I have recently had some evolving thoughts on cities, transport, the environment, etc. This is the first part. I don't necessarily promise a second part.
I remember the first time I walked past the Jalahalli metro station in northern Bengaluru. There was something fearsome and intimidating about it. Fast moving trucks and buses zipping past you, their loud honks echoing off those tall, imposing, grey concrete pillars. The air was dusty and filled with the sounds of the city. You couldn't see the sky or much green - mostly the light brown of dust and the gray of concrete.
It was one of the first times Bengaluru had tripped me up. I grew up in the quieter, older part of Bengaluru, close to Malleswaram (technically within Malleswaram by pincode, but there exist Malleswaram purists who will contest this claim). For me Bengaluru consisted of the central part of the city (MG Road, Cubbon Park and surrounding areas), Malleswaram (home), Rajajinagar (school), Jayanagar (cousin's home) and Lalbagh (on the route from home to cousin's home). Cantonment, RT Nagar, Ulsoor, Indiranagar, these were areas I knew reasonably well because my father's office was in the Eastern part of the city while the Western parts of the city were familiar because my school was a bit to the west and most of my schoolmates had their homes in that part of the city.
Growing up, I had the theoretical knowledge that Bengaluru was expanding absolutely rapidly but I had never truly experienced it first hand. I didn't really go around much during my school days apart from Sunday mornings to play cricket or football. Those in my family would also mention how IISc was considered to be in an isolated area to the north of the city, to be avoided after dark. Or how South End Circle was so named because it really was the southern end of the city. I hadn't really spent much time in the core areas of KR Market or Chikpete.
I left Bengaluru to go to college at 18 and it was only there that I really started to be "out-going" in the literal sense of the word - moving around for the sake of moving around and entertainment. I returned in 2017 at age 22 for an internship at ICTS, "Bengaluru". ICTS is really located in a remote area, surrounded by green fields and connected to the main city by a solitary bus route. I once missed the shuttle bus that plied between IISc and ICTS. Rather than wait for the next one, I decided I would plot a way to reach ICTS on my own. I got on a bus that I knew went roughly north with some idea about which way it would go. (In hindsight, I really don't know why I didn't just check google maps!)
I don't completely recall the exact details of the day - The bus made a turn where I didn't expect it to make a turn and I realised I was wrong about its destination. So I got off at the next place and decided to walk towards Jalahalli metro station.
My logic was airtight - ICTS was to the north of the city and Jalahalli metro station was on the green line which ran North-South. So if I went north, I would get closer to ICTS and somehow reach there eventually.
When I started walking towards Jalahalli, I whipped out my phone to see how long it would take. About an hour, said Gooogle. I was absolutely stumped!!
I'd checked on the map before, they were right next to each other. I'd have guessed the distance to be 3 km at the most.
I was completely wrong. The reason I was wrong was because if the map was zoomed out enough that my home (Malleswaram) and Jalahalli were both visible, the map scale was large. Two points that look adjacent could actually be quite well separated. I felt Jalahalli is "right there", just a bit north of Yeshvantpur, which was a bit north of Malleswaram. These bits of north, however, add up really quickly. And once distances get so large, you can go north in a slightly different angle and end up 6 km away from Jalahalli instead of the presumed 2.
I quickly jumped on a passing autorickshaw and asked him to take me to Jalahalli and this was how I found myself at Jalahalli station.
Jalahalli station was actually quite familiar to me in a different way. When I visited home from college, I would usually take the overnight bus and arrive in Bengaluru in the morning. The bus-route coming in from the north ran parallel to the metro line. The usual routine was that the bus would stop for breakfast at a restaurant near Chitradurga at around 6 am. I would eat a piping hot Vada dipped in saambar and feel glad to be back well south of the Vindhyas.
With my stomach and soul thus satisfied, I would happily watch the scenery go by as we approached Bengaluru, the city of my childhood. Reaching the northernmost station of the metro line was a sign that home was quite close now, and I would eagerly watch the trains plying up and down, trying to recall the exact order of the stations that passed by. I thus knew the general lay of the land, though from the comfort of an AC bus.
In hindsight I think I can pinpoint exactly what about Jalahalli station that day made me feel intimidated - it was the first time I felt like I'm in a big city. A bustling metropolis, where my existence was miniscule and insignificant. It was that day that I realised the scale of the city. Prior to that, walking the streets of the older parts of the city that I knew very well, I felt like a minor Lord of the land. It all felt very familiar, like home. (idh ella namdhe adda type feels)
Now I've grown accustomed to discovering entire swathes of Bengaluru housing lakhs of people that I've never heard of. The regions that newcomers to the city know as the heart of the city - HSR layout, Electronic City, Whitefield, Sarjapur, Sahakarnagar - these are completely foreign lands to me.
Something fundamental about my map of the city changed that day - Bengaluru ceased to be a "human-scale" city in my mind. It never was a human-scale city even when I was growing up. But it was close enough that I could build that illusion in my head. And either way, apart from some trips to Jayanagar, a large part of my life played out within a circle with a radius about 4-5 km, with a majority of that being in a circle with radius 1 km. My grandfather's house, shops, stores, doctors, etc. were all within a short walk away.
A human-scale city is a city where a reasonably fit human being can be expected to reach anywhere expending his/her own energy - either by walking or by bike. And there was something more comforting about believing I'm in a human-scale city.
PS - To complete the story, I realised that going north of Jalahalli on the metro would leave me in complete no-man's land with respect to reaching ICTS. I actually took an auto back from Jalahalli station to where I came from and took another bus going towards ICTS, got down mid-way where I knew the shuttle bus stopped.