Horror of Horrors!

Last night, the first rains hit us in Bangalore-today the residence campus wore a sparkley look of a well scrubbed child-glistening, moist, clean-very clean. I decided to walk back home from one of those rare ventures out of the walled, green world that I live in...into the real world of chaotic traffic, noise, puddles from the afternoon rain. The mood was upbeat, almost daring - to wander out, far, in a drizzle full of evening light.

The walk back home took me past a campus gate thats usually locked-today it was open-I was happy to be able to reach into the campus, sooner than expected, anticipating a dark, drippy walk through the familiar forested areas-a quiet, meandering to the back end of my home. What I saw belies imagination, of the worst sort, a living nightmare-the forest had vanished! Large tracts now lay beaten, brown with large concrete frames rising from it. Monuments were being built, monuments to egos larger than mortal frames, egos seeking to imprint their transitory existence into concrete immortal blocks, of steel, glass-green now vanished, vanquished, scheduled to reappear- isolated into tiny islands of manicured lawns, well appointed bush, a correctly angled tree, imagined in the minds and offices of architects, city planners employed to creatively orchestrate this destruction.

What assumed rights leads to such behavior, the megalomaniac tendencies of human race, to destroy to create- more and more out-of-proportion with our rights, our race? With what callousness do we wipe out-the rights of life, of species, big and small-of trees that breathe? birds that sing? flowers that bloom?

Beyond the horror of destroying a living, green, forest, what does a scientific institute like ours hope to achieve? A large bill board advertises the nature of the project and its cost. Various science departments are being relocated from their old, functioning buildings of aged, mulled, stone, to swanky spaces-also a guest house for the foreign dignitaries. We must remember, that who we are, is not what we do, but how we clothe, the face we show - to an audience of 'international' (read first world) peers. The cost of these set of buildings-about Rupees 48 crores!!Will these new buildings enable/ guarantee better science, productivity? studies of more socially relevant, environmentally sensitive topics, which the nation needs? With what right does our government appropriate such vastly inappropriate sums of national funds to irrational, irrelevant, non-contexted science that does not raise us from poverty, illiteracy, inequity which grinds into the pores of daily life-grits the flavor of our existence?

To provide context, it requires about one lakh to do watershed development for a village, similar or less to open a balwaadi for primary education. Basic health care and a first aid centre between a few villages is still an unheard fantasy!
So, one can either have 4800 of such programs, or 4 fancy buildings for IISc!! And note, much more is being built for empire expansion within this campus! I am only talking about the project that I crossed today-other side of the campus is a bigger mess using probably, bigger funds!

The question is, how much of this activity has the attention of what fraction of our enlightened faculty?? Did they know and not care? or not know? or not want to know? Why do the students not protest? Are there no angels, sentinels to guard what we so wantonly destroy? To keep us off the destructive path? Who will save us?