The Cost of Development

 For almost 40 years now i have seen the vast TB Hospital (as it was called then) grounds transform. In the beginning, for Mohan and me, walking towards AG Colony Road which was a kuccha road back in te 1970s, was as great an adventure as the ones Famous five had. One particular adventure we had was when Mohan got his little dog Jackie I think, and we went towards AG Colony. We stepped into a broken part of the wall and got into the TB Hospital campus which was full of tall trees and lots of grass, and an old dilapidtaed building thrown in for good measure. There was a bit of a scare when some dogs tried to attack little Jackie but we got away safely. 

And then, towards the other side of the hospital, the Vengal Rao Nagar side, there was an open ground, expansive, which was used for cricket matches. I remember our seniors putting a mat there and playing- Kumar, Subodh, one guy called Hayagriva who batted like a demon and kept wickets, one who we could easily idolise, the type who get out and come and smoke. We played a few cork ball matches too - one which we lost badly and while chasing their 150 runs got out for 54 - I got 52 of those! Another where we won and Choudary got 28 not out.

Then they planted a million trees in that campus and it became so beautiful over the years. On the VR Nagar side came up buildings for the Drug Controller and on the AG Colony Road side came up the Unani Hospital, the Ayurveda College and so on. But the trees grew and gave a lovely green cover.

Until the other day when i saw that a large part of the trees had been cut off to make way for a super specialty hospital I think. At least a thousand trees would have gone in this exercise. You can see from the two pics...the top one from the uncut backside of the campus and the second one from the developed one.

And sch is the cost of the development. I only hope they have not demolished the old TB Hospital building which was a beautiful old Nizam era building. But I think they might have.