I was waiting this day for a long time, so long as from the time they pulled down the lovely small theatre called Swagath in Jayanagar, Bangalore. Huh! The wait, more than 2 years is over and my favorite movie watching adda would be back live. The thrill was good enough to make me and Sachchu move our butts out of home to Jayanagar in the scorching sun.
When we reached Swagath we found the usual ant queue made by cars, this used to be bike queues and the last two years transformed it to cars instead of bikes. Otherwise, is it the excited Bangaloreans who don’t miss out any new malls. Whatever it was, the crowd was there and that’s a joy in itself.
I parked my car near to the police station, as the plan was to watch a 4pm movie, prior to that have lunch at Banjara, 4th block. We walked to the mall and were left perplexed as to which is the entrance to the new Cinema hall, Inox!
As the only entrance was of Westside, we decided to see the store and walked in. Westside, a Tata enterprise it read, and Tata means everything in business, quality, ethics, value for money and so on. The store was well presented, though there was something which didn’t go well, I would come to it soon. We browsed through the store and quickly found ourselves on the second floor; I was wondering where Landmark came from. It looked like an integrated store! Landmark in Westside, or Westside in Landmark. The confusion just grew bigger.
Seamless integrated store, like Bangalore central (some retail jargons) which Manu (brother) throws now and then flew past me. We moved out of Landmark again to find ourselves lost in a floor in making. No signs here! I decided to take the stairway up to Inox (4th floor) had to hear my sweetheart shout at me as I missed the elevator, placed somewhere out of sight.
Inox landing was quite small with the ticket counter and space for people to wait, was wondering is this enough for Jayanagar crowd. I picked the tickets and we took the lift to ground floor, quite fast compared to other places in Bangalore, I thought.
Getting out of the lift was an unexpected, the landing was such a pathetic place just enough for 25 people and the exit out of it via a small opening leading to the rear of the building. As we walked out my eyes fell on the stair exit and it was pathetic, just imagined if a catastrophe happens people are for sure to get caught here for their lives. Scary!
We strolled into Jayanagar market after a good lunch at Banjara, the cooks in there are doing a great job. Yummy food, for non-vegs Tadaka next door would be a better place.
Around 3:30pm we decided to drive back to Swagath and weren’t surprised to find the crowded car alley. Cars coming in from both directions entering the narrow entrance leading to the basement; creating enough confusion for motorist on the road and the security guard’s at the mall. We waited for 10 -15 minutes to get into the car park. The wait made me realize the design of the building was pathetic, non-futuristic and too conservative. Crowd management would be a book term for the management and they should pull a book or two from Landmark and throw into the management team lead's hands.
This time we took the lift from basement to the 4th floor and was quite surprised to see the crowd, it was pathetic no space for people. The queue was long for tickets, last minute buys are costly with no air-circulation in around 700 sq ft space filled with people and Inox management not allowing people into a little bigger lounge as it wasn’t time for the next show, something which they need to fix sooner.
The movie experience was normal, we watched Drona and it gave a headache to add to the woes of the mall experience.
Post the movie the real harrassment started. There are two ways out, one use the lift, two in numbers, which will never ever suffice the needs of hundreds coming out at a point in time. I wonder while designing the management had only one thing in mind, greed!
The other way is via the stairs adjacent to the elevator leading back to Landmark, wait a min, didn’t we shop here prior to the movie? The entrance- exit point of Landmark also is poorly designed/managed, it cry’s for space when a movie gets over/starts, that would be eight times a day. We had to move back to Westside, the only store having a toilet, Inox won’t allow to use its post a movie and the toilet is at ground zero, a horrid experience holding full bladders while taking stairs down.
The only logical and neat space was in Westside. Tata's processes came to their rescue in such a hella place.
Overall the mall experience at Sri Garuda Swagath was pathetic and inhuman, in today’s highly sophisticated society.
Can things be better?
1. Make the exit to the stairs larger to manage lots of people, you got 4 movies at a time and that’s (14 rows *27 seats) 378 * 4 = 1512 humans. Expecting a third will use the stairs its 500 people at least. You don’t want to be in a fix again, remember the Garuda mall incident. This is a hot potato you have.
2. Car parking: you got everything wrong here. The entrance and exit can’t be the same place creating havoc during peak times and Bangaloreans won’t move out on weekends without a car. Get a management guru here to fix your problems. Looks like only shoppers need to park their car in.
3. Get some more space out from Westside and Landmark and make the elevator a separate property so the commoners can use it without going through the stores.
4. Retailers are having footfalls and lesser percentage converting into buyers, making the crowd huge in turn converting the potential buyers to also window shop. The crowd is decent and reducing foot falls (pt 3) will make it more profitable.
5. Get toilets in every floor! Be human and profitable.
We won’t get into this place again for hells sake till something gets better.
