Farewell Bangalore

Dear Bangalore,
I still remember the day I first set my sight on you. Little did I know that you will play a crucial role in my life. It was in 2002, during my engineering days. I was on my 5th semester tour. I can still feel the cold climate and the smell of the fresh flowers. Those big shopping malls, the pubs and the ultra modern folks (chics) here instantly made you one of my dream cities. All those stories about software professionals making a nice living here, oh! man, I had decided that you are the one city I want to be in.

Fall 2003
I came again for the 7th semester tour and by that time me and my friends wanted to spend some quality time here with you and that’s one main reason we chose to do our final year project here. Those were the days, when I started loving you – fall 2003. I think I loved everything about you. The New Year (2004) celebrations in Brigade road – I don’t think I will ever forget it. Even I loved the journeys to and from my native to you.

Again
Again, you crossed path with my life even if not for long in spring 2005 in when I started ‘hunting’ for a job. But fortunately or unfortunately, I got my job in Trivandrum. Then again, I knew that someday I am going to come back to you. And that’s why, when I got an offer from here, I was really excited. But before coming here, I heard many rumors about the pathetic traffic conditions, the slowly disappearing cold climate etc.

Expectations
What I expected was not what I saw in here. A city which is so polluted with dust and garbage, roads filled with vehicles and dogs, malls and shop keepers who wanted to grab the money in my pocket to theirs, auto rickshaw drivers who will kill if they get a chance etc. I really got scared at first seeing the changed you and because of the change in climatic conditions, I was having fever, cold etc on a regular basis. I even thought about leaving you. My regular readers are aware of my attitude towards you, I guess.

Time is a healer
Getting used to things we confront daily is a quality (good or bad?) of the human race. Slowly I started liking you. One important thing I like about you is the personal space you gave me. Also the technological community here and the exposure I got from you were simply amazing. I realized there is a world like this. It totally changed my outlook towards life itself. I had a very good team and work environment, a new circle of friends, lots of parties to attend, all those nice hotels where I could try different variety of dishes, the beautiful climate which helped me maximizing my artistic talents and so on.

Farewell
Finally the time has come for me to move on. In this journey of life, I have reached a point where I have to part with you, my beautiful friend. I have no idea what is there in store for me in the future. May be I will fall in love with the next city I am moving to. May be I am never going to come back to you. But looking back now, I can see vividly, the influence you have in my life. With so many challenges, experiences, happy times, sad times, you have a very special place in my heart. And that place will ever be there, no matter where I go or what I become. I really hope I will be able to come back some day to you and I know, if that day comes, you will be here with your warm welcome, just like you welcome anyone who comes to you. Farewell Bangalore.

With warm love and regards
- Manu

Frustrations of a Citizen

I guess, you might have guessed it already, by reading the title. Something related to politics or government or our society. This time, I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The incident happened last Wednesday (Sept 17). I had noticed in the news paper that morning about traffic restrictions in Bangalore due to the visit of the new leader of Nepal. Since I read only the headlines, I didn’t know which part of Bangalore, it will happen. Only when one of my colleagues pointed out that he plans to leave office early due to this [my office is near Bommanahalli], that I noticed the restrictions will be in the Hosur road between 5:30pm and 7:30pm. The ‘VIP’ was visiting the electronic city it seems.
I thought he was kidding when I heard him first. You can’t be serious. That is the peak time. All those traffic from electronic city will be stopped? I couldn’t believe it. But I didn’t want to take my chances. I too wanted to get out early. Unfortunately, by the time I made it to the road, it was almost 6pm.
There was a whole battalion of police in the road. I tried my best to cross the silk board flyover. After that I could take some short cuts. Just before the flyover, I was stopped by the police. Had I left my office one minute earlier, I would have passed the police. I was at the front of the queue. They stopped all the traffic through the silk board flyover. I had to wait nearly 30 minutes. I was lucky since I was almost in the front of the queue. I had my camera with me. I decided to have some snaps and thought about writing this blog.

You can see the queue in the service road next to the Hosur main road. The police escorts cleared all the vehicles from the main road to the side roads.

A policeman asking the 2-wheelers to park to the side

I guess the black sedan is the one which ‘contains’ the lucky ‘B*st**d’

You can see the silk board flyover devoid of traffic except for the pilot vehicles. Yes, all the vehicles in the road are escort vehicles. I took this picture around 1 minute after the black sedan passed, so that you can imagine the number of escort vehicles. It’s all the tax payers’ money I guess. I bet you won’t see this road this free of traffic during day time let alone for the peak times, except for ‘special’ occasions like these.

I don’t have any problems with ministers or ‘VIPs’ visiting places or attending meetings. I agree that they had announced it early. But, as a citizen and a tax payer, I believe that I have the right to disagree with whatever they do or decide to do. Everyone knows that 5:30pm – 8:00pm in Bangalore is the peak traffic time. They could have chosen some other time for this visit, probably before noon or afternoon. Why the hell they always choose/want to make the life of ordinary people more and more miserable? When did they stop caring for ordinary people? Or when have they ever cared anything about citizens? Since they are the leaders, they may be trying to lead the way for us. Who knows?
ps: feel free to fill in the quoted/starred words (eg: ‘VIP’) with whatever you like.

Skillful Driver

I have noted this almost one year back. Its on the way to the place where I stay. My roommate pointed this first. I took these pictures some 4-5 months back to write a blog about. Its only now that I am doing it.

Well, at first glance, even if it may look like an ordinary picture, look closely. Look at how that vehicle is parked. Its parked perfectly between a tree and the electric post. Well, as some of you may think, my first impression was that its been parked there for a long time and the electric post was fixed in front of the pickup later. But then the next day while I was passing I noticed the vehicle was not there. And I saw some one driving it through the street. Again the next day I noted the vehicle back there. I am really wondering how that driver parked perfectly in between those two obstacles. He really is a skillful driver or a very patient one.

A Nightmare!

It’s the Christmas season and as usual, I was excited as the vacation came close. This year, 21^st Dec, which is a Friday was also a holiday and then 25^th is Tuesday. And if you take 2 days off on 24^thand 26^th, you’ll get nearly one week vacation. I started thinking about the travel to my hometown in Kerala even before 2-3 months due to the huge rush. Then my sister told me, there is a travel agency near her place and she can reserve a ticket for me. I said ok. So she booked the ticket around 2months ago. They noted the date, destination and number of seats required and all. But they didn’t give us the actual ticket and said, they will give it later and added, don’t worry, you will be able to go home safe and sound. Ok, we thought. And as the dates neared, we asked them. They gave the ticket, not in the bus we asked for. Also not to the destination we asked for. We had a big fight over that with the travel agency and finally got the ticket the day before my travel. I didn’t want to take any chances. So I went to the bus office [which is from where I board the bus] and I asked them about the ticket. They were not even aware about this ticket and asked me from where I got this ticket. I told them about the travel agency and they told they don’t have a ticket for this date. It was seat number 9 and after some argument, they changed it to 20 and added if I am lucky there won’t be any double reservation [Again the time of the bus on the ticket was incorrect]. I called my sister and she again had a big fight with the travel agency. In the end, they said that some how they will get me home either in that bus or some other bus.

On the day of my travel, I reached the bus office by 5:30. Fortunately, when the bus came, only 2 persons were already there and seat number 20 was free. I thanked God. I was hoping that it will be a good journey, and the bus was almost on time, 6:30pm. The bus took off and reached another travel agency, and some people boarded the bus and there came one man who asked me whether my ticket is for seat no: 20. I said yes. I was getting tensed. He went out. Then there came a person for ticket checking. He checked my ticket and didn’t tell me anything. I was relaxed. The man who asked me, got a seat in the back. So that was the double reservation. After some time, there came another lady, who asked me the same. Oh my god! It was the second person who had a ticket with seat number 20. She also went outside and she got the back seat only. I think, only because, I boarded the bus first, I retained the seat. This happened with almost every seat and at almost every travel agency we stopped and by the time the bus reached Bangalore city limits, it was 8:30pm, 2hours late than it should be. I hoped all the problems were over. But the main one was yet to come, the Bus itself. It definitely is not an air bus or too old to be recognized as one. The ordinary KSRTC buses are better I think. Every time we hit a gutter, almost everyone in the bus wakes up. Someone was even thrown out of the seat once. That was one of the worst journey’s I ever had in my whole life time. Everyone was cursing all the time. There was nothing much to do. And finally, I am supposed to reach at my place by 6am, but I reached by 9am [mainly because of the initial delay] not safe and sound, but with body pain and sleepy eyes. It really was a nightmare.

Now I have some questions and suggestions,
Is it so difficult to organize a journey and the tickets?
Is there anyone to complain about these exploits by the travel agencies especially during festival seasons?
What is there to be done to make sure the buses start a journey and reach the destination at the right time in the case of Bangalore to Kerala journey?

And my suggestions are,
Never take the A-1 bus, with registration KA-41 2552. You will be in hell. The travels from where the bus started was Choice Travels, opposite to Bata shop and near MAS restaurant. Those travel people seem nice anyway.
I am sure atleast some of my readers have similar experiences with buses. But there was a time, when I enjoyed these travels very much, only before 3years when every thing worked fine.

What the hell?

I tried to ‘love’ Bangalore. But here is something I would like to share with you. Can any one please explain these traffic signals?? Especially my ‘I love Bangalore’ friends. I am confused about all these. I took these photos from Madiwala, near the Hanuman temple.

1. All the signals are red and all the vehicles are moving. Why?

2. Ok, the previous one may have been the drivers’ error. May be they saw the road deserted and went ahead. But what about this one?? If you look at this picture, you can see all the green signals are there. They tell the drivers, it’s ok to go wherever you want to go, left, right or straight. The road is all yours. [In fact, you cannot take a left turn here].

3. Can somebody help me out here, please? Which one do I choose? The red one or the green one? [Yes the green light shows ‘go straight’ not ‘go right’, zoom it, you’ll see. And I don’t think there is a left turn there, if that’s what the red indicates]
Don’t think this is a faulty traffic light post, its like this every time. I checked it many times. Fortunately I don’t have to use my bike in this road so often.

4. This time its my fault, I didn’t see the sign post [No Parking] [This photo, I took from across the mall, Forum] I’m not blaming anyone here, just that I want you to know this is a ‘no parking’ space and if you park here, there is a chance that the police will impound your vehicle [Look close, you can see the ‘no parking’ sign, near the transformer, where 2 bikes are parked]. Last day, after a movie at Forum, when I came back, I couldn’t find my bike. I saw people stacking some bikes into a carriage truck. I enquired and they said, come to Madiwala Police Station. Finally I ‘released’ my bike for Rs 300/-.

5. What can you say about this? Ofcourse this is not a main road[Maruthinagar], but obviously one with really heavy traffic. And during a Saturday evening [hope you know the traffic rush of weekends], they have set up a stage right in the middle of the road.

These are a few things I came across over a period of 2 days, about Bangalore. If I start writing about all the things, I don't think this blog will be enough. So much for the great Bangalore.

Bangalore: The City of thieves?

First of all, I am not accusing everyone in Bangalore. I have many good friends who are originally from here. But this is the first impression I have got about Bangalore - Garden city as well as the city of thieves. The day when I joined my new company, I heard about the burglary of a mobile of one of my colleague. The incident goes like this. My colleague forgot to take her mobile to a meeting and left it on her office desk. When she was back, the mobile was long gone. I appreciate her for fighting with all her efforts and finally she got her mobile back after a series of incidents. I am not going in to the details of it [as I am not allowed to do so].
While discussing this incident with another of my colleague, he told me about what happened to him. A woman came to his apartment and introduced that she will clean the house. He went inside for a second opinion from another guy who is staying there. By the time he got back, she was gone along with his wallet. He somehow traced her to a street and even before he could talk to her, the locals rammed the place and he literally had to flee. So the next whole week he was really busy, calling all the credit/debit card companies to block them.
Okay, those are two incidents of theft which happened to my colleagues. These were the hot news of discussion among us for the first week I landed here. Then I heard many similar incidents for which I cannot submit any proof.
Even if you cannot call theft in the direct sense, what else can you call what the auto-rikshaw drivers are doing here? How can you logically resolve what has happened to you when you have to pay Rs 20/- and Rs 60/- for the same route and same distance to two different auto-riksaw drivers? They all think they are above the law. At the same time, the public transportation system here is really pathetic. Even to travel a distance of 1-2kms, it may take from half to one hour at peak times of traffic.
Leave the auto-rikshaw drivers. I once went to a furniture mart to buy a couple of chairs. The person there immediately showed me and my friend a printed chart of the prices of some brands and models of chairs. After some time bargaining he went inside the shop and produced the catalogue showing the detailed pictures of the chairs. First we thought what he saying was correct. Later only we inspected the catalogue with the actual chairs models there and we really got surprised to see that that price in that printed sheet was well below what he told us. Around Re100-200/- margin was there.
Or, take the case of BSNL. I gave application for a BSNL broadband connection on September 9^th, 2007. They assured me that I will get it with in one week. Now its almost 2 months and I am still waiting. You can read the detailed story about it in my other blog. I even had to start a trilogy to explain the whole stuff.
Is there any means to book people like these? What do I have to do? File a complaint in the police station? I don’t think that will help in anyway. I can narrate a number of incidents like these. I think its time we need to act. But how, I don’t know.