900 year old pothole discovered in Bangalore; may be declared heritage site
Archaeologists in Bangalore have unearthed a 900 year old pothole right in the middle of the city.
The discovery came to light when a civic body and a major telecom player tried to outdig each other while laying a water pipeline and an OFC cable respectively on MG Road, last week. Sources say that engineers from both organisations got into a tussle on where and how they should ruin the road. The civic body wanted to ruin the road at exactly the same place where the telecom major wanted to dig a 30 feet deep trench. Both however moved on to separate areas of MG Road after a while and started digging furiously to see who could ruin the road more. The two also increased the size of the boards they had put up at the digging site to prominently display their respective brands.
After digging non-stop for nearly 80 hours, engineers from the civic body came across the remains of what appeared to be an ancient lake. Digging was then stopped and folks from the Archaeological survey of India took over and uncovered what turned out to be the oldest pothole in Bangalore.
“To give you a sense of the age of this pothole, it first appeared when Kashmiri fossil Syed Shah Geelani was still a teenager nearly 900 years ago. There used to be a thriving civilisation around it and just like now, the government of those days simply ignored the ever expanding pothole till it grew to a width of nearly 3.4 kms and became a lake that engulfed the whole town. People then were forced to migrate to another area. And that is the whole story,” said a senior ASI archaeologist.
Karnataka CM paid a quick visit to the site on Sunday and said “this proves that potholes were an integral part of our culture since ages and we simply cannot afford to fill them up or cover them as that will be an insult”. He also congratulated the civic body and the telecom service provider for their role in the discovery and claimed that site may be given a heritage tag by the state soon.
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| An artists impression of the pothole as it was 900 yrs back |
After digging non-stop for nearly 80 hours, engineers from the civic body came across the remains of what appeared to be an ancient lake. Digging was then stopped and folks from the Archaeological survey of India took over and uncovered what turned out to be the oldest pothole in Bangalore.
“To give you a sense of the age of this pothole, it first appeared when Kashmiri fossil Syed Shah Geelani was still a teenager nearly 900 years ago. There used to be a thriving civilisation around it and just like now, the government of those days simply ignored the ever expanding pothole till it grew to a width of nearly 3.4 kms and became a lake that engulfed the whole town. People then were forced to migrate to another area. And that is the whole story,” said a senior ASI archaeologist.
Karnataka CM paid a quick visit to the site on Sunday and said “this proves that potholes were an integral part of our culture since ages and we simply cannot afford to fill them up or cover them as that will be an insult”. He also congratulated the civic body and the telecom service provider for their role in the discovery and claimed that site may be given a heritage tag by the state soon.
Good one! I don't think there is any other big city which has so many potholes and humps as in Bangalore.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I have picked your post for my Dateline Bangalore blog, a compilation of blog posts on Bangalore.