VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

The art of torturing audiences I n the cooler months of the year a number of meetings, seminars and workshops are held in the city. Subjects ranging from Architecture to Zoology, from spiritual to spirits, from mundane to magnificent are all discussed in conference rooms and meeting halls by the erudite citizens of our learned city and by visitors from afar. Engineers, doctors, lawyers, managers, accountants, scientists, all meet to share their thoughts and expound their views. Some of these meetings are in closed group of invitees or paid seminars while others are open to public. Some seminars are held in the best hotels of Vizag while others are held in moderately priced venues. Different folks, different reasons Many Vizagites love to attend such events and they do so for different reasons. Some attend to garner knowledge and become wiser. Others, generally elderly men attend so that they may take a nap in the back seat of an air-conditioned hall. It is said that some...

Most of Vizag’s older residents lived in what we called “One Town” because the pin code for that area was simply “1”. While most parts of the old town were densely packed it also had several gracious old buildings like the recruiting office and officer’s accommodation that stood under the shade of massive banyan trees. The trees spread like an aerial city with sturdy roots supporting stout branches for hundreds of feet in all directions. Soldierpeta As the area was home to British soldiers it was also called “Soldierpeta”. In the 1960s and 70s when the port expanded its operations, coal and iron ore dust spread like a cancer over that part of town. Nice big structures were razed to the ground and slum like quarters sprang up everywhere. No one bothered about aesthetics and elegance; someone just pointed at the ground and simply said “build here” and that was it. Consequently from being the pulsating heart of Vizag it went to a scar that no one bothered to heal. The charac...