And they ask me why does my blood boil?

It is already a nightmare if you have to take the public transport on normal days in Bangalore. Add to it what I just suffered and then answer the question I pose in the title.

On a humid Tuesday night, I leave office at the end of my shift only to go down to the parking and find out that my bike has a flat tyre. Well .. putting the disappointment of not being able to zoot off home on my bike after the end of a long I walk up to the main gate of the premises. 15 mins and no BMTC bus in sight, I begin to entertain thoughts of taking an auto all the way home .. which would have costed me a fortune considering it was already past 9 pm. Usually Bangalore auto drivers start charging double just about after dusk. Thankfully, a 201 G bus arrives to break my thought chain and I get into it.

The usual conductor asking me to go towards the rear end and then scribbling the change he is supposed to give me on the back on the ticket ensues. Most of the standing population of the bus get down just a stop from where I got in and I am pleasantly surprised at my luck. Last time I used the public transport unavoidably was more than a year ago. I had stood all the way from office to home on that journey. I get a seat and am contemplating talking to my wife, who is in a Shreya Ghoshal concert at the BGU with my folks in tow. Several attempts to dial her number are in vain due to the obvious network congestion. Meanwhile, the bus driver changes gears mentally and almost dashes into another BMTC bus taking a turn at the Madiwala market road. It comes across as strange that this guy should sulk at not being able to overtake the other bus .. but he conveniently forgets he is driving a bus packed with around 40 people. He floors the throttle pedal and on that lame-potholed-less-than-seven-feet-wide road as he drives recklessly behind the bus he tried to overtake. I get a sense of deja vu and ...... THUD .. CRASH .. BOOM.  A girl has gone crashing towards the front door of the bus while all others have either fallen down or are displaced like electrons of a metal being heating. While no one suffered any major injuries .. most of us did hurt ourselves in one way of the other. I jammed my left knee into the rear end of the seat in front of me while controlling myself from hitting my temple against the seat.

Most of the people who are already getting late alight and start moving towards the nearest bus stop. I walk to the front of the bus and strike a conversation with the driver.

Me:  Why did you have to drive like that?
Him: Don't say anything to me .. ask him why did he apply brakes first? Pointing towards the bus in the front.
Me: *Beep* *Cuss word* Is this your father's vehicle, that you drive around recklessly. *Cuss word* *Cuss word* who the h*** gave you a licence to drive on the roads you maniac? Do you have anyone at home or  .... *Cuss word*

The conductor now tries to pacify me and asks me to get down .. I in turn patiently ask him to give me the change he is due, to me. He stares at me thinking what kind of an idiot am I to ask him for change in such a situation.

Conductor: Do you have any brains, how can you ask me for change in a situation like this?
Me: You think am foolish enough to pay for shoddy, abysmal, erratic and third grade service like this? Out with my change .. you ... *Cuss word*
I don't feel the slightest remorse of having collected my petty change from that guy as I get down.    

The front of our bus and the rear end of the other lie in tatters on that tiny lame-potholed-less-than-seven-feet-wide road. I see it one more time as I walk away towards the next bus stop with rain drops sprinkling from the heavens above ....

Politics, My beliefs and the voice of young India.

For the last 2 days now politics and related topics have been trending heavily on Twitter.  
Through one of such trends I got to interact with Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Rajya Sabha MP from Bangalore. He hosted a discussion about the upcoming elections in Karnataka and posed questions we would and should ask the leaders who come calling for our votes. I saw a vibrant side of the society where young and old people alike, poured their hearts out on what they want to see Bangalore as. One typical observation I had was that while most of them brought questions to the table and not many were ready to take the pains to find a solution. I wonder where does that leave us. Is it okay for us to only crib and cringe about existing problems and blame everyone and anyone who is in power. 

Election times are here

It is true that the BJP Govt did not deliver in Karnataka, but should I blame Ravi Subramanian for the BBMP guys not collecting garbage from the houses in my area on a regular basis. Does that solve the problem? The answer is No. The only thing that solves my house's garbage problem is that I pick it up and dump it in the huge can in the vicinity. But as humans we are not programmed for that. Most of us believe in the dictum, what is not my job will not be done by me. Even animals live for their own selves, if we do the same what is the difference between humans and animals. All of us want a Shining India but no one wants to get down and dirty. Everyone wants results but no one wants ownership / responsibility of issues. 

This morning too the politics heavy atmosphere hung heavy on twitter air. #PappuinKar was still trending and on top was #WhatIndiaWants. I saw a tweet from a kid in Bangalore which said, "#WhatIndiawants is for the illegal muslim immigrantion to stop". I asked him why pick on some one, when the larger issue is about illegal immigrants living on our country. Whosoever it is. The debate began and he gave me a lecture in Indian History as to how Mughals started abusing Indians since 700 AD. Hindus apparently have been suffering ever since. When I pointed out that Mughals set foot in India only in the 16th century, he bossed me to not go deep into the details. :'( 

He asked me to think what will happen if Muslims become a majority population in India and so we Hindus should protect ourselves against such people. Every Hindu, regardless of what he did, if he put Hindu interests ahead of anything else is a Protector according to him. The debate went down to such details that he said No sane Indian would ever support Pakistani cricket team. When I told him that our own greats waxed enough eloquence about that team last Christmas he chose to not look at that point and said I am making up stuff. He cited examples of Asaduddin Owaisi (when it was his brother Akbar) threatening to radicalize India. When I argued, Akbar Owaisi is now behind bars, so by the same logic should Varun Gandhi and Praveen Togadia also be behind bars? He called me a pseudo secular. When I reprimanded him to not be judgmental about my beliefs he did not heed. Me questioning anything against Hindutva was not okay with him. 

Make your vote count. Please baba.

Anyone who questioned Hindutva or rather the idea which is being sold to kids like him was not acceptable to him. I calmly asked him to please see this movie called The Final Solution, which is a documentary on the 2002 Godhra riots to see what his so called Protectors have said, he again called me pseudo secularist and pointed out how Assam burnt and no one bothered. 

That dialog with him made me wonder what are kids seeing and learning these days? This kid was 20 years old but spoke like a brainwashed child. When I said I know of friends who supported Pakistani cricket team from my school days, he called such people insane. :-) 
In calling me pseudo-secular just because I objected to his tweet on 'muslim' illegal immigrants, he showed where his thinking lies. Just 20 years of age and so much malice is not right. 

Neither am I a secularist nor am I communally oriented. All I want to see is people performing their duties by voting for the right candidates and leaders repaying the people who voted for him/her by working for them. Am I asking for too much?   
  

Why are we so impatient?

On my way back from work today, I noticed 3 separate incidents of minors (read people not eligible to apply for a learner’s license) riding scooters.  On another day I would have simply dismissed it off as another stray incident but today it touched a raw nerve and hence I am writing this post.

For some days now, a leading Cola making company has formulated a new campaign targeting the youth. Nothing new in that you might say .. Cola companies always target the youth. But if you see this campaign they are encouraging the youth to be restless. A few months ago another leading internet service provider launched its top of the line 16 MBPS service similarly targeting the youth and encouraging them to be impatient.

Why do you want the youth to be impatient? What are the after effects of them becoming impatient? Is it not enough that we already fall prey to so many impatient people day in and day out? Is it not enough that we are bordering on being an undisciplined, ignorant and arrogant country? Is it not enough that we do not use our common sense at most times and go on to use a compound wall as a urinal or the open road as a wash basin to clear our throats? Instead of teaching the kids the importance of patience we want to induce them to be impatient? Do the corporate business houses have no social responsibility? OR is it just limited to donating money in charity and/or doing something similar for a day and forgetting about it till next year? Today they want to drink a Cola .. Abhi … tomorrow they might want to sample cocaine… abhi ke abhi … who is responsible for this?

Dad: Waiter, Get us a beer and an ice cream. 
Son: Dad, why ice cream? You too have a beer. 

A few good people, like a cousin of mine is putting in hard yards to teach the kids importance of good social behavior like do not litter, do not urinate on compound walls, do not spit on roads. And here we have a media blitz by the cola asking them to do it abhi. I think the worst part is it is endorsed by well-known celebrities from the film and cricket world and the kids of an impressionable age will take to emulating them.

Coming to the 3 minors I saw on the road today, all of them were below the age of 12 years. One of them was accompanied by her mom riding pillion try to teach her daughter to ride. Case 2 was even more awesome where an under aged kid was riding a Dio with another 4-5 year old as a pillion rider. And the best of the 3 was a 12-13 year old kid riding with 2 pillion riders. I think I need not mention none of the 3 cases wore any protective gear at all and were happily chatting to their pillion riders while putting themselves and all others at risk too. Whom do you blame for this now? Do you blame the kids themselves or their parents or the society in general which is always unforgiving to people who take their own sweet time to learn things.

Impatience breeds ignorance and arrogance. I leave it up to you to decide if it is right to be impatient or wise enough to wait for your turn. Tomorrow, when a kid cuts through a queue of people waiting to pay their bills .. don’t blame the kid, blame yourself for not taking note of it when the kid was busy growing up.

  

         

Behave yourself Bangaloreans!

I have been living in Bangalore for around 4 years now and I think it is Bangaloreans (people who live here by choice or otherwise) should make a conscious effort to behave themselves a little more. A city which wants to call itself cosmopolitan but doesn’t have the behavior required of a shanty town, shouldn't aspire big. Behave before you get smacked.   

Public Transport:

Public transport of a city is a measure of its politeness. Buses are meant to ply on time, stop exactly at the places designated as bus stops. Most importantly stop at red signals and adhere to traffic signal rules. Do not block the free left turn though you want to go straight ahead. It is a known fact that if a Moffusil Transport Bus stops at a red signal, most others vehicles too tend to follow the same. Once the metro trains start plying all across the city, the buses will become mere feeder services to the metro and then for them to compete with the Metro will be tough. So when you have the time, build up your reputation. Make it a service, people would want to use.

Most autorickshaw drivers are con men. They con the innocent people in day light. Most of the times they do not pick up fares because they are not going in the same direction as the passenger. I have lived in Pune and Mumbai and if any auto guy does this there, they face severe consequences.

Few Bangalore auto guys tamper with their meters and make them go faster; Take longer routes to make more money;  pick up fights over the issue of change money. Though there are help lines to try and resolve this, I think hardly anyone uses them. Some one needs to pick up responsibility to change this. Let us not forget auto guys need the money and not the passengers.

Dumping of daily waste:

All of us complain the moment the locality is not cleaned for more than 2 days or the daily waste is not cleared.  But have you ever walked over to the nearest garbage bin, yes the same place where the stray dogs have a party, to throw the waste from your house on such days? Nope. We rather let it be on our compound walls, or dump it in the vacant site next door. Bangaloreans behave yourselves. That vacant site you dump your daily waste in, is not your father’s property.

  

Road Behavior:

Bangaloreans are always in a rush to get somewhere. Lanes are merely stripes painted on the roads and traffic signals are just waste of time. A true Bangalorean according to me has been taught that Red, Amber or Green all mean the same, “Go”. Now to this people who have been taught, Red is Stop and Green is Go might take an offence and abuse you. Bangaloreans you deserve this abuse.

If I see my signal says Go and yours say Stop and you drive in my way … don’t expect pleasantries from me. I will stand there, abuse you and fight you if it needs to be and will take you down. Remember that.

Also let me tell you, that if honk at me with 10 seconds left on the countdown clock when all of us have waited for a 110 seconds already, I ain’t budging buddy. If you don’t want to get smacked either ways, my advice to you is stay where you are and do not honk.

Service Sector:

One advice to the random dude, who’s job is to serve Idly Sambar to the customers at one of the thousand local Darshinis or similar hotels across the city, be polite. If you are giving out the Idly Sambar, there is no need to think of yourself as a descendent of Goddess Annapoorna. The customer pays and is asking what he wants. It is his right. You misbehave with them, they stop coming to your place and by word of mouth all the people close to them stop it. It is your loss not his. So behave yourself. 

Balasaheb Thackeray

Balasaheb Thackeray was a tiger. He was a charismatic personality and no one can deny that. He and his ideology mattered to so many people was exhibited by the sea of humanity that flocked Shivaji park to see their leader one last time. People who came were not only his followers but also people who criticized him or did not agree with him. 

Let me first and foremost say ... If you can ... try and keep the personality aside from his political ideology.  

And as was expected, his death triggered the hitherto dormant topics of who will take over his position, what will happen to the MNS and SS? Will they come together? and so on .. I am not gonna waste time on that and neither am I qualified enough to do so. Having said that, I also see people saying .. I don't care about him. He did nothing good. Who is he to oppose outsiders coming to Mumbai? Why did he have such a hard stance against the minorities? 

 

Let me begin by asking you a question ... When your parents or grandparents tell you about how Kashmir was a heavenly abode and how it was inhabited by learned Kashmiri Pandits who were driven out of their own land .. Did you not ask why? Whats wrong if Balasaheb asked the same question at a gathering of 10k people? 

Mumbai is the favorite city for terrorists. No other city in this country has probably seen more organised terror attacks on it by self styled Jihadi outfits. What is wrong if Balasaheb condemned such acts of cowardice and called on the minorities in the country to not be a part and/or aide such outfits? Remember when a bullet is fired from a terrorist's gun ... it does not check if the target is a Hindu or otherwise.   

You talk of cricket diplomacy. Please go and ask the wives/mothers of the soldiers who died during the Kargil war or other cases of insurgency from across the border. Ask them if it is fine for our country to play cricket to establish Peace with them. If they agree to it, please feel free to criticize Mr. Thackeray. 

Yes he had a hard stance against the Gujratis, South Indians and others. But please do remember Varadrajan Mudaliar was one of the many smuggler's of South Indian origin who operated out of Mumbai. And all those gujju's who took pride in being the effluent class and termed the localites as "Ghati's" is fair eh?   

So going by the same logic ... all people who oppose Tamilian influence in Bangalore or object to the release of the Cauvery waters to TN should be termed as hardliners, right?

Is it okay if I call the office administrative assistant in Chennai, who refused to acknowledge me as a person because I could not speak Tamil properly an extremist? 

You say, he did all this to create a vote bank. If standing up for your own people is termed as vote-bank politics then I wonder what would you term the Kokrajahar riots as being a part of?  

       

I agree that his party's volunteers have been rash and have brought the city to a standstill on many an occasion. No one is above the law of the land. Go ahead and book them. 

I am not trying to defend Balasaheb's ideology nor am I trashing it. All I am saying is being judgmental about some one is very easy. Lets not get lost in doing that again. 

At the end of it, I leave it open to you to accept this or reject it. 

10 questions I’d like BBMP and the other concerned civic authorities to address asap

1. Waste Management:  We need a plan and a deadline. Right now there is neither. How long will you landfill Mandur? And come January, what is your plan? The city is stinking.
2. Garbage segregation has been advised. What are your plans to ensure that it happens? Apart from imposing fines on the owners? And if you do fine, what will you do with that money? 
3. Segregation done. What do you plan to do with it? Do you have any idea of what can  and should be recycled and how? At the moment, all that happens is 'we segregate and your contracted employees aggregate'.

A view of the KR Market area. The whole city is stinking. 

4. I hope you realize that we are on the brink of an epidemic. Viral fevers and flu are making rounds of the city. Dengue and Chikungunya are also knocking doors. What is your plan to contain this?

5. Who sanctioned the Snow City project in the Fun World Complex? We are facing an acute shortage of clean drinking water in most parts of the city. But we have a snow city for entertainment? A report in the Hindu claims that the snow is made from clean drinking water every day. Is this acceptable behavior from a civic authority?

6. What is your strategy for the stray dogs in our city? I hope you realize that simply sterilizing them does not stop them from attacking and biting people.  

7. The parking system in the city is a chaotic. We do not have enough designated parking spaces in most parts of the city. Why is it that irrespective of it being a P1 or a P2, you find vehicles parked under both boards on most days. What is your take on it? Why isn't the traffic police doing its job? 

8. Why does the city have so many missing manhole covers? Are we waiting for another unsuspecting kid to fall into it before we act on it?

9. I believe the BMTC comes under the BBMP. If yes, when will your BMTC drivers learn the basic rule of driving; Red means STOP and Green is for GO.

10. When will the roads in Bangalore be user friendly? 

    

Humanity goes down the drain in Bangalore

Some days back (on Sept 26, 2012) Niveditha attige put up a status on Facebook which read;

“Traffic from all 3 sides stood still at a junction...though one of them had a green signal....to allow the AMBULANCE to pass through from the 4th side...!!! Proud of all Bangaloreans who were in JP Nagar RV junction today morning at 10.30!! It may be a rare sight in Bangalore....but is it so difficult to make this common sight????”

Made me happy as a Bangalorean, but pleasantly surprised me too. This kind of discipline is something I have not seen in Bangalore in the recent times. I see chaos, indiscipline, impatience and yes, arrogance in drivers and riders alike. The situation described above made me think for a while that maybe a few instances like these might obligate the drivers/ riders to behave better. But, I was wrong in expecting that. One sunny day does not make a summer, one good incident does not really mean we know how to behave while driving.

What happened on 23rd October’s evening jolted me back to reality and made me realize the hopelessness around while showing me the city’s arrogance at its best.

Location: Road in front of Accenture Consulting Services office near Dairy Circle, Kormangala.

Time: Around 6.40 pm

Scene: A well decorated ambulance (on account of Ayuda Puja) races into the usual traffic on the location. I was the one closest to the ambulance. The driver politely asks me to move ahead and help and clear traffic since it is an emergency case. I make my way around cars and tempo’s alike requesting them to move since an Ambulance is stuck behind us. I come up near a Rasam orange Swift and request the driver to move as an Ambulance wants to make its way. The paan chewing dude, arrogantly looks at me, sizes me up with his eyes and then blurts out, “Yaake? Nimoru yaarana idaara adaralli?”  (Why? Is some one from your family being ferried in that ambulance?)

Blood rushed to my head and I realized it. I controlled my longing to pull the guy out of his vehicle and bash him up bloodying his white shirt, but I had to make way for an ambulance.

Anger in me made me speak, “Yaake na? Yake nim maneyoru yaarana sai tidrunu heege matadtira?”   

(Why? If some one in your family was dying in an ambulance, would talk in a similar way)

In the fit of rage I flew into when dealing with the guy, I forgot to make a note of his vehicle number. 

Thankfully the signal turned green and everyone finally made way for the Ambulance to move. 

I rode back home pondering, is this acceptable social behavior? Have the people turned so heartless that they don’t understand the importance of a situation? What has this city come to? Otherwise, we do not follow any traffic rules in this city, but you want to do that when an ambulance is screeching around to reach its destination to save a life?

This was definitely one of those occasions when I was ashamed to call myself a Bangalorean.