RK: I think it is leadership.

TN: It still comes down to leadership. We all know that here we can interpret the rules in many ways. You can play with the rules. In Bangalore when you connect two buildings it becomes one, even if there is limited space between the buildings. That is the way of playing with the rules. I think it is much more to do with leadership. If you have one guy in Bangalore or any city capable of saying “I want this, this is my vision and everyone will follow that”, otherwise you will not have the authorisation of doing this. This is the case when the mayor is powerful.

RK: It is what Shobha Nambisan did with NGMA. That was fabulous. You can feel the pinch of her absence now. She is an IAS officer. Fantastic energy levels.

TN: She is a bureaucrat, she is not elected.

RK: She took it on herself to be the leader, to get it right. She was running NGMA like her home. It was so eventful. The new person who has joined now has a point of reference. No NGMA was as successful as Bangalore. Talking about leadership, therefore I think that participation at a public realm to become more has to happen through programmatic decisions sometimes.

SN: Is that something that can happen. I have heard about this a lot in public forums. This idea about engaging the public, through dialogue. How does that get converted? It has to be con- verted in legislation eventually? Does that happen at any point? Is that even possible in Banga- lore to say in a hypothetical scenario, to engage with the public, discussions about the kind of building or the kind of space you should dedicate. Is that even possible?

TN: One simple example. Have you been invited to give your opinion about the metro in Banga- lore? Or if there are any information desks on M.G.Road about the construction of the metro?

RK: They invited 16 architects and scrapped all their ideas!

TN: 16 architects!

SN: There were proposals from the better known architects in Bangalore.

TN: Do you know what is the public investment for the metro in Bangalore? INR 243 crores per kilo- meter! That is public money. There is no law saying that the Government has to dialogue with people and inform people.

SN: What sort of result does this dialogue create eventually? That is what I am interested in.

TN: I think that it is a question of culture. I don’t think it makes a lot of difference at the end. At least people are used to be part of the process and to be informed and to be interested in the process.

RK: You have to create that cultural platform.

TN: In Bangalore everybody is willing to criticise the city, but nobody participates.
AS: If you have actually been to these meet-ups, which happen, you go in and talk to the person and they ask you questions and you have discussions. What the problem is, is that the person that you are talking to and who is taking your feedback is responsible for implementing things. There is