uglificiation: Anything beautiful in Calcutta is targeted by apathy and avarice (!)

As a Calcutta boy, I grew up hating the superciliousness of south Bombay 
brats convinced they were living at the centre of the Indian universe, 
and living as far away as was possible from the stinky armpit that was 
Calcutta; as an adult, I’ve suffered the patronizing tones of Delhiites 
as they explained to me how marginal my hometown actually was. My 
internal defence to all this was always the wit, the remnants of beauty, 
and the psychic and human scale of my city. Now that all that is nearly 
gone, I am left without any argument. In this, the real chagrin for 
someone like me is that DNGD and even Bombay-Navi Mumbai might soon be 
far more beautiful, and far nicer places to live in than Calcutta, not 
just for the rich but also for lower-middle-income groups and the 
working class.

Using it’s own construction of the ‘working class’, this government can 
rail against the United States of America. Jyoti Basu can come out of 
retirement to protest against joint military exercises with the US and 
the 123 ‘sell-out’. The national government can be threatened by the 
hubris of old and not so old comrades. But what about the ugly 
Amerification of this town? What about the butchering of beauty by the 
basest ‘American’ instincts that Jyotibabu himself inaugurated and 
presided over, and that his successors are continuing with such energy? 
Will this city be an original, humanist beacon of urban planning, a 
place of light and laughter showing the way to its neighbours Patna, 
Bhubaneshwar, Dhaka, Guwahati, Rangoon and Bangkok? Like hell it will. 
Once the people in power used to replicate spent ideas from China and 
the Soviet Union, but now what Calcutta is becoming is the worst of 
America. If we continue the way we are going then, in about 15 years, 
this city will resemble nothing so much as an aesthetic Chernobyl 
crossed with a beat-up, shabbier version of downtown Milwaukee.

cont'd....
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070923/asp/opinion/story_8335473.asp