Eduction
AMARAVATHI - City of the Undying
Dt: 8/7/15
AMARAVATHI - City of the Undying
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
People and nations are proud their capital cities – Rome, Moscow, Paris, London, Washington, Tokyo, Beijing........ Will the Telugu people of Andhra Pradesh be proud of their capital city, Amaravathi as being conceived ? Capitals like Rome and Moscow have great histories, legends and even mythologies. Recalling them people do great deeds and nations scored many triumphs. Poet Rayaprolu Subba Rao wrote the stirring lyric, Rashtra Gaanam, one line of which is Amaravathi pattanamuna boudhdhulu viswa vidyalyamulu sthapinchunadu ....? Will our state capital be a center of learning and light to the rest of the land, Bharata Varsha or will it turn into a huge slum or a market place for populist political parties to inveigle the indigent? Each of the great cities were conceived and built up by the natives. Our city is planned and going to be built up by Singapore and invested in by Japan. What will capital breath into us - nationalism and patriotism and hard work and entrepreneurship? Will it reflect the aspiration of the people to be prosperous, powerful, intellectual and ethical? The full build -up of a great capital city, takes the time of a generation. Will the present inspiration for Amaravathi be the engine of construction and efflorescence for that long?
2. Leaving such thoughts in the realm of ideas let us take care of a few mundane things.
· All our cities have been and are today witnesses to the ripping of the roads - for electricity, telephone, water, gas, sewage. Utilities, dig up the road sides and cut across them. This nauseating and people -punishing situation once occasioned a telling cartoon from the great inevitable R.K. Lakshman who commented about a trench dug by the telephones in Bombay to repair a punctured cable. The cartoon should a trench under a tent, a placard reading: “ “inorder not to inconvenience the public frequently , we have decided to leave it like this (trench under a tarpalin tent ) permanently”. We should hope that like in great cities there will be permanent ducts on either side of the streets with several PVC pipes layer avoiding repeating digging upon layer for different cables to be pulled through them with manholes at proper intervals.
· All capital cities witness demonstrations, dharnas, and street corner harangues. Our ancient Rajas knew this. Each place of the princes had an Alaka Griha. The angry queen can retire to that to show her disapproval of the husband . Here in Hyderabad, we have the Indira Park where almost every day some people are other are on hunger - strike to show their resentment. A great democracy like ours must provide for such a facility in a prominent place and give it the great name Alaka Griha .
· In London, there is the great Hyde Park. At a corner facing the main road, there is a box on which any person wanting to harangue can get up and go on talking and talking. The phrase soap box oratory derives its meaning from this arrangement. We have a number of left parties which give statements every day and also go on lecturing here and there. Our capital city should provide for the like of the Hyde Park of London.
3. Now with regard to some profound fitments in our capital .
· We should have a great auditorium like the Paris auditorium and a great Museum like that in London and the Musee’ in Paris .
· The auditorium should commemorate the legend of Bellari Raghava.
· We should have a magnificent building to house a great library that could compete in magnificence with Tanjavore’s Saraswati Mahal, Washington’s Library of the Congress and St.Petersburg’s the Hermitage .
· The common people will be coming to the Secretariat and Ministers for redressal of their grievances. Their stay in the capital city should be within their means. Many a citizen of Andhra Pradesh had, in great emotion made a donation for the construction of the capital. Their contributions must be for their use. So, not very far from the Secretariat should there be Guest Houses, named after the district towns for the stay of people coming from the district. The donations that were received from different districts must be pooled District-wise and augmented by government in recognition of their commitment to build a great capital.
· One of the big programs of Prime Minister Modi is the construction of smart cites. Ab initio, Amaravathi should be a smart city with plenty of broadband connectivity. Every economic and social and government activity including detection and control of crime and orderly flow of traffic and citizen services must all be IT- based.
· The towers and antenna poles required for the wireless network must be envisaged right away and they must be aesthetically integrated into the landscape and skyscape. There should be little need for traffic lights; road intersections should be at different levels like in many parts of great cities like Beijing and Tokyo .
· Swach Bharat should not mean ceremonial demonstrative clearance of garbage and wastes on certain days in public glare but citizens must be, from day one required to observe practices and habits necessary to have a swachcha nagar.
4. Finally a good city viewed from the sky shall show no buildings but only trees. Only then will we have coolness that is required for temperate people and the oxygen that should fill our lungs and cleanse our blood.
END