Subir Roy: An impeded view
OFFBEAT
| The gray white of the people's edifice contrasts nicely with the no-nonsense red of the judicial edict which tells you where the buck stops. The colonial look of the former kacheri (seat of government) is also a fitting contrast to the post-independent aspirational architecture of the Vidhana Soudha when India wanted to be both modern and Indian. |
| If you are looking for more contrasts, you have as a backdrop at one end of the street the dreary cement gray pile of the Visvesvaraya Tower which houses soulless government offices and the "Multi-Storeyed (MS) building" at the other, housing more equally soulless government offices. If the tower is a pointless ugly skyscraper, which tried to grab the American dream after it had become passe, the MS Building is quintessential PWD. |
| These two set off the High Court and the Vidhana Soudha which has now acquired a virtual replica next to it that does not disturb the earlier scheme of things. The great thing about the two bits of pre- and post-colonial history is that they are set back behind carefully maintained gardens, which allow an unimpeded view. The Vidhana Soudha has a railing in front but it is raised so the railing does not come in the way of the eye as it travels. The High Court is more low-slung but has, or rather had, no railing getting in the way. But this has changed. |
| Security minded official India, devoid of common sense and never overflowing with aesthetics, has put up tall railings around the High Court, partly impeding the view. Why? Well, when the Parliament was attacked in 2001, the central government asked the states to relook at the security of their most important structures. Since the High Court did not have a railing and the Vidhana Soudha did, the powers that be decided that the High Court must have a railing too. |
| What is worse is the gates that have been set up along it and at the corners. These stolid structures impede the view further. Ugly railings exist all over the country and thankfully the new one is all right, almost tasteful in itself but the pointlessness of it all is bewildering. |
| How their lordships survived without the security of this railing and gates for all these decades is anybody's guess. What additional security they will create is even more obscure. A terrorist can easily lob a grenade over the railing or at it, blowing a hole and a passageway. It is idle to think that now that a railing exists, terrorists will be forced to come in through one of the gates, the way they did with fake security passes during the 2001 attack in Delhi. |
| Why create something that is pointless, costs money and makes you worse off by partly impeding the view when the greatest positive was the sense of power, grace and freedom that the unimpeded view created? Ultimately it is not all that pointless. It boils down to a contract which someone has secured and which will undoubtedly leave him and his benefactor better off at the end of the day. That is the final logic in almost every bit of government action in India which is otherwise inexplicable. |