Make a difference

Hey guys, happy Independence Day! Really how many of you thought and pondered about what independence means to you to this day, or did anything that would in a way help the country?

I read this article posted on The Times of India, I guess most of you have heard about the “Teach India initiative” I thought it was a great idea to do my bit for the nation. So I signed up and made a couple of my friends sign up too…

I think no person is too busy to spare 2 hours a week. I am urging all of you to sign up too. And do your bit for the nation.

You can sign up here.

The political drama!

Ladies and gentleman, it’s election time in Karnataka again and one can see all the politicians working harder than ever before!

Well, all the common man can do is to sit and observe all the drama unveiling in front of him. Finally he is the judge, or is he?

There is a strong scent of alcohol, stealth, jealousy and fake promises in the air!

The party manifestos have huge things like infrastructure development, provision for water, electricity, ways to combat inflation… blah blah blah put up on them! They sound pretty convincing, but everybody knows that the truth is they’re all here to make money!

I turned 18 last year, I was all excited to exercise my rights as a citizen and vote! I was all charged up and I did everything to get my name enrolled into the voters list, from downloading forms on the Internet to going to some 3-4 BBMP offices! Everywhere the treatment they gave me was no different than how the Jews were treated in Germany during the Second World War!
After standing for hours on end in endless queues, I gave up, it made me think… how will it make a difference if I vote, whoever comes up will only make money for himself! Nobody is even slightly interested in doing anything for the country.
These politicians have some audacity though… Nobody ever comes to enquire about the citizens’ grievances until elections are around the corner. They come and give flowery speeches with “heavy” promises! And again it’s the same old story… they go absconding till it’s time for the next election!
Even when they go “asking”(read as: begging) for votes, they go to the slums and give the poor people a bottle of “saarai” each and give them colour TVs and stuff. Do the working laborers need color televisions? They need education for their children, they need some sort of arrangement for food and other basic necessities. The poor people have to enjoy with a colour TV when their children are starving to death! What a situation…
If they come to the slightly more educated people to ask for votes, they know they’ll get interrogated about past performances and the non fulfillment of those promises, one would expect them to have enough shame and not show up!
But they still do and they are all ready with the answers to the FAQ’s!
The congress government in the centre has failed pretty miserably if you ask me! The inflation is so bad, the prices are at an all time high, people can’t afford things, people are paying more taxes, reaping less and the going is getting only tougher! And in the state too they haven’t done much, except for S.M. Krishna, who they say “prospered” as the chief minister, but yeah he was probably the one responsible for the strengthening of “brand Bangalore”
The coalition government between the JD-S and the Congress was clearly a disaster!
They were too busy fighting amongst themselves to even bother to do anything for the people!
Now I’m convinced that both these parties are pretty useless.
That leaves BJP out, they’re not too great either, incompetent leaders, bad management and again a whole new set of fake promises!
I don’t know what the result will be like, all I’m hoping for is the betterment of the state

Jaywalking… Whose fault is it?

I had a really scary experience today, I was riding back home. This incident took place in front of forum. This lady (who looked educated, mind you!) was trying to cross the road. The road was pretty empty so it was a natural tendency for the motorists to touch high speeds.
This lady all of a sudden tried to cross the road, and halfway across the road, a car going at a rather high speed was going against her. She was in a fix, so she held out her hand in order to stop the car. The man in the car, put the brakes immediately and that lady was somehow saved, but the car behind him couldn’t put the brakes quite as fast and he rammed into the first car. I, on my bike was behind the second car was able to put my brakes on time, so I didn’t ram into the car in front of me, but my bike skid, and I fell down. A bus was behind me and if his brakes weren’t good enough, he would have run me over splitting my head into two! Thankfully I escaped without a single scratch on my body or bike, but I was left rather shaken.
Such a huge mishap, thanks to that one lady…
But if you sit and wonder. You don’t really know if it’s pedestrian’s fault (though if a motorist hits a pedestrian, somehow it’s always the motorist who is blamed) Is it his fault that he doesn’t cross at a zebra crossing, or is it the motorists who ride/drive at high speeds, or the government for not putting up enough zebra crossings?
Who is to be blamed? The people, the government or the entire system? Is there a solution to this, if so…what?
Times of India has taken up an initiative called unlock Bangalore, let’s see what they can do to the city and let’s try to do our best to improve the condition of our city

Boney-M, Live in Concert

Boney-M played at Palace grounds in Bangalore, this Saturday and since I’d got free passes, I ended up with family and friends.
It started off with a band named Aurko performing, they played a few cover-versions of some R. D. Burman songs, and some of their own compositions, very promising I must say. Then they had a small talk to spread awareness about Global Warming. This worked as an appetizer for what was coming up next.
Marcia Bennett the lead singer then took stage. They performed a few of their chart busters, namely- Rivers of Babylon, Rasputin, Daddy cool, Ma Baker and Sunny. Marcia, though rather old still has the same zing in her voice, it was superb! The music, the crowd and the amazing display of fireworks.
* Marcia I read has fought cancer, not once or twice, but FOUR times, she overcame it each time and made her grand comeback in 2005. She and her husband Marcus James have written and composed more than 500 songs!

But the problem was the concert was too short, Boney-M played only for an hour and a half, and that’s it, they wrapped it.
It left the audience asking for more, and when they didn’t get it, most people were disappointed.
It was organised by the students of IIPM and they weren’t entirely professional, the crowd management and parking etc was mismanaged, overall the audience didn’t really get what they expected and Boney-M didn’t live up to the expectations.

*I’d written this blog before I figured this piece of information, so it was a great deal that she was even able to come this far and perform thnis much, hats off to Marcia Bennett!

The One Way maze!

Did you know

• Bangalore has the most number of one ways in the entire world! A whopping 260!
• Bangalore has the most number of motor vehicles in the world.
• Bangalore has one of the worst traffic situations in the world.

It’s annoying isn’t it! Wherever you go, it’s a one way. I don’t think the people in charge (currently nonexistent!) understand that making a road a one way wont solve any problems because the traffic is going to pile up elsewhere if not here and that other place will be made a one way… It’s a viscous cycle. Apart from more than half the roads being one way, there are certain roads which will be blocked by dividers. So if you’ve to take a U-Turn you might have to travel a kilometer or two extra!

The worst affected are the people who travel from Kormangala to Jayanagar (and viceversa) the road is blocked by a divider and hence you will have to go to Madivala to take a U-Turn and come back onto Hosur road to get to Dairy Circle. And the worst is the newly made one way… The NIMHANS road, even the St.John’s Hospital road is a one way. I think it’s an awful idea to make hospital roads a one way.

The one way system not only affects the commuters, it also affects the businessmen who have shops on certain roads. I think it is unfair to them.

The worst one ways in Bangalore are:

• Brigade Road
• NIMHANS Road
• St.John’s Road
• The Madivala Road
• Residency Road
• Richmond Road
• Cunningham Road
• Vittal Mallya Road
• Miller’s Road
• Queen’s Road

The traffic situation is going from bad to worse, and to get to a place in Bangalore is so tough, there is a minimum one hour traffic jam you’ll have to be stuck in if you’re travelling in the peak hours and that too with dilapidated infrastructure and omnipresent potholes lining all the roads and with all the unnecessary humps, it becomes hell!

There are probably solutions to this:

• Travelling by office/college/BMTC buses (the BMTC actually provides pretty good service)
• Car-pooling.
• Walking/cycling (if your workplace/college is close by)

I think this will at least help if not decongest Bangalore City, and I don’t think anything can be done about the poor condition of the roads… What say?

Stranded!

8.25 AM on 7th sept, I leave home for college. Which is exactly 11 kms away and involves going through Hosur Road, Silk Board junction and BTM layout! It took me around 5 mins to get to Hosur road and as usual it was one huge mess there!

8.55 AM I’m still on silk board junction and realised that there is no way I can magically get to college and find my way to some class in the campus in the next 5 minutes. So I call my friend and she tells me that we have a one hour orientation program which would have bored me to death anyway, so I decided to get back home.

9.15 AM I’m back home. I lift the seat of my bike to find the storage area EMPTY! My mother had left for office. I generally have my house keys and money in my bag and most people say I’m surgically attached to my bag…And today out of all days I had left my bag at home… I find it exceptionally strange that I could leave to college without my bag! What was I thinking!!! I didnt know whom to call because ALL my friends had college and I couldnt think of what to do. Only if I had some money I could’ve watched a movie or something.Then it was my stroke of luck that my friend Rashmi was at home and she told me that I could just go to my mother’s office to pick up the keys.

9.25 AM I am on my way to my mother’s office (which again involves going via silk board junction!). Somehow I reached and picked up the keys (and got yelled at for not decently taking the bus), and I left. After a bumpy ride I came back home at 10.AM… tired!
The last one and a half hours just wasted in vain on silk board junction…

The unsophisticated life!

Sometimes I’m forced to wonder whether our lifestyle is too high end and whether we’re given too many privileges…Though I’m not complaining and in fact I throw tantrums to get most of them it still remains a mystery what I would’ve been if it were otherwise!

My mother’s childhood friend was home today and they, as expected were reminiscing about the past and their good old days! My mother belongs to a family of 8 children(I still exclaim this fact with my granny!)! So I’m supposing this can give you a pretty good picture of how fussed over they would be! They were’nt exactly given the privileges of life (from our perspective that is) For them three square meals a day(made and served piping hot by my granny!) was more than sufficient. They all studied in a pretty decent school during their times and were not exactly asked to study!Well I’m still pretty surprised how my mother finished her B.Sc without flunking even once in her life! According to what my mum told me nobody gave a damn for education!

Their evenings would be spent just joyfully walking around the streets of Jayanagar. My mum claims “aa 16th main savadu hogirode namminda ashtu naddidivi!”(that 16th main road has developed cracks only because of us, we’ve walked that much!). There was no TV or internet and certainly no cell phones for them to spend time no so they would invariably walk around!

My mum also exclaims as to how perpetually broke they would be! “aidhu paisa kadlekayi burfi tinnokku duddu irtirrlilla“(we didnt even have 5 paisa to buy groundnut sweets!) and “sakkath othla hoddidivi, manege barthirlilla, bari road alle suttutidvi, book uh annodu muttila ad hege pass adavo” (we played the fool too much,never reached home and we didnt even touch our books.I dont know how we passed!)

The general attitude was like that. So people back then cound enjoy every bit of happiness they got because even the “aidhu paisa kadlekayi burfi” was a huge treat for them.

On the other hand we are given everything that are parents were not given…We get loads of “aidhu paisa kadlekayi burfis” (which are not even 5 paise anymore!) at our every beck and call! Our demands are also way more than that and we’re rarely denied anything. But we got nothing that our parents got. We didnt get the freedom they got. My dad still asks me a hundred questions if I go for a movie(strictly the morning show only!) and I’ve heard stories of him jumping walls to go for night show movies-Every other day!

We’re forced by our parents and everyone around us to be a part of the rate race.This is a price we are paying for getting all the luxuries of life!

I dont know whether this is good or bad for us or whether we would be having more fun if we were also allowed to do what they would do. but I do realise that Times change and how we’ve got to change with it. (Because I’m sure if I were like my mum now I would be an outcast!). Very cliched but alarmingly true “whatever happens, happens for the good!”

an evening stroll

It was a fine evening when i realised the importance,neccesity and the pleasure of walking.After endless hours of being couped up in my room(or in your case,probably the office!) or stuck in traffic or writing exams this was a pleasant change.
After my dinner i decided to take a walk,it was a chilly night and i felt really nice as the wind blew against my face.i felt physically more relaxed after a long long time(repurcussions of board exams.for further reference as to why i reached that stage,view previous blog)and as a result felt a little more relaxed and thus felt happy.
From the walk i took i had a lot of revelations.Apart from the benefits of walk(i have weight issues!)i realised that the body mind and soul are deeply connected.and a simple walk could give you so much time for self introspection.
My sincer advice.try walking in the calmer areas of town.Dont pick a place like 4th block jayanagar.Leave alone any thinking you will be more tensed as to save yourself from getting run ovcer by a vehicle!
The minute i felt physically better,my worries started to diminish and i felt a lot more at ease than i had in a long time.
I suggest that you try it for yourself.you will know how it can change a lot of things!