A new decade has started. An old decade ended. Someone was right when he said “Every beginning has an end, and every end is a new beginning”. This New Year’s eve, I sat back and pondered over the major happenings of the decade. As I was at home, I couldn’t stop looking at things from the perspective of how they have changed in Udupi. I am sure the story would be similar for most other towns of India. I would not be looking at one time events, but try to list out gradual changes that have taken place over the decade.
1. Cellphone revolution
200X has marked the decade when the pagers have become obsolescent. People, who used to boast of having pagers for communication, have had to quickly switch over to mobile phones. The Doctor community was the most affected. The tower of the Motorola pager and the office still exists where it did, but I am not sure whether at all it is used for anything.
Everyone today has atleast one mobile. The upper cut off varies. Prominent among multiple mobile users are the school and college going students who make extensive use of the free messaging and free incoming calls facilities offered in the Students’ Plan by most telecom operators.
2. The entry of Big Bazaar
Big Bazaar made its entry into a town as small as Udupi as well. And believe me, when that happened, it was a sight to watch. In the initial months, it would not be wrong if I say, more people visited BB than the Sri Krishna Temple, which is a tourist destination. People from all nearby villages flooded to see and feel the escalators, the automatic doors, the bar code scanners and automatic billings and so on. Till then, the maximum that people of Udupi had perhaps seen was an Airody or a Little Pai superstore. But BB was a totally new thing for them. Whether this rush has turned into good sales and whether BB is profitable, I do not know for sure.
3. Improvements in roads and traffic infrastructure
Metallic roads have replaced the tar roads in almost all the major roads in and around Udupi. With this, the usual troubles during rains, accumulation of dust and water, eventually leading to diseases have reduced. Metallic concrete roads also mean lower maintenance. Overall, perhaps the best thing to have happened.
Roads have also widened in most parts of the town. Most of the bottlenecks have now cleared leading to free flowing traffic in the town and savings in time for the citizens.
Traffic signals have come up, though they blink amber most of the times. Traffic density is perhaps not all that strong to warrant traffic signals at this point of time. There was an attempt made in the 90s also to enforce them. But when the city isn’t ready for it, really doesn’t make sense. Maybe the administration is being way too proactive in this case.
4. Up gradations in Public Transport
Unlike most other places, the city buses in the city are not state run. Private operators run the city buses and increasing number of players in the market has led to a healthy competition. New buses have been added in a lot of routes that were hardly known earlier. Buses plying within city limits now bear numbers based on the routes and the destinations. This has made identification easily. Crowded places have different platforms also.
Auto rickshaws have also moved almost entirely from I don’t know what make they were earlier, to the much more comfortable Rear Engine Bajaj make and now more recently to TVS makes. Fare meters have been made mandatory on all the auto rickshaws and this has drastically reduced cheating by a large extent. However, the Govt. has perhaps done its part. Now it’s the citizens’ responsibility to ensure implementation of the same by insisting that they pay only by the meter.
5. Advent of the Satellite TV
Doordarshan has literally been replaced by Satellite Television by Private Cable operators and now by the likes of Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, Dish TV et al. Life has indeed come a full circle for the cable operators, who once had a monopoly in a market saturated with Doordarshan.
6. Functioning of Business Establishments
Sundays always used to be a very dull day in the city. Except for restaurants and health care establishments, no other commercial unit used to operate on Sundays. I remember seeing people play games like cricket and badminton on the roads without any fear. Not anymore. Though not all shops open on Sundays, the fraction of the shops that remain open on Sundays has drastically gone up. These days you can find a lot of other shops also being open for business on Sundays.
7. Awareness towards higher education
More and more people have realized the importance of professional education and are moving outside Udupi for their graduation. The number of Post Graduates from the place has also grown up drastically and the number of people going abroad for studies / job prospects has also grown up. This can been seen by the long queues outside the Post Offices for getting the Passport applications reviewed, as post offices also do not have much to do with the advent of the Internet.
8. Ownership of vehicles
A humble farmer or a trader who used to travel miles together on his old and rusty, trustworthy mate, a bicycle has now graduated to a Moped or even an ungeared scooterette/scooter. And what more, the frequency of replacing it has also gone down greatly. Earlier, he would not have replaced his bicycle for atleast 10 years. Today in the same 10 year gap, he would have owned atleast 2-3 new two wheelers.
Four wheelers also have gone on the up. 3 out of 5 houses (statistically I may be wrong), perhaps have a 4 wheeler now. This can be seen by the sheer number of vehicles on the road or the number of vehicles getting registered monthly. Another proof for this is the number of 4 wheeler Dealerships that have come up in Udupi. Maruti and Tata have set up Main dealerships, Hyundai is in the process of one. All other major 4 wheeler manufacturers have atleast a sub dealership in the place now.
9. Buildings & more buildings
Another major change that can be seen in the city is the number of buildings that have come up. In the initial days, buildings were solely restricted for commercial units and business establishments. Shopping centers and arcades were the first ones to make way. Residences were almost always independent houses or villas with maximum one floor. However, now things are slowly changing with lots of apartments coming up in the town. People have also changed their living styles accordingly.
10. THE Internet
This has without doubt been a revolution of the decade. It has made information and communication more accessible to almost everyone for their various day to day uses. Initial part of the decade was characterized by the mushrooming of Cyber Cafes and Browsing Centers at every intersection in the town. There used to be long queues and often the waiting times ran into hours. The charges used to be as high as Rs 80 per hr for an AC parlour with separate cabins for privacy to as low as Rs 40 per hr for an ordinary set up. And people were willing to pay that much
Today, with the advent of Broadband, and again the intense competition in the market, the common man has benefitted. Internet is available in almost all the households, again used for various purposes like education, games, chatting with a son or a daughter staying abroad, business, share markets et al. Cyber cafes have almost disappeared, and those that do exist, do not work solely on that business for survival.
So effectively over the years, the place has seen a great shift from being well known only for Sri Krishna, the annual Janmashtami festival and the bi annual Paryaya festival.