becomes public space in that context.

AS: One question that really bothers me is that privatisation of the BDA complex is not necessarily a mall. That is what is happening at the moment. They have chosen six to turn into a mall. They are two completely different babies, you cannot make one into the other. I don’t know what the an- swer is but if one was to imagine that the Government does not want to run a BDA complex any- more or whatever it is, I don’t think the answer is still a mall. Privatisation of a slightly social activity like the complex should result in what?
NG: It is a shame because, especially in the older areas, the BDA complex, like Indiranagar is sit- ting on a piece of land
that is super valuable. You can understand that the Government wants to be entrepreneurial, they want to make money
out of it.

AS: It is not their job to make money out of property.

NG: It is not but of course they want to be entrepreneurial but how do they balance this nature, or
the fact that it is sitting on a beautiful (valuable) piece of land, and they can make a lot of mon- ey, how do they balance that with public good. They need the finances to create public pro- gramme and spaces.

TN: They have the money. It is spent in infrastructure.

AS: It is a skewed question. If you look at a piece of land in Indiranagar and ask how I could make
money out of it – it is not a BDA complex for sure.

NG: It could be a public space. I think there is a certain naivety to assume that any Government is going to completely, say that I will only create things for pure social good. This day and age, no Government will do it – not even the richest Governments and I am not talking about corrupt Gov- ernments.

TN: The Government can do it if there is a social pressure. This is related with what we were talking about before with Vivek. The problem in India, is the lack of public governance. Who is the head of Bangalore? The commissioner has power but they are not elected.

RK: To react back to your question, there was a civic meet that was organised about the BDA complex, there was no other answer. Financially the complex is completely defunct today. The square feet rate of what the shop keeper pays in the complex is paying as of now, and the way that they can deviate rules and spread flowers everywhere that they want to sell, it will not hap- pen in the new era. There is no way that you can bring regulation to control it or re-qualify it. They tried to do that in the market and it is disastrous. Trying to restructure what is available, build a dome shell, put them back inside, reassign space, forget the architecture that is another debate. It is a financial decision for the BDA to move towards collaborative approach. How much that they will bring back of the old realm is still up for discussion.

VS: I think that it was quite a desperate decision, because there coffers are dry.