The lively Dr. V.S. Krishna College Junction is the hub of education and commercial activity. For residents living in and around, life revolves around the junction.
It is also home for hundreds of students, who live in the vicinity, especially those who come from the rural areas for study. They live in groups in hired bachelor accommodation. Student mess, food points, eateries, and fast food centres enliven the college junction with their presence.
The college apart, the area comes under the 10th municipal ward of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation. Adityanagar, Gazetted Officers’ Colony, Ambedkar Nagar, and part of Isukathota come under the ward. One unwelcome feature commonly found as in any other residential area is the fast fading togetherness and a spirit of local comradeship. The advent of apartment culture has narrowed down and limited the social gatherings to only among the apartment residents.
Rama Rao, an advocate living near Krishna College, says communication and social gatherings are now confined to the small world of apartments.
“We do not know what is happening in our neighbourhood. Before the dawn of apartment culture, owners of independent dwellings used to meet, socialise, and even organise colony-based associations. Such associations have become defunct and people are now confined to their barracks like apartment housing complexes,” he says. Common initiatives and efforts, and a sense of camaraderie is missing. No effort is being made to commonly represent local problems or demands. Most of the people are not finding time to know what is happening in their colony. Many fortunate and unfortunate incidents go unnoticed and relative feelings go unexpressed. “We cannot help it,” is what people say with a sense of resignation.
As the city grows vertical, the world of people is getting narrower and narrower, says a septuagenarian resident Vijay Prasad, who recalls happier life in the colony in the 80s and 90s.
He says, the old-timers in the colony lived as one family. “We had time to talk, converse, and laugh together in social gatherings and on holidays. But now, life is reflective of the poem of Wordsworth — What is this life full of cares, No time to Stand and Stare, No time to stand beneath the woods and hear the birds sing.”
Many old-timers and retired people feel that the spirit of neighbourhood is missing.
No good parks
The area does not have good parks to boast of. Several banks have branches functioning, apart from several private schools catering to the needs of local residents.
