As of yesterday, Bangalore has joined the ranks of those cities with the metro rail. The fond epithet given to the city's Metro, Namma Metro (Our Metro), became the talk of the town as well as a trending topic on Twitter, where the predominant sentiment was awe and delight.
The first phase of Namma Metro, running from MG Road to Byappanahalli, a gargantuan 5-years-in-the-making exercise, was made open to the public at around 4 pm, but the anticipation started building up from early morning, when it was inaugurated with dignitaries and the first run was exclusive to journalists and photographers. Freelance journalist @drvivekm captured the mood of the day with his photostream.
Bangalore's jubilant nature knew no bounds with @praxprasanna tweeting 'antu intu Metro bantu' - roughly translates to 'finally, the Metro arrives' in Kannada rhyme. A highly charged @KiranKS attributed the launch to BJP's relentlessness and also put up Namma Metro's route map. @Iamvinays fondly reminisced his first Metro experience and wished all success to Bangalore's Metro.
At the risk of attracting brickbats, as one would come to expect with anything Indian on cyberspace, @byeshaswi noted that the site had crashed on the day of the launch. @Instantmusings rued the effect Namma Metro has had on MG Road, once Bangalore's pride and joy. And @A_Hiccup aptly summed up the somber mood of the old Bangalorean with this poignant tweet.
There was also a fair share of non-Bangaloreans calling out its delay in getting its Metro act together. But for the most part, it was a day of pride for Bangalore.
Have you taken a ride on the Metro yet?