Pavement and boundary stones

Pavement and boundary stones made from granite have been a unique feature of Bangalore. These are used in in pavements and in boundary walls, also in drainage. Now, I suppose the availability is getting less and it is difficult do that now. The pavement stones have been a unique feature of Bangalore and also Karnataka.  These stones are delicate at least when heavy construction equipment are used.  The labor used in handling these are quite high and special skills are needed, four or five people to handle the stone and also skilled person who can give support with a crowbar.  The mining or fabrication of these stones also certainly requires amazing skills although I have not seen it.  Actually, I only saw handling of the stone only last week. These have contributed to the unique and sleek look of Bangalore, also  represent the skill, patience etc. of the people here.

Now the new construction requires speed more than skill, so these stones are being destroyed i would say insensitively. Just give a hammer to a worker and he can break them to pieces in minutes. Also the worker does not need too much skill and heavy equipment like earthmovers canbe used more easily, which have very little ability to differentiate.  The stones may represent old technology, as somebody told me. but there is actually no advantage in using concrete blocks in pavements, and blocks dont have the beauty of the granite stones.  Of course they may have some weakness in compression strength or something, but that is no reason for this treatment. I uploaded 2 images for this post. They are boundary stones, pavement stones have become rare. Not that rare still fortunately but Iwas in hurry to post.

I think the stones need to be preserved. Over the last some years these stones are being destroyed, just broken up and used in landfilling or used in making mortar. I thought some protest would have happened regarding this, but these have been happening even during last week near my house which was really sad. I had mentioned them in some comment before, but maybe I was not clear. I hope BBMP and BDA instruct the contractors and enginners not to destroy them recklessly and preserve some of them at least.