Resilient Bengaluru folk resist fear, have a blast

BENGALURU: Sunday’s blast hung heavy in the air, and city police didn’t play good Janus, the Roman god of gates, doors and doorways this New Year’s eve. They heavily barricaded the heart of the city and restricted the entry of large crowds, but Bengalureans didn’t let that kill their spirit on Wednesday night. Selfies and groupies at the blast site in front of Coconut Grove on Church Street appeared to be an integral part of the celebrations.
The trickle of crowds may not have turned into a torrent on MG Road, the hub of New Year revelry, but Brigade Road was teeming with revellers as the clock struck 12, ushering in 2015. The one positive spinoff was the revelry didn’t turn raucous and boisterous, and women and children walked around leisurely.
Hundreds of men and women clad in khaki, lathi-wielding plainclothesmen, a busload of bomb disposal squad personnel who scoured every nook and corner with handheld scanners and torchlights, mounted police personnel, a mobile control room, at least a dozen door frame metal detectors, 75 CCTVs and strategic watch towers, not to speak of a drone carrying a CCTV camera that hit a telephone wire and crashed after a couple of sorties, guarded MG Road, Brigade Road and Church Street. The drone, though, was repaired and back in the air in no time.
Every year, the crowd begins to trickle in by 6pm-6.30pm and grows thick by 7.30pm, but was virtually absent even at 8pm this year, a combined result of the Church Street blast and security restrictions. Footfalls mounted as time passed. By 11pm, revellers queued up in front of four door frame metal detectors to enter Brigade Road, and as the clock struck 12, celebrations seemed in sync with the years gone by. For Raunak R and his friends, the magnitude of security was overwhelming.
“I’ve never seen so much security around Brigade Road in the past,” he said, adding that life has to go on. Pavan Kulkarni even brought his 4-year-old son to Brigade Road to ring in 2015. “We were scared when TV covered the blast, but we cannot sit at home because of it. We should come out in large numbers and show we aren’t scared of terrorists,” Pavan’s wife Vijayalakshmi said.
Selfies were the norm and quick updates on social media sites were ensured by smart phones, even as police, equally equipped with technology this year, slogged.
Deepshika M, MBA student, however, acknowledged that spirits were slightly low this year. “We aren’t going to stay late like last year. It’s not safe to party, anything can happen,” she said.
Karthikeyan N, HR professional, echoed her: “Being watched by a drone and policemen frisking everyone is crazy, it’s like entering a highly secured place. But the celebrations have to go on.”
A global chain cafe outlet offering 50% discount on bakery items remained empty through the night.
High spirits elsewhere
While some kept their date with 2015 in the heart of the city, family dinners, temple jaunts and out-of-city drives marked the beginning of the year for some, farmhouse parties, high-end clubs and grooving at discotheques rocked several others.
Even Silicon City’s time-honoured old school centres like Basavanagudi, Malleswaram, Indiranagar 100 Feet Road and other areas saw unrestrained merrymakers, like Chandrakanth, a techie, went home to bid the year goodbye.