

By doing so, it would help more than half of the Bangalore population and this would also serve as a gateway to showcase the culture and language of the State to others.

Comments

Casey said…
mmm... do you think approaching the concerned officials will help? I was born and brought up in Bengalooru. I find it very frustrating that Kannada is not being honoured in the state capital. I find it hard it understand why we give so much of importance to Hindi and not our state language.
Harsha G S said…
@ Casy,
I have written to following email id
chavan,pahuja,gopinathan,sivasailam just add the '@bmrc.co.in' part to the name. (spammers love collecting email id on net ;-))
No response from the bureaucratic wing of Namma Metro. God knows would they listen to woes of common man.
Its not just frustration, its also surprising that such things are missed out while designing the public transit system.
How can one expect everyone in Bangalore to know Hindi or English?
Bhanu said…
I really dont understand why they are not understanding that kannada is the language spoken here.
It is so frustrating that kannada is ignored and other languages are given priority.The government has ignored the localides and is only bent upon giving the best facilities to people coming from other states .people living here from so many years have been ignored they have so many problems water problems ,no house to stay.
All the best facilities to outsiders really dont understand .
Our language our culture is totally ignored.So many farmers have lost their land for very low money for buildings to be built this again is a beneficiary for the outsiders why only bangalore why cant the other states be developed why cant the government stop this non sense of over crowding bangalore why should it become another mumbai.The localides are unable to bare the huge cost of living. When is bengaluru going to get back its glory and our kannada language will become the strongest.

There is no ground to play no greenary all we see is only buildings ,buildings and only buildings.How much more money do the bareucrats want to make.
richierup said…
very nicely written, the first thing that should be educated to these Metro group is, There is nothing as National language for India.when you are in karnataka, kannada is ur national language and others we are not bothered.

it hurts when kannada is not given the highest priority in karnataka. politicians busy making money, media behind some stupid stories like deepika, yeddy and etc.

media should play a important role to create awareness in people that we are loosing our culture and language, these politicians should make some time out of there money making business and enforce people to use kannada.

until unless every individual knows the importance of our language and culture in karnataka, this shall never end

i have seen these namma metro people talking in dd chandana channel about there great work, i am trying to get that line, everyone try and if u r able to talk to them. make them understand that, there first priority is there mother and mother tongue of the land they draw salary.

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