Tome & Plume: Rumbling Metro In Winter Rings In Glory Of The Spring

Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast–

Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens

Someone leaving Bhopal ten years ago will feel like Rip Van Winkle when he returns. Rip Van Winkle is a short story by Washington Irving. The protagonist of the tale, Rip Van Winkle, gulps down a mysterious potion and sleeps for 20 years, and when he wakes up, he finds everything changed. He is perplexed.

Similarly, the changes that have taken place in Bhopal during his absence will baffle him on his return. To him, it would seem as though a gust of wind had changed the city known to him as a place of Urdu poetry, forests, lakes, narrow roads, and natural beauty.

The roads have been widened. The city skyline is no more dotted with hulking trees. They have been replaced with skyscrapers. It is no more a small town as it used to be. Roads have made Vidisha his close-door neighbour. And many far-flung areas are just a few kilometres away from him.

Malls have come up. Markets are bustling with activities. But what will stump him is the metro trains running over his head. He may feel as if he had just woken up from a slumber after a long time, like Rip Van Winkle, who, after waking up from the torpor, comes to know that the American Revolution has taken place.

Until he saw the metro in Bhopal, he had known that other cities in India have this facility, but not Bhopal. So, when he finds his city gifted with metro services, his surprise mingles with joy and pride. Now, Bhopal is competing with Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Chennai.

What will surprise him more is the change in the residents’ outlook. Youngsters are learning foreign languages and joining coaching classes to compete with their counterparts in other metropolitan cities.

The Global Investors’ Summit held this year and the Bhopal Literature Festival, which has been held annually since 2019, have played an important role in changing the outlook of the residents.

Those who used to pass by the VIP Road once may now fail to recognise it. Honing luxury cars and noisy bikes zoom past him. He sees chattering young boys and girls taking selfies. He is unable to match the city he had seen with the one he finds today.

The residents of Bhopal do not easily accept such changes. They love to talk about the Nawabi era, Urdu poetry, monuments, the Upper Lake, and hills. But today’s generation talks about modern multiplexes and classic single screens, featuring chains like PVR, Cinepolis, and Miraj.

What is more, the mall culture is also slowly becoming a thing of the past. The traditional theatre halls, like Jyoti Cineplex, Rang Mahal, and Alpana Cinema, offer experiences of tradition and modernity.

Since the city has also become a hub of education, students from different states and rural areas of Madhya Pradesh have come to the state capital to build their careers. But it does not mean the city has discarded traditional values. Bhopal still respects the elderly.

The small city has slowly evolved into a metro area, and the power of socioeconomic forces is behind it. These forces have extended the small city beyond its physical boundaries.

The day is not far when Bhopal will turn into a complete metropolitan city. But the quietude of the past will still search itself into the abyss of modernity, in which exists its foster child – the future.

The gas tragedy, which has become a thing of the yesteryear, still exists in the memory of its survivors. But the residents of Bhopal know how to withstand all odds with a smiling face.

The milky light and warm days of the city will make the man who left it ten years ago languorous and nostalgic. Several questions will haunt him: is the past misty, is the present moving on the wheels of luxury cars and bikes chaotic, and is the future moving on the wheels of the metro perfect? The answer is blowing in the wind.