Never say never

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I am one of those people who have their feet firmly planted on the ground. I am so profoundly rooted that it does need a certain caliber of galvanizing to uproot me. I am very focussed and use the most minimal of my resources to reach my goal. As candid as that confession can be, it can be devious. Yes I am pretty grounded but not in the way you are being led to believe. Every human being has a failing and mine is mobility. Dont get me wrong here, I do thank God for my two legs and the power to move them. I love to walk and find opportunities for that. I have exacted a mechanism where not much of me moves apart from the legs and the head tilting towards the direction before the body moves as though my mind is trying to show off its control. I have been called a robot by most people I know but I continue to love walking. Everything else is a challenge that my mind finds insurmountable. I was one of the few kids in school who never ran. Nothing could get me to run. Not the school assembly bell which I would hear while still on my way. Not a soaking rain. Not a traffic jam behind me on a narrow lane. Not Kabaddi. Not running and catching in games period. Not an urgent bathroom break. Not a bus driving off. Not the treadmill (till very very recently). Nothing. But I definitely know how to run. Then came cycling with all its agony. I learnt to cycle after I got scared that my brother might just throw in the towel and leave me to my mechanics (or robotics). I never managed to cycle even to the grocery store in the next lane. Learning to ride a two wheeler was not a necessity and was more fun. For me. Not for the people who taught me. Yes please note the use of "people". From then on it was always going to be a collaborative effort. It started with my dad getting me to learn to ride his Bajaj Chetak scooter behind the old library. It was a tree lined road so am confident that not many would have seen my dad's frustrated efforts and my antics. On to my cousins both of whom tried their best to get me to balance on the Luna without my legs acting as stabilizers. Then it was Rag. All I remember of that is hearing screams reminding me to use the brakes on her Kinetic Honda. Life rolled on without me having to worry too much abt two wheelers aside from the occasional jealousy factor. At about this time my dad bought a car. And there I was, getting to learn how to drive it on empty roads at 6:30 in the morning. I did such a great job of it that one day the coach decided to bring a car whose brakes wouldnt work. After a near miss of a head-on on the busy DVG Road traffic I was ready for my licence. That went off smoothly with me doing the exact opposite of what the examiner asked me to do. It was a miracle I heard anything at all with my heart pounding in my ears. With a brand new licence to show off, the routine trips to relatives' houses happened with me at the helm. And then one day that stopped. Abruptly. I still dont remember why. From then on, many lessons and attempts later I still dont drive very well. In the dozen odd years I have not been able to take the car for a confident spin even once. Everyday begins with a resolve and by the time we are ready to leave to work I start avoiding T's eyes lest he dangle the keys in front of me. From yesterday I have officially started swimming lessons. And that for a person who has been very scared to get into more than shin deep water. I have never played with the bigger waves on a beach. I have been wanting to learn how to swim from the time I was 15. I cant fathom why I did not despite the fact that my home was a stone's throw away from one of the best pools in Bangalore, the Basavanagudi one. I dont know how many more years I will need, to be able to kick my legs, splay my arms and move 10 feet in water. I was a nervous wreck for a week before the class and nearly toppled over from the side of the pool trying to enter it. My knees were knocking together when they told us to take a soak and needed a floater for help. I start kicking like a fish trapped in a net from the word go. It was only the floater tied around my waist that was making me look like I am in control. I am going to need all the resolve to get my feet from under me to kick out upright. What I liked yesterday was the fact that I like being in water like that. So I guess there will be many more lessons to come. And we will not cow down. We will only chew on all the learning and flick away all the usage.


Maybe there is a loose connection between the part of my brain controlling my motor skills and the one controlling my perceptions. My thoughts and dreams soar and dive, run and fly and they know no boundaries.

Rainy Kaleidoscope

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Yesterday was a "Weird Cloud Day" in Bangalore. While it was raining in Cambridge Layout, it was not raining in Indiranagar. While it was raining near Command Hospital, it was not raining near LifeStyle. While it was not raining near Richmond Circle, it was raining at Basavanagudi. Anyone who knows the map of Bangalore can understand how crazy this sounds.

Holes in the sky!

I saw hailstones for the first time around 3 months back! In all of my life (most of which was spent in Bangalore) I had never seen, leave alone hold ice flakes falling from the sky. Now I will know what I am talking about when I talk about "Anekal Male" with my kid, thanks to T who indulged the kid in me (am talking about me own self) and stopped in the middle of a downpour so I could "feel" the hail.

What I like to do most when its raining is drench in it ofcourse. But given all the restrictions imposed on me right now, I can settle for the next best thing - a good (anything that I dont make?) cuppa tea, a great conversation or cracking up on Friends' episodes. Refreshments are welcome from the kitchen sphere ofcourse. Though these days its more of getting cozy with a bottle of water on the couch (have lost most of my teapetite) and having to ask for help to get off it for an "empty" and a refill once in a while. All the while having a good laugh and conversation. This is also fun :)

Jump with joy, but not at Traffic signals

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People in Bangalore are considered experts of the phrase "Swalpa Adjust Madi" but this phenomenon has just transcended certain levels of extremity. What can be more immature than expecting a traffic cop to be present at every traffic signal in the city 24/7. If they are not then people behave like cows on the road, moving and swaying uncontrollably. More and more people are jumping traffic signals in a race to nowhere, as soon as they see that there is no white and khaki uniform around. I will give you a prime example of the signal at ISRO on Airport Road. Anybody who has come on that stretch of Airport Road knows that as soon as the traffic cops go off the people on the road become blind to the glaring traffic signals. And this at the cost of even causing accidents at that spot because its a T junction. They dont even reduce speed while cutting across signals!
There are a few times when the trafiic signals do not work and people rant their fury about how the traffic controllers are causing havoc in the city. While it is true that traffic signals dont work a few times on congested roads, it is a rarity. It is an exception and not the rule.
When will the same people jog their memory and come up with the number of times they have jumped a traffic signal in order to arrive a nanosecond earlier or maybe there was no motivation?
T is a stickler to traffic rules (atleast the basic etiquettes on road) and hates jumping a signal. But everytime he stops (rightfully) at a red light, when there is no traffic cop around, he gets booed into motion by the surge of accelerators behind him and the blare of horns. Many a time he stands his ground and acts deaf (to all the taunts and scoldings which are spewed by others!!) but there have been times when he has had to jump too. Its a democracy after all and minority has not much ground.
There needs to be setup a network of cameras at each traffic junction and pictures of traffic offenders should be taken with the brightest of flashes so that it serves as a warning to others. I think the Manipal Hospital signal has gained some semblance of order after the camera was setup atop the hospital. But these measures need investment from the government. And it takes time. Meanwhile as part of a fast developing country, we the people should start being mature and humane as commuters and drivers. It is not only our own lives we need to safeguard but also of the multitude of people sharing the same road. Spare a thought for all. You never know which innocent person is coming unsuspectingly in your path as you are breaking traffic rules. Set an example. Be an organised traffic freak.

Theaters need a cleanliness drive

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I watched Mungaru Male before all the hype got washed away by our raging monsoon rains in Bangalore. The cinematography in the movie is simply breathtaking. The shots of Jog falls from directly above the plunging fall is stunning. I felt scared when the heroine bends down near the edge of the cliff from where the falls start and the camera pans and cranes down to show the beautiful falls in all its glory from the top!

However this post is not about the movie but about the hall.

After arriving at the theater we waited around for the movie hall to open its door and devour us. In the meanwhile we debated quite a bit whether just a drink would suffice or we needed to buy something to eat as well. All of us were hungry and the prices expensive at the theater food counter. These days we have stopped buying anything at the swank multiplexes because it feels such a shame to pay Rs.40 for a small load of popcorn or Rs.20 for a small glass of coke. We finally decided to share drinks and popcorn and went up to buy it. While we were standing waiting for the guy to serve us, we saw a friendly little neighbourhood insect running happily in between all the goodies on the counter. We were aghast and informed the guy manning the counter. And all he did was give us a shy smile and simply whacked the insect to oblivion. But the incident left its mark on me and I may never buy food at any theater again. Ok thats too much. Let me rephrase it. I might not buy any unpacked food at a theater again. Movie halls should take a cleanliness check. They dont want to entertain us with food poisoning do they?

Just so all Bangaloreans know - this was at PVR Cinemas and it was a cockroach.

Happy Kumar

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He’s a jolly good fellow
He’s a jolly good fellow
He’s a jolly good feeellowwwww
And so say all of us





What are the odds of finding a jolly good bus driver in Bangalore? Did I hear you say none? Think again. If there was a place where I could place bets on the grouchiness of bus drivers I would have made at least 200:1 kind of moolah. For now it just remains as a one off experience. A great way to start the day!
I will call him Happy Kumar in keeping with his state of mind. And he was driving a Volvo bus.
Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has become the first public sector city transport carrier to introduce Air Conditioned Volvo Buses. It has become one of the best ways of public transport in Bangalore today (though even the regular buses are arguably the better ones in India), even beating the Auto to a pulp. Ok my mind wont stop pestering my hand so let me give you another itsy bitsy fact – the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation is the only profit making urban sector public corporation in India.
In Bangalore (as with most other places in India) most buses have one person driving and another dispensing ticket. Today due to staff shortage Happy Kumar was also giving tickets to passengers. People boarding the bus wouldn’t know that and hence would just proceed to occupy a seat. Happy Kumar had a unique way of informing them. He would sing aloud “Buy your tickets here” in English and in Kannada. The best part was that he greeted every passenger with a smile. Talk about customer service. Most call centers need to learn a lesson or two from this guy. He was on a highly stressful job (people who know about traffic congestion in Bangalore know what I am talking about) but he dint take it out on his customers. For example at every bus stop at least 20 people would climb on board. That means 20 ignorant (about the driver giving tickets) people scrambling to grab seats. Plus the Volvo itself is a fast mover. You need to be good at reflexes to drive a sensitive vehicle like that. Happy Kumar not only managed to keep the bus in perfect control but also managed to not miss out selling tickets to any of the passengers.
For once I dint sleep on the way to work and remained laughing on the bus with the rest of the strangers. Happy Kumar made us all feel like one big family.
Wish more people in the service industries were like him.
I got another reward because of Happy Kumar: People at my office told me I look wide awake today! (For those who don’t know I carry an aura of sleep around me)

Autowale ki dadagiri nahin chalegi nahin chalegi

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Inspired by Lage Raho if there is one thing that I want to do then its boycott autorickshaws.

For the uninitiated I have put up a pic of this vehicle. Its a very common sight and mode of transport in Indian towns and cities. Its one of the means to get to one's destination faster than a car or bus but not as fast as a two wheeler of course. These mean machines zip through roads like nobody's business braking or fully stopping wherever and whenever they feel like or for a passenger.

My dad has a very interesting observation about why an auto goes faster than a car. The auto as is evident from the picture does not have a steering wheel but a handlebar like a two wheeler. It has one wheel in the front and two at the back. So my dad feels that since the driver is gripping a handle bar and sees only one wheel in front he thinks two-dimensional (like a scooter rider). The third dimension i.e. the width of the vehicle never occurs to him. So he easily wields the handle and manipulates his way through the densest traffic without any concern for the aghast faces or squealing brakes around him. In fact in some cities like Pune auto drivers judiciously pull the rear view mirrors inwards into the vehicle. To prevent other errant (tch tch) drivers from damaging the mirrors? This leads to more adventure in terms of the driver not bothering to look out for those behind his auto when he is changing lanes .

Coming back to the topic of my dissent towards autos. Its because of the way they charge for their service. The official way of doing this is by using the meters fitted on every rickshaw which charge by the kilometer. But these days the drivers just charge a flat rate for a particular distance. Or they put on the meter and ask for one and half the value shown on the meter. They are all pretty united about this stance so it’s very tough to get an honest to meter driver these days! The bullies just fleece the “hapless” passenger who agrees to pay the demanded price because he wants to get to his destination in time and in style. (Yes taking bus vs taking an auto means a lot in social status around here). Its like taking a cab vs taking the local train or bus in other parts of the world. The root to this problem is also us the passengers. We just started giving in to the bullying when we should have stood up and fought for our transport rights. We puffed up the auto driver with so much ego that now he decides where he wants to go and you can hop in if you are headed in the same direction! He will stop when you signal to him, listen to your choice of destination and then nod yes or ignore and drive ahead depending on the condition I pointed out in the previous statement. And after you settle in, he either states the price or puts on the meter and announces “one and half”. By then you have pictured yourself arriving in an auto so you give in. A few strong ones will even argue and jump off if they dont get a good bargain on the price.
Today I want to light the lamp of freedom in the hearts of all auto passengers. Freedom from tyranny and bullying. I want to not take an autorickshaw till it takes me to my destination on the price shown in the meter. I don’t know how many people will be willing to risk not being able to have a easily obtainable mode of transport but I am sure if we all gang up as one and not give in to the weakness of convenience we can enable these bullies to learn to be sincere towards their work.
Its time for me to leave. Let me go and see if I can get an auto on my terms else am sure I will be meeting my friends late ;)

Story of Chaos

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Traffic jam (whats new?)
After waiting for 20 mins at one spot, the bus lurches ahead and sees "road" at the end of the tunnel of mess.
The irate bus driver gestures "what the! what the hell do u think u are doing"
Traffic cop (balancing himself at the edge of a median-type stone) gestures back "Thale ketthogidhe (Going mad). Nanannee mele yerasbidthare (They will send me only up) saar. Adjust madkondu hogi"
Bus driver feels more sympathetic towards the cop than himself.

Not a single word is spoken though. Power of communication.

Taking Dr. Mallya literally

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Background :
Biocon Ltd chairman and MD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw interviewed UB Group chairman Vijay Mallya on the ills of Bangalore and the possible solutions for The Times of India and this particular part has relevance to what I want to say :

KM : How would you tackle traffic congestion in Bangalore?

VM : Bangalore needs to demarcate its Central Business District and use tolls, congestion fees and software to regulate traffic in the CBD. Cities like London and Singapore have successfully managed traffic congestion through these methods and I don’t see why we can’t do the same. Autorickshaws need to be confined to suburbs and banned from the CBD. We need to introduce car pool lanes on Hosur Road and Whitefield Road to ease traffic density. Bangkok has transformed itself from a mega-traffic-jam city to a free-flowing traffic city through a network of tollpaying elevated roads. We need to borrow from successful ideas and not try to reinvent the wheel. We need to implement the Metro and the Mono Rail projects at breakneck speed. Schools need to manage traffic in a more responsible way. We need more multistoreyed car parks. We need underpasses and overpasses to regulate pedestrian traffic and we need to prevent stray cows and dogs from impeding traffic as well!

CM : He hotly refused to burden the citizens with more taxes.

My take:
Day before yesterday our office shuttle driver decided to take a short cut through a layout in Whitefield to avoid all the traffic logjam on the now internationally (in)famous Marathalli bridge. So, there we were sailing "smoothly" through all the pot holed roads, which is the fact of life for most inner roads of Bangalore layouts. Suddenly we saw a group of guys jumping around on the road in the distance. We did not understand till we came up to them that the war dance that they were performing was to ensure that any approaching vehicle stops before it hits them. Ok so we dint have a choice but to stop, what with two over-enthu guys gleefully blocking the narrow road. The other two guys approached the driver and demanded Rs. 10. Our man was confused. Then one of the guys was kind enough to explain that it was (....now listen to this....) the "toll" for using that road! Many vehicles (cars, tempo travellers and the ilk) plying through erstwhile quiet neighbourhoods near IT hubs have become a menace for the people living there. The narrow roads are not tarred and with every passing vehicle a fresh drift of dust is ushered into every house. One cannot forget the noise pollution which the first-geared vehicles produce. Sometimes there are traffic jams even on these "short-cut" roads. Understandably the frustration of the populace mounts.

We got away that day without paying the ten rupees either because the guys were sheepish about their task or the driver was too much of a match for their wit.

Bangalore's citizens, even if its only jobless opportunist youths, are taking it into their hands to implement what Vijay Mallya suggested and what the CM would not! Is it the correct path? I dont know. I am not here to judge. Nevertheless, kudos to their guts and entrepreneurship!

Long Live Bangalorean Enterprise :)

On top of Bangalore

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Bangalore - I think that very soon we might find this word in the dictionary as a synonym for traffic jam. The only thing that comes to mind when you think of this city is the snarling honking abusing polluting snakes of vehicles. From the drawing room discussion to the stand up comic traffic jams of bangalore have become a hot topic. Everybody has an opinion about how to build flyovers. Everybody has an opinion about how to control traffic. Everybody except the city planner and the traffic cop!
I am not writing this piece to crib about Bangalore's traffic. I think terabytes of data are already being used up for that purpose. What I want to talk about is a different view of Bangalore.
Its not that I was seeing Bangalore for the first time from the air but somehow this time the experience was different. You may attribute it to the fact that I had to endure endless traffic snarls to get to the airport that day but nevertheless the view from top was breath taking.

It was like long snakes zigzaggedly going through a forest full of fireflies showing them direction :)

The roads of Bangalore which look so complicated and messy when you are on them looked so easy to use and beautiful from the top. Minus the view of potholes the roads looked like heaven. I have seen other indian cities like Chennai and Mumbai from the air but none of them have the quality that Bangalore does. This is purely a Bangalorean's opinion so you are to call me prejudiced. Bangalore doesnt look like the jungle Mumbai does or a mess of criss cross like Chennai. It looks calm and serene. And the traffic it just looks so well disciplined. No matter if the car I am seeing from above as gliding is actually a call center cab overtaking a volvo from the left while trying to avoid the motorist to his left, it all looks well coordinated from above. Calm and composed is how I see Bangalore and I love it.

I now see the wisdom in the fact that lot of great devotees have written odes to God asking him to come down and have a look at the world. Well, if I am getting the view of serenity from a plane at 35000 ft, I can well imagine the grandeur that God would be seeing from way way way above us all.

What happened in Bangalore had nothing to do with mourning.

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I cannot accept that people who got angry at being denied permission to see actor Rajkumar’s body wreaked havoc on the city. How can people claiming to be fans resort to such hooliganism on their idol’s natural death? Hooliganism was what it was. At its very worst. The channels that weren’t blacked out on the cable network had only pictures of violence to show. The rowdies even attacked the media persons asking them to focus on them instead of being sympathetic towards the police. What should the media have focused more on? The goons hitting policemen till they bled? Pranksters pelting stones at anything in their sight, which can break or bleed? Crazy mobs making a bonfire of buses and tyres? Just what was it that they wanted more focus on? Another rumor being passed around was that external elements were involved. That seems like a very practical conclusion. The Rajkumar fan club seems to have always been a very volatile group. All they need is a spark to ignite and unleash their fury. But was that what was required on a day when they were supposedly mourning for his passing away? Why couldn’t they give a tearful farewell to express their anguish instead of a bloody one?
I was at a Satyanarayana Swamy’s puja yesterday at a neighbour’s house. The prasadam was held up in Domlur with no transport to reach the puja venue. The gathered people were hesitant to go and get it. After much persuasion one uncle kindly agreed. But only after a big photo of Rajkumar was cut out from the day’s news paper and stuck on the windshield of the car. This was only as a precautionary measure to avert any stones being thrown at the car and to prevent mob attraction.
One of my friend’s car was stoned as he was going home on Wednesday night. What was supposed to do? Stay put wherever he was just because these goons want to mourn?
For Dr.Rajkumar’s family it must have been a nightmare. Granted that he belonged to the people of Karnataka and not just their family but was it this kind of violently behaved people that he belonged to?

Of terrible tuesday, gruesome crime and we the people

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What prompts a crime? Is it the victim or just the criminal’s mind or both? This is the question that always comes to my mind when I come across any crime especially dealing with assault, rape, murder and many such of the same ilk.
It was the very same question which came to my mind when I first heard the news about HP BPO's employee Pratibha Krishnamoorthy Shrikanth. In my tormented mind I imagined her fear as the sick guy committed the heinous crime. I read about the police’s reaction to it. But my question is “Will checking the background of all cab drivers prevent this”? Nobody is born with an evil mind. It’s developed over a certain period of time or it’s developed in one weak moment. I am also a bit skeptical about the background check itself. There are ways and means known to many about by-passing laws. It’s a universal truth and let’s acknowledge it. We did our bit of living room discussion on the subject when one of us raised the point that sending security guards with every cabbie might be a good idea. But my skeptical mind raised another question “How will you trust the security guard? On what basis?” We have heard of criminal incidents involving security guards as the main culprits. Whom do we trust? What about cases of mugging in broad daylight? Withdrawing money from an ATM or bank doesnt feel secure anymore. What can one do in such a situation where you have an assault weapon in your face and nobody around who will help? How do we change this situation of perpetually being in terror? And they talk about cross border terrorism all the time! I for one don’t feel very safe anymore about moving around alone in Bangalore. I have been in Bangalore for the past 17 years and never before did I shirk from walking back home from a bus stop 10 minutes away from home at 9:45 in the night. Now I will. I will become an obsessive compulsive over-the-shoulder looker. Our society is leading women towards a pepper spray and karate revolution. And it’s not only women. What about men who get mugged at knife point. Safety is fast becoming a myth in Bangalore.
I know there are a lot of questions and it’s an open ended debate. But it’s a debate that has to be discussed and a solution to be reached soon. Like Narayana Murthy said in discussion with Bill Gates and Prannoy Roy on NDTV, Indians are great at debating endlessly but we need to arrive at decisions faster (This quote is of course not verbatim. It’s just a quick gist). This need is of a greater consequence today. So let’s rally together and try to pool in our ideas. Let the solution to the growing problem of safety come from us, people!

I met a Beauty Queen this weekend.....

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‘Twas the Ford Supermodel from India, Shubra Aiyappa.

I had my own (little world) apprehensions about what to wear and how to present myself to a supermodel. Come to think of it I never imagined I would one day, me being light years away from the “public life” spectrum. I landed at her house in a blue jean and a well worn and favorite Tantra t-shirt. It was more like the t-shirt would instill confidence in me. (It’s that chilled out feeling one gets when one wears one’s old clothes compared to the jitters in a brand new ensemble). I rang the bell which was on a wall covered with beautiful murals. Waited expectantly to meet the queen and met a very pretty queen mother instead. "I know where she gets her good looks from", I thought. Then was ushered in and seated in a comfortable sofa. It was then that I got a fleeting glimpse of her standing shyly near the kitchen door. “Was that?…Is that tall young girl in a cute short frock the supermodel?” was all I could think of! She looked so different. At the same time stunning was the word to describe her even sans make up and arc lights. Contrary to popular beliefs about beauty pageant winners, she is a down to earth, very congenial and sweet girl who was as much at home with excited neighbours streaming into her house congratulating her, as with celebrities doing the same on a more public platform. Looking at her sitting cross legged on a dining chair behind the sofas in the living room and peering in between shoulders to watch Star Plus, I wondered whether this was the same girl who looked so much at ease walking the ramp and confessing that she belonged there. Another one of my myths broken. I will not judge a model by her “rampishness” anymore.