Douche of a queue

In a series of stupidly executed moves my cab comes to another another temporary state of stillness in a massive overwhelming jam. Temporary because the resilient driver pushes it inch by inch in the few inches of space. I seriously believe cab and auto drivers think they're like that magic bus driver in 'Prisoner of Azkaban' that takes Hairy Pooper to that place with the cauldron that drips like the last few drops of pee. Magically the inches of gap between my cab and the one in front of it keeps reappearing in spite of my driver's relentless attempts to cover it till the cab kisses the butt of the cab in front of it. The driver of the cab in front of me must also be one of those magic bus drivers.

The traffic in Bangalore is more like sheep trying to get into a barricaded field through a little gate. I browse through so many documentaries on how well humans have evolved, but looks like there's a special case in Bangalore where the DNA has stubbornly refused to carry over the long learnt aspect of a Queue.

The whole concept has somehow been lost in the pages of history. If things go on like this, I feel sometime in the future our children's children's stupid children will talk about how their great great ancestors were capable of purchasing tickets from a kiosk in an orderly fashion. On the positive side, we are at the cusp of witnessing the loss this amazing human behavior.

It all starts with a gentle push. When the guy behind you, close enough that he is constantly touching your behind and you can almost feel his cigarette and paan soaked breath stain the back of your neck, decides to give you a gentle push hoping that it would set a chain reaction of stellar magnitude making the queue move at super sonic speeds till he reaches the kiosk allowing him to have a lengthy bargain and a little chat about life's ups and downs with the ticket seller at the kiosk. When he gets disappointed by the fact that the queue is moving at its own pace and is not giving any heed to the desires and needs of the guy behind, he decides to give another gentle push. A quality of us, Bangaloreans, Indians, is that we don't speak. I don't turn around and ask the person kindly to be patient. I don't really know the right words or how to say it. I have observed enough to see that many don't. Another quality of human life that is getting lost in the dusty pages of history.

In that situation where Im getting a gentle push from the person behind me with his overgrown tummy, I decide to let the person in front of me handle the problem and start pushing him. The guy behind me did start a chain reaction at this point but this reaction is so slow, like an old wrought iron gate rusting over the years, that it brings nobody any joy or relief. But we keep pushing each other, hoping someday, somehow, the queue will mover faster.

As time progresses people are getting smarter and they've begun to understand that queues are very stubborn. They move in only one direction and they can't control the pace of its movement by being in the queue. So they start approaching the kiosk from other possible avenues. This behavior has been in vogue in the recent past. Most shops encourage this new radical approach that humans have taken. They have a wide opening where anybody can order anything at any point of time. Like a medical store.

Recommended movie: Idiocracy

Time management

[Found this post gathering dust in the drafts for the past 2 years. This doesn't apply much to me anymore, but published it anyway. Fuck, who cares...]

Managing time is such a tedious task. Nothing is as difficult as trying to squeeze in 15 activities in a limited span of time. Once you start working time becomes a critical resource. I remember those summer vacations where my parents would advise me to do something with that ample amount of time. I also remember how royally I wasted them. Well... I spent way too long watching DD1 and re-reading Tinkle and Champak way too many times. (Hahaha... I can't believe there was a children's book called 'Tinkle')

I am always running short on time now. There are a million things to do but no time. If I spent all the time I had doing the things I wanted to I will be left with no time to... waste. That's such a problem. If I could convince my mind that whiling away hours at a stretch in front of the laptop going through a relentless list of YouTube videos is actually something ultra-productive, I'd be the happiest guy on Earth. But even when my mind screams that I should do something productive in the time I have, I click the next link in the 'Related Videos' section. People called TV the idiot box. YouTube is its super-powered mutant offspring. It captures you and steals hours. I am a slave to it. That and several other portals on the internet with lucrative links in the 'You might like this too...' sections. If only it read 'Here are 15 other ways to fuck around with your time' I might think twice. Maybe not. But a lot of my time goes in watching or reading stuff that just does not add enough spice to my life.

There are things to do. Songs to learn. Sketches to finish. Compositions to complete. Frameworks to learn. Applications to code. Friends to talk to. Topics to learn. Science to understand...

Damn. That's a big list. But in the grand scheme of things what's the point if you don't add things to your brain? There are a hundred things that I wish I had done by now. If I don't do the things I want to do now I will have a list of thousand in a few years. I don't want to be one of those old guys basking in the tales of half-achievements. I need to achieve something substantial and make it all the way to the finish line on it. Starting a race is easy but finishing it is what matters... A video comes to mind here. (Too dramatic for this post. But what the hell... Its a good video)

[Random YouTube link that I can't find anymore... Sorry]

The key to everything is time management. If you can manage the time to do the things you want you will achieve what you want. Material temptations in life always drive you away from these.

In the city

In the city we are where we systematically and continuously give into the nonsense of a scheduled daily life. Slowly getting adapted to the maddening noise of life that strives to trample upon others creating nothing but a jelly of crushed attempts to stand on top. Striving daily to find the peace that was once promised by none other than yourself as it morphs into lies that someone poisoned you with. As you move into denial of the struggle to constantly just live, you give into the needs of the city.

In the city where souls are blindfolded into a circular track with the promise of wealth and happiness at the end we run like animals. Always ready to get past your friend or family who is equally stupid as you to be running on the track. Running in circles you come across old dogs who have well learnt the trick to run in circles as age and responsibilities cloud their memory banks of the initial promise that got them on the track. They walk.

In the city that slowly eats through you, making you a part of itself, digesting the idea of free will and free space, stuffing you into the overflowing bowl of human food. Devouring you like maggots that feed on the bodies of the dead making the skin grow pale and then disappear with your flesh and organs leaving behind the carcass that even the parasites would deny the city eats through every thought in you.

In the city that feeds you with the screams and yells and gives you the armor of overlooking the cry for need. Dropping you like crumbs of bread in a soup of confusion until you soften and sink to the bottom as a slimy piece of nothing. Fills you with an urgency to change your personality and wear the uniform of true arrogance with a hat of negligence paraded with a golden pom-pom of a sense of false superiority.

Remembering childhood

My childhood days contain such sweet and amazing memories. I enjoyed being alone and I generally kept to myself. I played in my backyard while everyone slept.

For the past couple of days I have been spiraling into these memories... the ones in my backyard. It was a concrete backyard with a lot of shade. Half constructed walls were my bowlers and fielders when I played cricket. I remember it being so big. I used to play football, cricket, tennis (or so I thought then), badminton, tennicoit and other games that I created by myself. I used to run around like a mad fellow there. I loved that backyard. The dimensions of my backyard was something like 8' x 15' with a wall in the middle separating it into two 7'x8' areas. But back then it seemed big enough for a full fledged game of cricket.

The fondest memories I had are with old books that were to be sold for recycling by weight (kept in the backyard to save space inside), sticks from the broom, a bottle of fevicol and my father's surplus school supplies like pins and tags that somehow found their way to the backyard as well. I used to make miniature cricket bats... It used to vary from 3-10 cm in length. Something that I envisioned as a bat for a metal ball bearing (which I used to find near cycle shops and on footpaths). I'd collected ball bearings of various sizes. (Im not sure if ball-bearing is the right word. Calling it a metal ball somehow sounds wrong) I remember one cricket set of a broomstick+paper+cardboard bat, a ball (bearing), a tiny wicket (about 2 cm in height) fit snug in a stapler pin box. A slightly bigger version fit in a HomeLites matchbox. I used to have so much fun making these. I even played with the miniature cricket sets. I had once created a field with a circular piece of cardboard about 15 cm in diameter with adjustable fielders who actually managed to catch the ball, a ramp on which you can roll the ball which served as the bowler and a tiny piece of cardboard stuck upright that served as the wicket. I made these things and I played with them and I had the best time of my life. Nobody ever knew about these things. Except my parents of course who were pleased to see the cricket sets.

I want to search for these cricket sets on my next visit to Mysore. Somewhere in the process of growing up and growing out of my shorts I seem to have lost the cricket sets. I have searched for this several times before. Ill search again. I know I won't find it, but I'll search anyway. Along with these I remember a cycle made of broom sticks and cardboard (the wheels were made of cardboard), some chalk carvings, some carvings on the broom sticks. (The thick bamboo sticks... they were some 3-6 mm thick)

I stayed put at that place for 22 years and developed such fond memories. Im going there this weekend to get the furniture there to my new apartment in Bangalore. I somehow feel uncomfortable doing that. I feel I shouldn't move anything from that place. Its like taking away an organ from this creature that has raised you since you were a kid. But memories should remain memories right? If you try to hold onto it and build upon it, you are just painting over an existing image.

I love my childhood days in Mysore. My city, my home. I've been in several cities. Bangalore is good. But nothing compares to Mysore. It is just so special that nothing can be compared to it.

Bright future for bangalore

"God can only improve the traffic in Bangalore"...
"Look at the fly over... There is a traffic jam on it. The traffic in this city will never improve"...
" This is fucked up man!"...
"I really love the Malls and Resturants and all the shopping places in Bangalore. I just hope I find a Boyfriend who has a car with a nice a/c to drive me around. I really HATE this traffic"...

I've listened to lines like these since... forever! I've heard these so many times from so many people that I almost start believing in it. The whining by these people paints a picture of some innocent bunch of people, all jolly and giggly, driving an LML Vespa on a road with "Yeh dosti..." sounding in the background and all of a sudden some unknown evil force of nature puts traffic around them and goes MUHAHAHAHAAA! Come on! We're the fucking traffic! If you use the road and say 'I hate the traffic', its like your penis getting up and saying 'I doesn't like you anymore Rodney'. (Remember the Penis Song by Rodney Harrington?) We're a part of the traffic and we're a part of the problem.

Is this how it will be in the days to come? If an acquaintance of mine wants to move to Bangalore should I warn them that they're coming to a place that's going to be overrun with Auto-Rickshaws (like the scene with the nomadic ants in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull) in the next few months and therefore should run in the opposite direction?

I don't think so. I see a nicer future for Bangalore...

Bangalore is young


Unlike cities that are well established with current infrastructure (I have NY in mind) Bangalore is still very uneven. The depth by which technology and updated infrastructure has penetrated areas in Bangalore is very uneven. Evening this out is when young Bangalore starts moving towards adulthood. NY for example has awesome young and interesting people in the city, but the city by itself is like a 50 year old. Changes there take time, paper work, union workers... Its like asking a 50 year old to run. They wont run... Bangalore is still malleable. Its upto us to give it its shape as an adult.

We'll find better fuel


The current city we see runs on fuel, with prices shooting up everyday, close to exhaution (either because its naturally exhausted or because the prices are so high that we just can't afford it). In the coming months the govt. is going to remove the subsidies on diesel and people will stop using diesel. Petrol is a much better option. Petrol may not dry out in the next few years but its price is going to get so high that we will consider battery powered vehicles. And viola... no more smoke on the streets! No more jerks driving auto-rickshaws spewing thick black smoke into your face at a traffic signal.

Awesome mass transport

As I indicated in my previous post, the Bangalore metro is going to kick ass! I can't wait to get drunk on a Saturday and ride the metro back home. (That's when I really appreciate the usefullness of Metro)

People will cycle more

Listen to the radio about fitness experts. They ask you to cycle to work. But we're Indians. We're lazy. We won't cycle will we? Wrong~! I am seeing an increasing number of people who train to be fit. People jog in the morning. People work out. Once we have battery operated cars and less smoke, we will definitely have more cyclists in the city.

There are a lot of pessimists around. But bitching about your own home is really pathetic if you don't do anything about it. Don't bitch about the traffic if you don't follow the rules yourself. Don't overtake vehicles from the left. If you want to solve the traffic problem, start by driving better. If you want to solve a problem, be a part of the solution, or shut the fuck up!

Bangalore Metro 10 years later (maybe)

This is an addition to my prevous post. This is a nicer representation of what the metro will look like after the completion of Phase 2 and the completion of Moro/LRT. (Open in new window/tab for a nice large view)

I had the Boston MTA (the 'T') map in mind when I did this. This brings together the existing commuter rail, the metro and the Mono/LRT lines together to show the connectivity between the stations. When you're coming to bangalore from Mysore, you can get off at Kengeri / Nayandahalli and board the metro through an underground walkable route for passengers. Same will be at the Whitefield/Cantonment station when you're reaching bangalore from Chennai.

I was driving by Marenhalli road in Jaynagar and I saw the 'namma metro' safety partitions on three places on this road. This would be the Yellow line that goes from RV Rd. to Electronic city through Silk Board. Looks like Phase 2 is going to start before the completion of Phase 1. The metro is going to run on the left of Marenhalli road (a.k.a. Inner Ring Road, a.k.a. RagiGudda Rd, a.k.a. BTM Rd) if you are driving towards Silk Board. That's good news.

oncrete structure (whatever it's called) on the pillars and the rails on it. The side parts are remaining.
- Also, a small progress report on the metro construction I have seen:
- The curve on the green line at the northern end of RV Road (Minerva) is almost complete. They've laid the cThe puttenhalli part seems to be coming along quite fine. A drive down Kanakpura road shows an 'almost complete' metro from Sarakki signal till Puttenhalli stop.
- RV Road has gone back to being awesomer after they've removed the blockades they had for the construction and re-metalled the roads. Only the parts of the road under the 4 stations are remaining. The divider between the roads is being done now as well. The few parts, where the divider is constructed, painted and some bushes laid, look very pretty.
- The Mysore road part is going on but very slow. The ORR, Mys Rd double fly over construction is in full swing to compensate for the slow metro construction.
- I read that the northern part of the green line - From Kuvempu Rd to Peenya is going to be functional in a few months. (Will update the post with a link to the article later... Maybe)

Bangalore - Namma Metro & Mono / LRT

Bangalore, the place I've made home (for the moment) is one of those places that keeps buzzing with people, friendly with the young crowd, an oasis of IT jobs (resulting in tremendous job opportunities for cigarette retailers), filled with cool hotels and food joints, has an international touch to it and most of all has the kind of traffic that would make you want to jump off the first 10 storey building that could be spotted. Wonderful place really.

I started pondering about the last feature of bangalore - the traffic. Its something that's bothered me deeply since the early 2000s. The time of S M Krishna and the big IT influx. Bangalore, though was the place I used to visit for my summer vacations, became a place I would avoid at all costs during my Engineering days. I want Bangalore to be better than what it is now. Especially the traffic. Bangalore has all these cool places strewn about in Jaynagar, JP Nagar, UB city, Residency road, Malleshwaram... but in the short window of a day, which closes at 11PM (a seriously whack in a balls for a late night party), it sometimes gets close to impossible to get to these places. How can this situation get better?

I gathered information about the upcoming phases of 'Namma Metro' and and the Monorail / Light Rail Transport. Looks like there's going to be a good network of quick public transport when that's done. Here's one map I created to indicate the transport lines that will be generated in the next 10, or so, years.

I think you can click on the map to view a larger image. Here are some details about the map:

Purple Line - East/West line from Mysore road - MG Road - Whitefield

Green Line - From Anjanapura (Kanakpura Rd + NICE Rd Jn.) - Banashankari Temple - Majestic - Yeshwantpur - Peenya - BMIC

Red Line - This is a Phase II thing. Gottigere - Jayadeva Hospital - Diary Circle - MG Road - Manyata

Yellow (Brown) Line - Another Phase II thing. RV Road - Silk Board - Electronic City

Black Lines - These are the Monorail / LRT system that will be coming up. This seems to be waaay cooler than the Metro that's being constructed now. Monorail in Bangalore will be comparable to the ones in Paris, Memphis and Moscow. That's awesome! Mono/LRT will be connecting places to the Metro.

Black Cricles - These are the 4 main Metro to Metro interchanges. I think they will be constructed such that you can move from one station to another without having to get down the stairs and back up again. You'll always be in the Metro station area

Grey Circles - These will be the Mono to Metro or Mono to Mono interchanges. No clue how these will be. It will also be very interesting to see how the Monorail stations will be designed.

Thinking about all these gives me goosebumps. It reminds me of my days in US changing from Jersey Shore light rail to PATH and then to NY Subway... Travelling in those is a different experience as compared to driving a motorcycle in Bangalore for a fair 1/5ths of a day while breathing varied doses of dust and smoke and diesel smoke and cement dust and what not. The first thing is you're not driving and your hands and eyes and ears are free. You can utilize that portion of the day to do something useful like arranging the icons on your smartphone or reading a novel or just talk to another person in the train. I for one will just trip on the areal view of things around me. The fact that most part of the Metro and the Monorail system will be pretty high off the ground makes me wanna ride it right now.

The biggest advantage of this would be a reduction in traffic. A better connectivity would definitely encourage people to use this system than drive around themselves. This internally brings about another change - People will walk more and get a bit healthier. Walking a kilo meter or so a day and then travelling in an AC bogie beats no walking and driving in a could of dust and smoke and diesel smoke and cement dust and what not...

At the end of all these comes our responsibility in keeping things clean and in a good condition that we feel like using it. If we start screwing around with it and start complaining about the things we screwed up ourselves we'll have less fun. Just like the way we've fucked around with the traffic. We don't follow the rules, we overtake from the wrong side, we don't show signals properly and we do all kinda bad driving and we complain about bad traffic.

All in all... Im looking forward to make Bangalore better, a bit more peaceful, a bit greener and a bit more homely.