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When I settled down at IIT KGP in 1965, I was asked by my friends to accompany them to the only place that was worth visiting in KGP, known for some inexplicable reason as Gole Bazaar.
So a dozen of us picked up all the pushbikes available and traveled to the enchanted place about which I once posted as many as 26 blogs in a row. And soon after we left the campus we had to stop at a busy Railway Crossing known for some equally mysterious reason as Puri Gate. And soon we left the tar road and entered into a bush and thorn jungle crisscrossed by white trails wide enough for just a pushbike to negotiate.
And then we entered the majestic railway township with well-laid roads and proper red-tiled bungalows with sloping roofs and arches and columns and awnings and gables and gardens of British vintage...I wished I were allotted one. They all looked so cute.
After ten minutes of biking though this, we were stuck at another railway gate for half an hour since the gate was always closed with trains shunting to and fro on a dozen parallel lines. And after some bending ad stretching we were in the famed Gole Bazaar.
Had we not trespassed on the railway property, we had to make a contour that was twice as long as the shortcut.
After a year or so we were on another trip to Gole Bazaar on our bikes but as soon as we reached the entrance to the Railway Township, we found a hitherto unnoticed gate closed shut keeping us out.
And on inquiries we were told that, once a year, the RailwayTownship shuts all its gates to outsiders for a day...just to show that we were trespassing...and assert its property rights.
On the other hand, the IIT campus itself was built on either side of a State Highway of West Bengal and had no gates of its own nor boundary walls or fences...it was free for all...except that we saw, if we had keen enough eyesight, a couple of stakes covered by creepers proclaiming for what it was worth:
"Private Property of IIT Kharagpur"
As the campus grew in population the buses and trucks and bullock carts and tractors of the public passing merrily at high speeds through the artery of the campus became a nuisance and prone to accidents and incidents of eve-teasing and worse.
The IIT authorities wanted to barricade the in and out gates but the District Magistrate of Midnapore was angry with the proposal since he felt that the state highway was his property. And used to order his minions to check once in a while to see if any speed-breakers were erected by the IIT, and demolish them...for the heck of it...Bernard Levin's Theorem at work:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/07/bernard-levins-theorem.html
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'You saw my friend Hilda Gudgeon. There is another tragedy. Her whole happiness has been ruined by a wretched quarrel with the man she loves, a man called Harold Anstruther. They were playing in the Mixed Doubles in a tennis tournament not long ago and - according to her - I don't understand tennis very well - he insisted on hogging the game, as she calls it. I think she means that when the ball came near her and she was going to strike it, he rushed across and struck it himself, and this annoyed her very much. She complained to him, and he was very rude and said she was a rabbit and had better leave everything to him, and she broke off the engagement directly the game was finished. And now she is broken-hearted.'
...PGW in Mating Season
When I settled down at IIT KGP in 1965, I was asked by my friends to accompany them to the only place that was worth visiting in KGP, known for some inexplicable reason as Gole Bazaar.
So a dozen of us picked up all the pushbikes available and traveled to the enchanted place about which I once posted as many as 26 blogs in a row. And soon after we left the campus we had to stop at a busy Railway Crossing known for some equally mysterious reason as Puri Gate. And soon we left the tar road and entered into a bush and thorn jungle crisscrossed by white trails wide enough for just a pushbike to negotiate.
And then we entered the majestic railway township with well-laid roads and proper red-tiled bungalows with sloping roofs and arches and columns and awnings and gables and gardens of British vintage...I wished I were allotted one. They all looked so cute.
After ten minutes of biking though this, we were stuck at another railway gate for half an hour since the gate was always closed with trains shunting to and fro on a dozen parallel lines. And after some bending ad stretching we were in the famed Gole Bazaar.
Had we not trespassed on the railway property, we had to make a contour that was twice as long as the shortcut.
After a year or so we were on another trip to Gole Bazaar on our bikes but as soon as we reached the entrance to the Railway Township, we found a hitherto unnoticed gate closed shut keeping us out.
And on inquiries we were told that, once a year, the RailwayTownship shuts all its gates to outsiders for a day...just to show that we were trespassing...and assert its property rights.
On the other hand, the IIT campus itself was built on either side of a State Highway of West Bengal and had no gates of its own nor boundary walls or fences...it was free for all...except that we saw, if we had keen enough eyesight, a couple of stakes covered by creepers proclaiming for what it was worth:
"Private Property of IIT Kharagpur"
As the campus grew in population the buses and trucks and bullock carts and tractors of the public passing merrily at high speeds through the artery of the campus became a nuisance and prone to accidents and incidents of eve-teasing and worse.
The IIT authorities wanted to barricade the in and out gates but the District Magistrate of Midnapore was angry with the proposal since he felt that the state highway was his property. And used to order his minions to check once in a while to see if any speed-breakers were erected by the IIT, and demolish them...for the heck of it...Bernard Levin's Theorem at work:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/07/bernard-levins-theorem.html
It took all of 40 long years for the IIT to convince the WB Govt to please lease out or sell its highway to IIT promising it would build a world class highway with its money making a detour of the campus...
The detour was longer by 5 kilometers and was resisted initially by the public but within a year everyone got used to it and a bustling township grew all along the newly built detour.
And IIT KGP had a row with the Railways too...it wanted to avoid the half-hour waits by the Puri Gate and wished to build a flyover with its own money...but that required permission of the railways, perhaps because they owned not only the rails and gates but also the sky overhead....
But I am told a flyover is now almost ready...
Some fun with property rights...public and private...
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