Will the real Vizag stand up?

Will the real Vizag stand up?

Sohan Hatangadi

TOI dated 10 July 2016

Those who have stayed for half a century or more in Vizag have witnessed the multiple personality changes the city has gone through. These changes have been due to a number of reasons, the most obvious being the arrival of waves of settlers at different times in the city’s history, the setting up of industry that impacted large numbers of people and the desire of Vizagites to live in “better” parts of town. Over time the city went through huge demographic changes worth studying in detail. As of now the city has no single personality label. It is a city with multiple personalities and that is an interesting phenomena.

The comfortable decade, 1960 - 1970

When present senior citizens were kids, our little town was all sea, fisher folk, beaches, rolling wooded hills, miles and miles of palm trees and a large expanse of swampy land on the west. Most children went to schools or colleges by bus, bicycle or walk. They used second hand books. They played marbles, tops, seven stones and gilli-danda. Middle class adult men went proudly to work at the port, shipyard, railways, customs or the navy and some were privileged to work in private industries like the Caltex oil refinery or the Coromandel Fertilizers. Some worked at the University or Medical College and around that time several academically inclined moved to western universities to study and stayed back to teach. Several others ran shops that sold provisions, clothing, shipping supplies and hardware. Anyone who came here fell madly in love with the town, made friends, joined communities and stayed back to raise families. Vizag was then a relaxed city, where most people knew each other. It had a comfortable and accommodating personality.

The cosmopolitan decade, 1970-1980

In the decade following the comfort period the city took on a more “lets-go-to-work” mode. Projects like Director General Naval Project, Vizag Steel Plant, Outer Harbour, and Hindustan Polymers were being set up and operated in Vizag. With projects starting up everywhere blue and white collar workers flooded the city from all over India. They came for short term work assignments but many stayed on in Vizag with their families. Children went to school, college, joined the local work force, married and becoming Vizag’s home grown next generation. The cosmopolitan character of the citizens defined the personality of the city. But that would change soon.

Two decades of enterprise, 1980 to 2000

A wave of new arrivals swelled the city in these two decades. They brought bags of money having sold away expensive agricultural lands in their home towns. They brought fresh investment in small and medium businesses. Meanwhile old timers in the older parts of town started moving north and built nice bungalows in the uplands area. New layouts developed in the suburbs and green agricultural land became homes for tens of thousands of families. They housed the middle class upwardly aspiring men and women who made Vizag their permanent home. Migrant labour from surrounding villages came looking for work in the city and many stayed back in small dwellings in the suburbs with very little infrastructure. Fuelled by liberalization of the economy and the opportunities in IT, young men and women thirsting for work, left to settle down in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and many went abroad to the United States. When they came home they brought new values with them. With migration taking place in both directions the city became a cocktail of cultures. It acquired a cosmopolitan, adventurous, enterprising personality.

Brazen and brash, 2000- 2014

The past decade and half saw Vizag change its personality yet again. Land prices skyrocketed everywhere. Bungalows gave way to apartments. Politics became murky; Vizag became the playground of wheeler dealers. Everywhere people were talking about making a killing in real estate. Apartment buildings sprouted everywhere, many of them ugly and tasteless showing that money and class did not necessarily go together. Social dynamics changed as new money bought memberships into old clubs and as wealth purchased friends in society.  The tone of public events went from subdued and personal to garish and loud. Vizagites became super commercial. Folks declared confidently that anyone in government could be bought. Vizag had slowly but surely acquired a new brazen and brash personality.

Vizag’s current split personality

Vizag has added a new personality now, while on one hand the city is embracing the smart city philosophy, it is only concentrating on some parts of town and only on certain sections of society. The decision makers and those influencing these decision makers seem to be concentrating on a “brave new Vizag”, the uplands area, the beach road and the new developments further north. Travelling from uplands into the crowded, chaotic, madness of the areas around RTC, Dwarakanagar, Rama Talkies and Dabagardens reveals Vizag’s split personality from the elegant Dr. Jekyll to the crude Mr. Hyde. At a time when we should have invested in decongesting the Dwarakanagar area by going multi story at the RTC complex and rebuilding TSR complex to accommodate the huge surge in population there, we have given away half the RTC space to a jewelry store!  As we go further to areas such as Kancharpalem, Gopalpatnam and Gajuwaka our heart sinks. A trip to our old town which was once the “new town” of Vizag is depressing. Stately old buildings, the edifices of our culture are crumbling. We spend crores in putting up a single show at our overcrowded beaches but don’t spend half that amount to repair our heritage structures like the Queen Mary’s School. We talk of crores being put into “hubs”, “corridors”, “circuits” and “development” on one hand but let the true soul of Vizag rot with neglect.  That is why we must call this Vizag’s age of split personality.

Time for the real Vizag to stand up

Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. We are fortunate to have perhaps the best team of administrators looking after the affairs of our city in a long time. Citizens have become more aware and are engaging with city administration like never before. We have the privilege of a professional, business-like CM who visits Vizag often (unfortunately snarling up our traffic every time) and we are on the threshold of becoming a “smart city”. Like we showed after Hudhud Vizagites are a tough resolute lot. If we want to shape our future personality, let us display steely resolve by taking on the tough tasks now. Let us start with pulling Dwarakanagar and other seemingly hopeless parts of Vizag out of chaos, let us bring the old town back from oblivion take up bold projects like transforming our fishing harbour, re-building Poorna Market and upgrading our Ryuthu Bazaars. Let us not be wimps when setting objectives for ourselves. Let us be urban warriors. So when someone asks which the real Vizag is we can stand up and declare simply and quietly, that we are courageous in thought and spirit but we want a Vizag for all its citizens. That is our personality. That is what we stand for.