Still, villagers are at the mercy of the traffic.  There are no pedestrian walkways.  Stretches of the road are so poorly lit that night-time arrivals could wonder if they really landed in Bangalore. Traffic officers are now trying to educate local bus and truck drivers against speeding, and talking to pedestrians about crossing at designated spots.  One of the officers involved in the training, sub inspector M. Sathyanarayana said that teaching traffic sense to the villagers was no easy task. People who have lived in the surrounding villages for generations and who ride bullock carts and bicycles have barely registered that there is an airport in the neighborhood, said Sathyanarayana. “They don’t realize that life around them has changed.”

And the education cannot happen overnight. “The villagers still need to go through primary before getting to high school,” Sathyanarayana observed. By any reckoning, the villagers are not the only ones in need of an education.  Those who spent a decade readying an airport in Bangalore with no thought to how airport passengers would commute and, just as importantly, how people living on either side would get across, also need to be sent back to the classroom. 

saritha.rai@exptressindia.com