Bengaluru commuter turns to AI for a song on the city's broken roads

A Bengaluru resident has turned to artificial intelligence to voice a complaint familiar to the city's commuters, releasing an AI-generated song titled Tax Me that calls for usable road infrastructure.

Punit Vara, a 34-year-old techie living near Choodasandra, uploaded the track to YouTube. He said both the lyrics and the music were produced entirely with AI tools, using his everyday experiences on the road as prompts.

The song takes a satirical look at Bengaluru's traffic, potholes, flooding, construction work and the repeated digging up of roads. At its core is a simple demand: a road that can be driven on.

A personal trigger

Mr. Vara said his motivation came from nine months of driving his pregnant wife to regular doctor visits along Doddamara Road, which falls under the Anekal Assembly constituency represented by A. Shivanna. He described the road's condition as pathetic and the trips as highly dangerous, requiring extra care. He also uses the road daily.

He characterised the song as a satire anthem for every techie, parent, auto driver and commuter who navigates Bengaluru's "moonscape streets" every day.

Familiar frustrations

The track's lyrics reference "pothole number 27" — a nod to the state of Doddamara Road on the city's southeastern outskirts, which Mr. Vara suggests is not very different from other city roads.

The song acknowledges the taxes commuters already pay, including income tax and GST, before listing other everyday charges. It clarifies that the complaint is not about wanting gold-plated roads or a perfect city, but about basics: roads without potholes, walkable sidewalks, buses that arrive, and streets that do not vanish under monsoon water.

Another verse captures the experience of moving through a city crowded with simultaneous projects: "Metro above me. Digging below, flyover beside me. Nobody knows where to go."