Archita (centre) in a still from one of her movies. Telegraph picture

When I reflect on my two-decade long affair with Bhubaneswar, it appears similar to any other relationship that has its own highs and lows. But the love for my city is always there.

Ever since I can remember, my family has lived in the locales of Unit 9. Some of the faint memories of childhood bring alive pictures of a group of children from the locality, who were my first friends. A quiet and peaceful setting amidst the greenery of the city gave us the freedom of village life and that small area with known faces meant the world to us.

Life was simple and had its own special charm. I grew up watching films of Uttam Mohanty, Tiki Apa (Aparajita Mohanty), Bijay Mohanty, Mihir Das, who were superstars for me, at theatres far off from our area during trips made by the entire family. None of the hullabaloo of the present day was felt in the city. But as I stepped into teenage, the city too seemed to begin thinking like me. We aspired for bigger dreams together.

The emergence of local television channels in the second half of the nineties thrilled me. From an ambition of becoming a famous Odissi dancer, I leaned slightly towards the possibilities of modelling or appearing on television.

By and by, the city too looked new, decked with pictures of stylish damsels on huge hoardings on multi-lane shiny, black metal roads connected to all major centres of the growing city. The opening up of a number of branded stores of fashion houses, malls and various centres for the youth to chill out in delighted me while the growth of apartments everywhere, including my locality, made me sad to see all signs of my childhood disappear just like the decades-old trees that were felled everywhere in the city.

Serenity might have taken a backseat, but the transformation of Bhubaneswar from its definition as the temple city and the quartered houses capital, to a city of plush bungalows and modern houses was as exciting to me as winning two state-level modelling titles in the first five years of the new millennium.

I was already known as a child artist and anchor for a couple of television shows and offers for films were raining when I was 15. The likes of directors Chandi Parija and Sanjay Nayak tried to convince me and my mother. But the growing IT sector and the boom in the technical education of the city had caught my attention. I joined engineering classes, but could not resist the offers for big projects anymore.

It has been an unbelievable experience working as a co-star with all those I used to idolise in the Oriya film industry. And the growth of the industry, with more and more projects of higher budgets by producers from the city, has made Bhubaneswar a major centre of films at par with Cuttack today. While acting and engineering are on at their own pace in my life, the city’s pace is hard to follow now.

Once anything beyond the Shahid Nagar area to Old Town area were considered outskirts, today the outskirts literally do not end anywhere near Nandankanan, Khandagiri or Uttara.

Bhubaneswar is stretching its arms far and wide while the interiors, to me, are definitely one of the most well-maintained among the various cities I have been to all across the country.

Of course, the new avatar of the city has brought its own demerits.

Somewhere there seems to be more than a little truth in the criticism of the city about the detachment among people and even neighbours in a locality. To make it worse, the growing crime rate of the city has brought in the issue of insecurity. Pollution and traffic are problems that can be easily predicted to only grow further.

The weather of Bhubaneswar, that once used to be pleasant and cool most times of the year, has now turned into a maximum-summer-days situation. While the chill in the air could be felt anytime around mid-October, the arrival of winter has shifted to December or later.

Nevertheless, the city provides a finely balanced environment for the youth. There’s as much freedom and as much restriction that young minds need to grow.

Of course, I wish there was a better climate for the growth of art and creativity that could attract more youngsters into the regional forays of cinema, art and traditional performing arts.

The one major thing that the city probably lacks, despite a number of Oriya films and even cultural programmes, especially of Odissi dance, is a sincere effort to groom the youth in the traditional forms of arts.

Among technical institutes that the city has become a hub of, there is an urgent need to either establish a new institute that can produce creative and original film makers and artistes as well as promote folk arts like puppetry, tribal dances etc. or to renovate the existing ones to catch up with current times.

Much of these responsibilities lie with me and my generation. It’s time we came together to add to Bhubaneswar the features that it must have and that it had but are now lost. I dream of a future in which my city will be a green city, temple city, cultural hub as well as a centre for science, technology and industry. And I believe it’s all possible.