Why so much of development

Last weekend without knowing what to do to kill time, I decided to drive down the Bangalore Outer Ring Road. I connected to the ring road from the Udupi garden singal and drove upto Marathahalli junction.

When drove this stretch almost a year ago, the entire stretch was almost empty except for some few hundred meters. Now I am seeing so much of construction work either completed or still in progress.

When I saw about hundreds of apartments being constructed in that stretch the first question came to my mind was why so much of realty developments happens only in cities? Are there enough people who can afford the rent (which everybody knows higher in Bangalore) or buy it out. If there are so much developments happening, it also shows that people are migrating towards cities.

Myself a migrant from my native and lived both in Chennai and Bangalore for quite sometime, I started asking why did I migrate in the first place. My family comes from a agricultural background (I guess most Indian families will have the same kind of background) and my father's generation was the first to come out of agriculture partially. Until my grandparents they were fully into agriculture and they were leading a happy life. Seems to be things have changed later when agriculture was not so profitable with failing rains and crops. Agriculture is the one place where the manufacturer cannot set the price for his produce. Either the government controls it or the marketmen (known as Mandi in Tamil) control it.

My father and his brothers were taking up a job and were also planting some crops or leasing the land to somebody to cultivate. From my childhood until now I have noticed cultivation is reduced to a large extent. My generation me and my cousins almost everybody has takenup a job or business to stick to and except one or two nobody ventured into agriculture. Eventhough I have picked up some interest in it, it is going to take some more years for me to settle in it if at all I am planning to continue.

The advantages of being an agriculturalist still lures me.

• No need to go to office and sit in a closed enclosure without knowing if it is day or night (office is always illuminated with lights :) ).
• No pressure of deadlines and crazy timelines. You really become your own boss.
• The last but not the least, there in no income tax on agricultural income ;-

These three reasons seems to be enough for me to venture into agriculture. Any thoughts?